I found a nice tom close to home and got permission to hunt the hay field he was hanging around in with two hens all season. The first weekend I set up on the west side of the field and watched him strut with his hens on the west side for an hour till he left and I could get up (he was 150 yds away). The next weekend I set up where I saw him strutting and heard him gobble on the roost and fly down and head the other direction, when I was driving home I watched him and his two hens at the neighbors birdfeeder eating breakfast.
The next day I set up in the same spot again (the east side) and heard a gobble on the west side of the field! I jumped up and hurried across the field as it was still early and listened to the bird gobble, flydown, and head the other way. Then I noticed a tom strutting back where I started! I think my bird was silent and when I got up I moved in on a jake that was hanging around nearby and my bird flew down right to where I initially set up. I had a hen decoy out so I started calling to him and he started SLOWLY coming my way around the field, it took him over an hour to get to me and when he finally did I shot and watched him fly away untouched! I paced it off and I had gotten antsy and shot at him at 60 yards, I thought he was closer.
I gave him a week alone and went back again and set up in my spot where I kept seeing him, I thought I heard a gobble but wasn’t sure as the leaves were coming on pretty thick by now. I had to call it quits early because my wife had to work and I had to watch the kids, so I packed them up and drove by around 9:30 and there he was right near my set up spot, he was still around and the next morning he was mine right? I got up EARLY and headed out, we had a hard frost that night and I kid you not right where I set my decoys I see a bunch of feathers! Big tom tail feathers, I thought someone had shot my bird at first but no one else had permission to hunt here and I hadn’t seen anyone around. Then I see more feathers in a trail off into the brush. Yep, a fox or coyote had gotten him the evening before. I found his carcass in a ditch about 40 yds away, he had a 9 1/2 inch beard and nice sharp curved 1 1/4 inch spurs. The worst part was it had only eaten the head. I think it was a fox because I’d been seeing a fox hanging around all season but hadn’t shot it because I didn’t want to spook my bird out of the area (this is only a 38 acre place).
So that was my heartbreak season, I couldn’t even bring myself to go out and find a sacrificial jake after all that even though I still had a week of season left. It was still the best turkey season ever, my four year old daughter sat with me one morning when we listened to hime gobble on the roost, my six year old son sat with me one evening when we watched a hen come up to our full strut decoy and squat down for him. And for all my mistakes I truly felt like a Turkey Hunter for the first time. I made errors but made some recoveries too and I learned more than the last two years when my season lasted one day. This is truly a wonderfully horrible affliction.
Kelly
