Don't Look a Gift Turkey in the Snood

  This is an old story now but I'm finally getting around to tell it. Opening morning broke cool but not too crisp and the birds were very vocal. This is southern Michigan farm country and the amount of birds are amazing. I heard a few on the east part of the farm I was on, enough to keep my interest peeked. My cousin Jojo on the other hand was surrounded by a large flock of turkeys. As if they knew where he was and that it was opening day all the toms stayed too far away, even for him, to take a shot with the booming 10 gauge he uses. The toms I saw were thru binoculars in the farming field hundreds of yards away from my decoy set up. They would gobble to my calling but never took a step closer from the path they naturally take. A little after 10 it was time for breakfast.

  We got back about 1 pm after doing some road scouting. The sun was high and no birds were in the fields. Usually we see some toms trying to determine the pecking order but not today. So back to the blinds we went. On the way out to eat I took down my dominate ton hen pecking decoy so as not to educate any live toms in the area. So I set the decoys back up and got in the blind. Almost instantly and before I even tried calling I heard a gobble of to my east. I'm sure it was on of the toms I had heard gobbling earlier in the morning. I called and he gobbled for quite some time. He got close but nowhere near seeing range let alone shooting range. At some point during the excersice I asertained that what I thought were double gobbles were actually a different birds gobbles.

  Now to my west there were two different toms gobbling to my calls. They were very interested and I could tell one or both would be coming in to the decoys. I set up my camera to capture the event but things didn't go as I had hoped. This turkey came in but didn't go the right way. He's puffed up but became silent when he got close.

Here's the set up I wanted him to come into. He was headed that way but didn't make the commitment. He backed out and started coming straight toward me. I called and the other tom replied.

I had a hard time with the camera and was frustrated so I shot the tom the first chance I got. This was a really nice bird with a 91/2" beard and 1" spurs. A big 2-3 year old and probably still hanging out with his brother.

Get Outdoors Downriver.