Story of the Hunt

I started out on the hill at the farm I was hunting. The week before I had hunted in WI and the birds wouldn't come to the call. The first gobble I heard was a couple of valleys over so I quickly headed for the roost tree. When I got close to the roost tree about 5:45 a.m., I saw two birds fly into the field at the top of the hill.

I quietly worked my way to about 20 yards from the field edge. When I did that, I could see a big tom with a hen about 120 yards away so I quickly got set up and started calling. The tom answered and started moving. When it got about 70 yards away, the hen made a couple of clucks. The gobbler stopped and start walking parallel with me and the hen.

I kept calling but it seemed he wasn't going to come any closer so I crawled to the edge of the field and got up on my knees. He was in full strut facing away from me (towards the hen) so I made a couple of clucks. He gobbled and then looked at me. It looked like a 50 yard shot to me (but I know with the 3 /12" # 5's and my turkey choke I had 10 pellets between neck and head at 45 yards) so I took the shot and he went down like a ton a bricks. I paced it off it end up to be a 45 yard shot.