The turkey population in this immediate area of New York is not great. Long winters with plenty of snow and cold weather take their toll but there are a few. Last year there seemed to be more than usual so I decided at the last minute to try my luck. Of course it turned out to be not so good (didn’t even hear a gobble). It was probably because of me not knowing what I was doing. I gave it up to a lost cause.

This year I got inspired all over again. A good friend of mine, Joe, gave me a real nice deluxe turkey vest and got me going again. Having picked his knowledge of hunting along with another friend, Dick, and their advice of what I needed, I had all my turkey gear ready by the first of February. The month of April I was out scouting areas for possible hunts; woods type hunts in this area and field type hunting in the Champlain valley. (a 75 minute drive).

The weather didn’t sound good for opening day. Rain and thunderstorms were predicted for the first two days. I was up at 4 am on opening day and it was raining but not a washout so I decided to give it a try anyway. I had a half hour drive to my first location I was going to hunt and the weather could be better there.

When I arrived it was a steady drizzle but I parked and went about the skid roads with the owl hooter but couldn’t roost any birds and the was rain coming down harder now so I decided to proceed to the next area I had picked out.

When I arrived the rain was still coming down pretty good so I waited in the vehicle for a bit. A little after day light the rain stopped so I headed up the hill to the power line. I had been here a couple days ago and got a gobbler to talk to me.

Reaching the power line I yelped on the box call and got a gobble 3 or 4 hundred yards away. I walked to the high point ahead of me. It was downhill on three sides of me now. I tried the box call again he gobbled and was just below me in the woods. If it was the same bird he was coming fast. The power line was on a hillside following the contours and I was on the downhill side of the right of way. I needed to be on the uphill side. I had a hen decoy but no time to set it up. I was not ready for such fast action.

While fumbling trying to get the face mask and gloves on, I heard a hen call to my left. I suspected another hunter and he was going to get my bird! The hen call continued and the tom kept gobbling. When I finally got my mask and gloves on I looked up and two toms were right in front of me at 30 yards skirting between the sparse 4 foot pine trees. When they got behind one I got the gun up and the first one out got the load of copper plated 6’s from a 3" magnum. The bird went down and the other flew into a nearby white pine.

While making out the tag the hen was still calling and I could see her running around in the woods. The other tom flew down and started gobbling again. By the time I made the 10 minute walk back to the truck it was raining pretty good again. Twenty minutes time and I bagged my first tom with a 9 1/4 inch beard and 7/8 inch spurs.