Craziest setup you've ever had?

Was just looking at some old self-videos getting fired up for Saturday, when I came across one that I had forgotten.

Several years ago, I entered a field, which had a high point to listen. The birds normally roosted off of the back, on a small ridge.

I gave an owl hoot, and one gobbled within 100 yards of me in front and to my left, just back in the woods line. I frantically looked around for cover, and found the perfect spot. There was an old tractor in the field, maybe 20 yards from me, with a front-end bucket that had been lowered to the ground. There was just enough room to crouch under/behind it. I was able to lay my gun across the bucket.

I worked him to the fence line, and watched him dance for his two ladies for probably an hour. But, they never crossed the fence, which would have put him in range, and the hens eventually worked off.

Fun hunt.

I've killed a pile from a 10ft wide, 4ft deep sinkhole in the middle of an open hillside. Just happens to be 100y downhill from the forest edge they like to roost on.

I killed one from a huge open gravel pit who was roosted on the edge once.

Killed one while standing waist deep in a small creek. It was the only way to get close enough to him at that point. This was early March in bama years ago too so the water was cold as Heck haha.

I'm not as hungry for it these days as I was back then though

Three of us got caught in the wide open in Nebraska…layed prone in the wide open all 3 of us buddy killed him at 35 yards after calling him from 100 or so yards away

I've got two good ones.

1. I was easing down an old strip bench prospecting, each side of the bench was head high impenetrable honey suckle that you could not see through or over. At some point I stop and call, and a bird hammers back literally on the other side of the honeysuckle from me. We are talking 15 feet at most. It scared the absolute shlt out of me, and rather than think clearly I just sat straight down rather than backing up or moving forward where there was a gap to work the bird through. Long story short, the bird stayed on the other side for ever gobbling and drumming before fading off. Having them gobble that close is not cool, and turned me into jelly.

2. One morning I walked into a spot super early, I got to my listening spot on a bench with a high wall above me. As it started to get light I begin to hear drumming. I pinpoint it and decide it's danger close, just how close I didn't know but too dang close. It's breaking day enough I don't dare move, and at some point i can make the bird out who is at eye level with me and about 15 yards away. Again, being a sometimes stupid hunter and caught in the moment I decide what the hell let's call At him before it gets so light he can see me. I eased out a mouth call somehow and made a low series of yelps. Bird blows my clothes off with his gobble. It gets lighter and lighter and lighter and I am stuck staring at him. beard, Spurs, hell his eyelashes clearly visible. Every time he turns his back to me I think it's smart to call. Amazingly he pitches down at about 20 yards behind a dirt birm and steps out right into my red dot. Boom dead. Still to this day unsure how I pulled it off, why I called, and why I didn't move when it was still dark enough.

Years ago, my nephew and I were walking an old logging road on a piece of property we hadn't hunted before. We would walk a hundred yards or so call listen and repeat. After a while we topped a rise and scared a hen out of a half-acre field we didn't know was there. She didn't putt or fly, she just ran. We sat down and called lightly for about thirty minutes. Not hearing anything we got up and started walking through the field. We hadn't made it a third of the way through when a bird gobbled within fifty yards off the lower side of the field. My nephew looked at me and I whispered get down. We both just hit the ground. It was late in the season, and everything was really green and thick where the turkey had gobbled from. We could hear him spitting and drumming as he made his way towards us but as I laid there, I started hearing a buzzing sound and feeling a vibration just to the right of my groin. In our haste to get down I had plopped down on a very large and now a very angry bumblebee. I don't know who was the happiest or luckiest when my nephew killed that gobbler, me, my nephew, or the bumblebee. Later as we were talking about how we were able to kill that bird. I told my nephew we should have checked that field because it must have been full of four leafed clovers.

Got to a farm a share with a few others one morning. Other guys were set up right above the only birds I could hear so I took a walk. 45 minutes later I got the feeling in needed to stop and call...10 seconds too late. I bumped a hen and she cackled and pitched off the hill. A gobbler struck on her cackle not 150 yards away in the middle of the hayfield. I threw out a series of yelps the watched their fans fold down and both birds headed my way.

Now I have a problem- the woods are all lower than the field, so if I sit down, I can see about 20 feet in front of me. So I decided to stand behind a tree and try to shoot standing. They continued to close the gap and one of the birds entered the woods but put a large downed cedar between us. All I could see were bits and pieces of this longbeard as he walked behind the brush pile less than 15 yards away with me standing. He eventually cleared the tree and I shot him with me standing less than 10 yards away, practically in the wide open by then.

Hunting an old farm and walking along an old fence row. This was 10 o'clock or so. Struck one of those birds that first time he gobbled you knew it was close but not super close. Walked about 15 yards and hit him with another call and he gobbled again and had closed to 60 yards. I didn't have a turkey vest at the time and hunted in a pair of camo bibs and T shirt and carried a slate call in my pocket. I jumped down next to the closest tree and sat as still as possible. I thought I had sat on a small thorn bush and was getting poked by thorns in my nether regions. That Bird hung up at 60 yards for the next hour and I was in so much pain trying not to move and getting poked. When I got up I realized it was the end of the fence and the farmer had sat an old bit of barbed wire there and I had sat down on it. I now wear a turkey vest with a seat built in!

I have also killed a deer and turkey backed up in a river bottom against the side of the same old truck bed that had been converted into a trailer and got left by the farmer in the bottom.

Great stories! Keep 'em coming!

I found a couple of pictures on my phone.

Not me, but one of my best friends killed one from inside an empty grain bin. He said it took a week for his ears to quit ringing.