turkeyhunter64
Well-Known Member
Took off Monday to hunt and the weather was terrible. I sleeped in and got up, cooked breakfast for the family, cut the grass and by 12 the skys cleared and I decided I would go sit in a blind on our lease. I hit the fields about 12:30 and hunted for 3 hours did not see anything. I decided I would go for a ride, check out a salt lick up on a flat and look for some mushrooms. Did not find any mushrooms but walked out on the point where my salt lick was and hit a box call and thought I heard a gobble. I hit it again and had a bird gobble immediately. I hit it again and he roared back. I got to looking and he was about 70 yrds below me on a flat. I could see him moving my way. I squated down and peeked over the ridge and hit the box call softer and he roared off again. This went on for about 45 mins and he hung up about 50 yards out on a flat. I changed to a mouth call to free my hands and yelped and cut a few times and got a second bird to gobble off to my left and on the same flat. The old Tom broke into a full strut and started to move off toward the second bird. I cut hard and both of the roared off. They moved back to the flat below me and both started struting. The old tom and a really big Jake. They worked back and forth and it started lighting, thundering and raining. They really got fired up. I turned my head and yelped away from them and that was all it took. The jake started coming my way and the tom raced to beat him to the top of the hill. The only thing he found was the business end of my Bennelli. This is where the story got scary for me. I loaded up on my ATV and started out. On the way I road up on a creek bank and the trail let go under my ATV. The front end pitched down and the backend came up. It threw me off the bike and into the creek with about a 6 foot fall. I hit my shoulder first then my head smacked a rock and then I landed on my Bennelli bounching it off the rocks. I then scrambled to get out of the way of my ATV as my first thought was I would be trapped in a creek that would flood quickly in the rain and I would drown. Luckly the bike hung up and did not follow me down. I got out of the creek and I was ok. Checked my gun it was ok but the scope was off about 12 inches. I set it back last night and will have to check it Thursday. The bird weighted in at 23.5 lbs, 10 in curled beard and 1 in spurs. Now maybe you can see why I will remember this hunt for a long time.
whenever they get fired up and put on a good show like that it always makes for a great hunt.
