Afternoon Bird

[Anders]

Was in my boat in the driveway yesterday with my wife and my neighbor yelled over and said there was a turkey gobbling across the street. I looked at the wife and said could I go, she responded with "go get em!" I ran in grabbed the gun, went on the porch, grabbed the camo, went to the trunk, grabbed the rest of the camo, and went to my neighbors, it was 5:20.

Ask him for some shells and he handed me 2 because I couldn't find mine, he hit his turkey gobble call and it brought one out of the bird again at about 175 yards near a field. I grabbed the decoy and ran down into the woods. I didn't bring my call so I was just going to use my mouth. I called, nothing.

I snuck up to the edge of the field leaving the decoy behind. Got to the edge, nothing, called nothing, called a couple more times and nothing.

The wife calls and says "you left me" I responded with I'm coming back, hung up, called one more time, and RROOOAARR from a 100 yards away on the other side of some impenetrable pines with a small road throught he middle of them.

I ran to the road, walked half way down it and called, nothing. I was standing 10 yards from a big cedar and there was a small gravel road on the other side going up the side of the pines. Then I heard it, sounded like something was scraping the ground, it was his wings touching the gravel as he strutted, then I heard him drumming, but couldn't see a thing. still standing I tried slowly looking around the cedar but still couldn't see a thing. He was no more than 25 yards away. As I got impatient I started looking more and more around the cedar, I knew he was right there. Then he gobbled maybe 20 yards away and scared the crap out of me. I thought this was it, I peeked around the cedar with my gun raised and there he was, bright face, beard poking out and when I saw him he saw me. He did the usual turkey jump out of strut and I blasted him. 5:45!

He was a trophy bird but he was not as big as birds sporting this kind of beard in the past. When I cleaned him I found that he had been shot before and had a bunch of pellets in his legs and drum sticks. He ended up at 17 lbs, 11 1/4 inch beard and 1 3/16 inch spurs. This was my first afternoon bird and I was pumped.

[Bird Dog]

great story, congrats

[Bking]

Nice Bird !!! Way to go ! gotta love when they gobble so close you can feel it in your bones !

[Joey Herring]

Nice!! Most of the birds i've seen killed have been after 10:30 plus...