My cousin and I both got our birds this morning.They both weighed 20lbs with 10" beards.John's bird had 7/8 inch spurs,and mine were 1 1/4".
I had some birds located by a field.We got in before daylight and waited for them to gobble.We moved in on them and set up after we got them pinpointed.We sat there until we heard them fly down.I purred and clucked softly a few times,threw in a few yelps for good measure,and 5 minutes later I was tagging my bird.
We made a B-line for Johns taxidermy shop and threw my bird in the freezer.(I didn't get it mounted,I just had to leave it somewhere while we kept hunting for John's bird.)
John's bird wasn't so easy.We drove to another spot and located another bird,only to have it shut up after we moved in on it.Then we started walking.We walked all the way through and came out on another road.We were standing by an old house at the end of a dead end road when I decided to get out my box call and do a little cutting to see if anything would answer.
I was immediatly answered by 3 different birds from 3 different directions.After a brief huddle we determined that the hottest bird was on a ridge about 300 yards away.
We climbed the hill and set up,and once again the bird shut up.After about a 20 minute wait I decided to take action.
I got out the gobble tube.I let out a series of cuts and cackles,and gobbled,and cut ,and gobbled.Then I started walking back down the hill towards the house while I scratched in the leaves and purred and clucked.
As soon as I hit the bottom of the hill that turkey started gobblin' his head off.I went over to the house,set down in an old chair,and started cutting on my box call as loud as I could.That old bird was double gobblin' and really putting on a show for John up on that ridge.I kept that up for about 15 minutes,until that ole' tom quit gobblin' due to a load of number 5's upside his head.John later told me that bird came over the hill in full strut gobblin' his head off as soon as it thought another gobbler was taking his hen.
[ 28 April 2001: Message edited by: engman99 ]
