GilaMonster
New member
The turkey hunting got tough towards the later part of our NM season. One of my best friends was here from California to hunt with me for a couple of days and we were having no luck at all. The gobblers just wouldn't come in. Hard to explain their actions but really strange. Finally on the morning my friend was to leave, we found one that would do what he was supposed to. I switched from all of my mouth diaphram calls and tried a slate. (I'd never used it before on a hunt, I just carried it around with me,.hahahahaaa). I started with just a couple of puts followed by a mellow purr and then just a few quiet yelps. The old gobbler exploded in an immediate answer a few hundred yards down in the canyon. I waited just a minute or so and basically repeated the same thing. Man, he answered again immediately and had already closed the distance by about a half, I would guess. I told my buddy to sit his ass down because this gobbler was comming in fast.. really fast. I waited maybe thirty seconds and just gave a couple of putts followed by a couple of soft purrs. Man, that gobbler exploded right on top of us. I'm nearly deaf and could hear him go into strutt. Then almost immediately, we could see his head through the tree in front of us. It was the reddest I've ever seen. Looked like it could glow in the dark. The old gobbler came into view in full strutt at 23 paces and my buddy waited only until the old gobbler raised his head only a little before he blasted it and it was all over. It took a long longer to type this than it took for him to come in. He came in like a rocket! Really cool!
