If you need help send me a PM or e-mail. But this thread you can post your story of how/where/when you got yer Big ole Tom and we will help you celebrate! JW Who will be the first?
We had one rule update Please use the Photo Gallery here on Wisconsin Outdoors to load pictures for your entry. thanks
Georgia Turkeys Georgia tag - allowed 3 birds and I could have shot all three birds - shot 2 with the gun and the other with a video cam.......try not to shoot jakes 1st bird 12:49 PM JW! 63.8125 20# 3 oz - rt 1 1/16 lft 1 1/8 - 10 7/8" beard 2nd 3-27-09 15# 13 oz beard 6" spurs 1/2 and 9/16 NWTF is 15.8125 + 5 + 5.625 + 12 = 38.4375
2 yrs ago the weather was HOT!! This yr it was like here cool - ya it had a few flowers and NO skeeters thank you very much. JW
Roosted a tom Thur night and set up Fri. morning 70 yrds away. They came down and went north (I was south)lol. Hour later I had em comin back. Just saw the head of a Tom as he pushed a few hens my way. Had my bow ready and all was perfect till a danger call was let loose by a hen. Next thing ya know they were running away from me and 2 Fishers were running toward me. That ended that morining so I plowed a field and called it a day after getting ate by skeeters for an hour friday night while seeing nothing. Sat. morning I set up on a food plot I had not plowed yet. Called in and saw a few Toms but all the toms were on hens and not listening to my love talk. After calling the same tom to the same spot on the opposite side of the plots edge of the woods TWICE only to have him turn and go back to his sure thing I decided to call it for the moring. The weather was perfect for plowing and work needed to be done so I plowed that field turkey season or not! Being annoyed at the moring just a wee bit, I plowed the plot next to my blind. 5 hours later and 2 fields plowed I went in to the house to shower, rest and get ready for the evening hunt. Down to my underwear when I looked out the window and saw a tom strutting for a hen out in last years pumpkin patch! I tell the wife and daughter (who is there from college for the weekend) "Im gunna get that (explicative). My daughter say's, "you going to run it down old man"? and she laughs. No, I said, I plan to take this decoy and my calls and run into the woods behing him and call his stupid butt to me! When I realized that my calls were left in my blind along with the other decoys.. Argggg! I painted my face super fast and thru on some camo. Grabbed the gun this time and looked out the window to see where he was. GONE!!! Wait, no he is at the bottom of the field which is also the pathway to the other just plowed field that my blind is on!!! I ran thru the woods as fast as a old man could safely. As I got to my blind I grabbed the decoys and looked over the hill in the field, saw no turkeys so I crawled out and set em in the plowed field, got back in my blind grabbed my call and saw one of my decoys fell over in the soft plowed ground! I about **** my pants! This decoy was able to be seen over the hill by the toms and now it fell over! I made a judgement call and crawled over the ground on my belly (HONEST) out to the decoy and re-inserted it into the ground, I crawled back to the blind and grabbed my box call. One call on it and I had the TOMS (yes 2 of them now) gobbleing at me from a hundred yrds away. I long hard excited call on the slate and I had them running towards me (even though I could not see them I could hear them coming fast up the hill). As they approached I made one last soft love call to seal the deal. Gobbling away a head came into view from over the hill and thru the weeds sepperating me and the toms. I had a bead on the top of his head when I see another tom that was actually infront ot this one but it was 3 inches shorter. Now the Toms stopped in their tracks. Crap! I was thinking! All of a sudden the taller larger Tom (I still can not see either ones beards or body's) turns and heads off the trail and into the woods behind me. The other Tom must of seen this opp as his chance to "get some". He took 10 more steps and he "got it". Unbelievable hunt! I was so pumped I can not explain the feeling! I walked back to the house with the bird knocked on the door and told my 19 year old loving daughter to bite me! LOL. Asked how I got it? I said, " This old man ran it down just like you dais I should!" LMAO! If I scored it righ this is how it comes out. Weight 21 pounds 14 oz . Spurs .8125 and .750 beard 9.9625. this should come to 21.875/8.125/7.5/19.925=57.425 [/IMG]
Thank you all. Long winded story sorry bought that but it would not be the same with out all the details. Those Fishers I told you-all about were awesome. I know many hunters kill on sight (eveb though it a violation) but I have a different opinion. I can not stand Porcupines and they kill porkys. Even though I know the Fishers take a toll on other game animals, I can not lower myself to eliminate (and violate) a animal so cool as a fisher. They are a perfect hunting machine. Fast sleek and friggin scary mean looking! What I didnt say about the Fishers is that they came running towards my decoys. I thought for a moment to mess with them and activate (pull the string) on my decoy that spins and stuts. That second of thought turned to a feeling of <"oh carp) when they ran to within a yard or two of it. I was thinking they may tear into ny expensive decoy? Good the drive to mate (and the drive not to mate) overpoweres the instinct to eat/survive. Thanks again for the comments. I am looking foward to calling for my son the "buck whisperer) Or something like that) LOL . I can not wait!
May 1 I am on vacation for the turkey hunt this week, hit it hard Wednesday, never heard a gobble all day. I had seen a bird fly up on Tuesday evening, all I saw in that spot Wednesday morning was a hen. That afternoon across the river I saw a tom strutting up near the new subdivision off Valley road, he was safe where he was, and a dog walker spooked him into the woods later. Wednesday evening I roosted a tom behind my Dads. I waited Tuesday morning in the rain for him across the field, a hen clucked up to the back side of a tree I waited next to. The tom came with 5 others about 150 yards out, never came in. When I went down the street car lines about 8:00 they saw me from the hill top and left. An hour later I got sick of the rain and went in, about 2:00 back out, had a jake close about 4:00 walking next to a fence line, if he had been coming into my calls he was a half hour late, I was going to pass on jakes till Saturday anyway. So Friday morning I needed a new tactic, took a tail fan and wired it to a stake. Plan was to be waiting for the tom I saw on Wednesday, but no alarm was set, so it was 5:30 before I got out, third morning in a row not one gobble heard, my fault for getting out late. Used the river willows as cover getting into the field, saw a bird fly down into the field. I snuck to the edge on hands and knees and saw a tom across the field, there had been a monster out there the last 3 weeks, didn't think it was him. I gave little wave of the tail fan and brought him half way across, got the gun up from the prone position. Another up and down of the fan and he came running, almost didn't have time to line up on him, about 10 yards when he ate some 5 shot, 9 and a half inch beard, 7 eights spurs, 22 lbs. After getting him tagged in the cover, had a drink from the water bottle, the big boy came out with 5 hens. When I went to leave and they spooked, the tom could not even run he is so fat, like a loon on land trying to leave, and a beard like a wisk broom.
When I posted the story it said on the bottom left I could not add an attachment. I did put one up on the Photo Gallery, and I suppose I could get one in via Photobucket web link.