Crow Busters Forum

I took Dad back out hunting last Saturday as he had a 2nd turkey tag. We went across the river from his house to a farmer's field. I often see turkeys from across the river there in the corner of a corn field. The legal time fro shooting on Saturday was 4:33 am. (1/2 hour before sunrise)  I had Dad sitting under a very large White Pine tree at the edge of the freshly tilled field at 4:10. I cut some leafy brush and stuck them in the ground around the tree to hide our movements. I placed one hen decoy 5 yards in front of us with the Foxpro under it on the ground. I started calling at 4:30 and we got gobbles back at us about 75 yards behind us.  About 15 minutes later this Jake and 2 hens walked past us at less than 10 yards. Then another hen flew down out of the tree next to ours. We waited about 15 minutes to see if a bigger Tom was around but he never showed.

I told Dad to take the Jake, he fired and it dropped dead. No flopping or anything. (I later skinned the neck and head to find one #5 shot had penetrated the bird's right eye ball. :) The shot was 40 yards, My Nitro Special Lefever with my reload.

After the shot, we stayed still for an hour waiting for more turkeys as I have a tag. We saw 7 more birds, but none came to the decoy or call. As we sat there, ducks were flying in an out of a small flooded pool 50 yards to our right. Mallards and Woodies, the Woodies would come in squealing and then land, the Mallards "chuckling" as they fed. Sitting there after he shot that bird, fog rolling across the field, the ducks appearing out of the fog, geese honking in the distance, toms gobbling, Wood peckers hammering, the Sandy River washing over the rocks 30 yards to our left.........it made for a really nice memory.