I made it out with my pastor for a four day hunt in some new country here in Montana. Neither of us had been here before but he had enough contacts that they got us pointed toward some Block Management and State sections. We found minimal sign and minimal numbers but the two toms we found came home with us.
David killed this one on our first morning after we finally heard a tom gobble in the distance. We worked him for 45 minutes and he stayed behind a fence we didn't know was there. He finally crossed the fence then held up in the open just out of range (47 yards stepped off later) of David and a few more yards than that from me. When he turned and headed back toward the head of the valley where he started, we hurried across the ridge and hustled for the top. We made it just in time for to get set up after he gobbled less than 100 yards from the top. David rushed forward to the top and I called from behind him. The tom hammered back twice then wouldn't respond to the next calls. I was afraid David had bumped him somehow, but a few moments later I was startled by the sound of a load of #5's shortly followed by the sound of a flopping bird.
The first time he came in was straigth down my gun barrel to the sage brush just below above my barrel before heading back to the left where he had started. David was slightly ahead and to my left.
We tried to fish a local lake afterwards, but the wind was terrible. While driving the country that evening we spotted a tom strutting with a hen, so I set up on him. He came within range but went uphill and over the crest of the steep ridge where I could not see him. It was a quick hunt because he followed the hen away from me and I couldn't relocate him. I planned to return in the morning. The morning started with terrible wind, so I had to change to a lower listening spot. Two coyote howls produced a gobble across the road from where I had seen him the previous evening. I set up on him and saw him fly down and go into strut for a moment but never could see him again because of the terrain. The next two gobbles got farther away until then quit gobbling. I waited for a while for him to possibly show up but finally backed out to glass for him. I could not find him and assumed he had the same hen with him. I hiked to the truck and decided to move to another location and come back to this bird later, but I spotted him strutting behind two hens after driving down the road 300 yards or so. It looked like they were moving along a shallow drainage that bordered some pines, so I drove past them a couple hundred yards over a hill and backtracked through the pines to set up ahead of them.
I got no response to the first call but one gobble to the second. It sounded like he hadn't moved, but a few minutes later he responded from much closer. I spotted him in half strut moving along the edge of the trees and then noticed the hens ahead of him. He strutted out at 40 yards then back behind a pine. The hens started moving away down into the drainage, so I yelped softly to bring him my way. He strutted back out from behind the pine at 40 and I gave him a chance to move my way, but when he started toward the hens I yelped sharply and panicked for a moment when my gun went click. I quickly pumped a shell into the chamber and leveled the beads on the tom before he could get more than a step in. He went down for the count at the shot. I took photos with a self timer of my second Montana turkey.
The tom was roosted in the far end of the trees to the right and I killed him across the field next to the trees at the far left.
Hopefully can get my kids out more in MT, but if not we're looking forward to Washington later in May.
