A Double, Triple and a First

[caribou creek]

Hunted Wednesday evening with a buddy in one of my fields that I had scouted the night before, there were about 14 birds in the dirt Tuesday evening so we set up and at 6:20 had three Jake's come into the strutter, they soon left then came back with a couple gobblers in tow, as soon as the toms saw the strutter the race was on and in about 3 seconds my friend had two taking a dirt nap.



Thursday morning myself and another buddy set up in a meadow that the morning before held 4 toms, two Jakes and about 8 hens. at about
6:45 the Toms showed up and once again the Dave Smith Strutter did his job and sucked all the toms into about 12 yards.

I drove a two bladed Rage, out of My Excaliber Crossbow through the first Tom to get clear of his limb mates, he ran to the right about 20 feet and flopped over. I was surprised to see the bolt didn't pass through the bird but after looking closer I found that the bolt had hit the right wing bone and totally shattered the entire joint. 

My buddy  then shot the other two Toms with his 20 gauge pump at 15 and 22 yards. All five birds were two year olds and weighed from 16.5 to 20.5 pounds on my fish scale, all the beards were between 7&9 inches 



As he lay.





I have been waiting 5 years to get the chance to hunt turkeys in Washington with my Crossbow, finally getting the green light last week after the commission made a great ruling allowing the use of crossbows for turkey hunting. I'd like to think that my bird might be one of the first harvested with a crossbow in Washington. Hopefully there will be more to come in future seasons.         

[MLBowhunting]

Very cool.

[lokidog]

Nice, you beat me with the x-bow, I missed  one first thing Thursday morning but knocked him over that afternoon.

[rosscrazyelk]

What kind of decoy is that? I have never had luck with decoys but I am sure that would change with a decoy that looked like that.

[MtnMuley]

Looks like a doctored up and painted Pretty Boy to me.

[Tree Killer]

Nice pile of gobblers...congratulations!   

Dave's decoys are pretty amazing! 

[caribou creek]

The Tom decoy is a Dave Smith with real wings and tail fan, I also have two of his hen decoys but the real lady of the bunch is a bearded hen I shot about 6 years ago and had made into a stuffer decoy.

It's amazing how much more the birds react to the stuffer over a rubber or plastic decoy.

The Tom decoy is a real help ,,, most of the time but it has scared birds away , I assume it's sub dominate ones who are tired of having their butts kicked by other birds.  I mostly only use it in big open areas.   

[Pinetar]

That bearded hen makes a perfect target for the blow gun when you are bored senseless sitting in the blind lol

[caribou creek]

Pinetar, go back to work!!

[Pinetar]

But I hate work lol

[Seatown5]

That is a really cool decoy. Great job on the birds. Private land must be nice, living the dream