Thanks to a very good friend of mine with family up in northeastern part of the state, I was lucky to take the first turkey of my life- a jake, 13 pounds, taken at 20 yards with an SKB 12 gauge (Federal "Mag-Shok" turkey load- nice shoulder punisher!). Our "blind" was a young ponderosa pine with dense ground-level branches. We had sat the morning in another location, watching 50-60 turkeys fly down at dawn from old ponderosas, the toms strutting and fanning. The flocks came close, but not quite close enough. Mid-morning we moved to a little flat right above a creek and placed a "wimpy jake" decoy where it could be seen from the creek bottom. We called lightly with a box call, and about 30 minutes later two jakes, one with a visible beard, showed up on the rim of the flat. "Take the one on the right- that's a good first bird," whispered my buddy. At the shot, the jake dropped immediately. And I was stoked!
My buddy shot a mature tom around 6 pm, when all the birds were returning down the creek corridor to the roost trees.
It was such exciting hunting- the gobbles, the purrs, yelps, and even the alarm putts when we were busted. All morning and afternoon we could hear and see birds, making it so different from deer hunting. And I never appreciate how exciting it could be to hear a gobbler coming from hundreds of yards away, closer, and closer, until the gobble sounded like it was right next to you!
Not sure I can handle one more addiction, but I guess I have little choice now!
