2022 AL gobbler season - tagged out
26April, bird #4, R.I.P., Streatch Armstrong
Heavy rains sweep through my area at dusk and into early evening the night before, I figure turkeys got thoroughly soaked and should be out in the open this morning. After the long morning the day previous, I very nearly hunted a different location, but at the last minute elect to venture back out to the WMA after Streatch one more time. Despite not hearing or seeing him yesterday, I figure if he survived this long into the season,,he likely made it through this past weekend as well, he's just silent. The plan is the same as before, if I hear him gobble the first hour or so of daylight, I'll move his direction and set up. If nothing gobbles I'll pop the blind, set dekes on this ROW, and see if he shows up.
It's silent again at daybreak, but relatively clear and calm. By 7:00AM I'm settled in the blind with 3 decoys, 2 hens and a jake out in front of me. I can't say I really like blind/decoy hunts,,I feel a greater sense of accomplishment with a kill in the open woods, setting against a tree. But wide open spaces make it nearly impossible to set for long hours and not get picked off by a gobblers sharp eye. Also, the decoys basically call ( silently) for you, constantly, and can draw a gobbler from a very long distance if observed by the tom. There're are circumstances/conditions where blind/decoy is simply the best tactic, and this morning is one of those instances.
I run thru a modest series of yelps with the slate and two different strikers, and throw a few in with the mouth call as well for good measure. I'm set up on the military crest of the ridge, slightly lower than the highest point. The ROW runs out in both directions, but only the side I'm set up on is relatively free of undergrowth. The other side is grown up with only a narrow service road through the brush. Along the crest of the ridge, a logging road bisects the ROW and winds back through the mature pines. I figure Ol' Streatch will saunter down that logging road onto the crest and ROW, spy my dekes, and walk downhill 50 yards on the ROW to me. It doesn't happen that way.
Fifteen minutes later, I'm about ready to call again when I spot the large read head of a gobbler on the ROW below me, some 200 yards distant. Whether he'd come to call (I really think he did) or just wandered out to dry off, I can't say, but there he is. Motionless, rock solid, seeing everything. I figure he should react to my decoys, but does not. After several long minutes, he pulls his head don, turns and starts off the wrong direction
.
Oh no you don't!....I run a soft series of yelps at him with the carbon fiber striker on the slate and he stops, turns and glares my direction. He's out of the tall grass now and a good beard is visible, and in the sunlight he's an iridescent black. His wattles shine bright red, and he looks huge. Streatch Armstrong without a doubt. I switch strikers and yelp again, and he takes a few steps in my direction, then locks up , staring. He's heard me, let's see what he'll do now?
Truth is, he doesn't do much. No gobbles, no strutting...he pecks at afew bugs, stares some more(actually a LOT more) and occasionally takes a step or two my way. Over the course of 3/4 of an hour, he closes the distance, a step or two at a time, staring for long minutes, motionless. Sometimes, after a couple of steps he'll stand tall, seemingly on tiptoe, then retract, peck and then survey the area normally. I call VERY softly, mostly short strings of 2-3 yelps, and I call VERY , VERY, sparingly. He stops, just out of shotgun range, say 60-70 yards, and stands rock solid a long time, then pivots and begins to walk away again
. Do something!!!!!!!!! Nothing to lose, I snatch the gobble tube and launch a choked, hopefully jake like half gobble, then a frantic second, but he still continues to ease away
. Now what?
I switch to a soft, all wood forgiving striker and try some purrs mixed with occasional clucks He stops and stares, and starts back up the hill towards me. The entire process begins again, but this time, no yelping, just soft purrs and clucks. And this time he comes a wee bit quicker, but not by much. When he reaches his last stalling point, he thankfully keeps coming, 5-6 steps at a time. Mentally, I'd picked an "in range-shoot" marker long before. In the middle of the ROW a pair of 4-5 foot tall metal service pipes are driven vertically into the ground. When he gets to there, I'll shoot.
Getting the range is important, more so this time. I'm not carrying one of the big 3 inch, super full choked dedicated turkey guns with which I normally hunt. No, this morning I left the house with a 26 inch barreled O/U with standard 2-3/4" chambers. It is a 12 gauge, ..... choked full and modified, a fixed choke gun with a single bead for a sight. The full choked top barrel is stoked w/ W-W XR Longbeard load of 1-1/4 oz of #5 shot. The other barrel has a standard high velocity field load of 1-1/4 oz. of #7-1/2. I've patterned both loads , both barrels, and deemed the tidy little gun good to 40 yds and ideally suited for hunting over decoys from the blind. The full choke barrel for 25 and out, the mod barrel for 25 and under. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Ol'Streatch eases up the ROW and stops directly adjacent the metal pipes. I double check the barrel selector to make sure I've picked FULL (forward and left, two dots ) and snug down on the comb, careful to look down the rib and through the bead NOT over it. I settle my sight picture on his wattles and press the decidedly good shotgun trigger. Though I'd recently patterned the O/U, the milder recoil from the standard (not magnum)shell is a bit of a surprise. I don't lose the bird in recoil, see him crumple, and cover him for a moment or two with the second barrel, comfortingly aware that I've got a second shot ready w/o having to pump or do anything but pull the trigger again if needed. But It's not, he's done.....and so is my Alabama season.
It's 39 paces to the down gobbler. When I look back uphill to my decoys and the blind, I'm surprised that the set is not visible. The curvature and slant of the hillside rendered them unseeable from below. Streatch didn't react to the dekes for the simple reaso...he could not see them!,!!!!
He is big and lanky, He doesn't heft as much as he looks he should, and later the antique scales from my granddad show his weight at 16-1/2 pounds. Earlier in the season he likely would have been much heavier. Upon butchering, he has no fat pad on his breast at all. The beard measures a satisfying 10-9/16", and the spurs at 1 and 1-1/16" respectively. His wing tips are heavily broomed, he's strutted a lot. I'm calling him a good 3 year old. I wonder, could this be the bird I missed, first day last year? I collect my gear, pose some pictures, and sit for a bit on the ridge crest soaking in as much of the moment as I can.
