Here
it is in full detail, I certainly do not have a carrer as an outdoor
writer in my future, but this sounds better than the previous version.
My
Dad and I were lucky enough to draw turkey permits for the same
hunt period in Michigan this spring.
Our
annual ritual is to sight in our guns prior to our hunt, and this
year was no different than year past other than the fact that I
switched to Hevi Shot this spring.
I
chose 3" #5 Hevi Shot, and I also purchased a Cabelas Hevi
Shot choke to complete my turkey hunting
set up.
This
choice was really a no brainer for me because I am a waterfowler
by trade and shoot hevi shot exclusively for ducks and geese each
fall so I have seen the resulting quick kills on big Canada Geese
and
large ducks as well.
My
Dad was giving me a hard time about shooting the more expensive
shells because he refuses to shoot
anything but copperplated lead (for turkeys), and was making it
a point to explain how the previous spring
when he was successful (and I wasn't) that the old lead loads did
just fine on his first tom (in alot of years trying).
I
explained how Hevi Shot is heavier than lead and hits harder and
patterns tighter.
Well,
it only took one shot at the patterning board to show him what a
pattern Hevi Shot is capable of.
Our
chosen area to hunt is several hours drive from home, so regular
scouting is tough, but it is an area
we have hunted before and the birds seem to roost in the same area
each spring so we put an collapsible
blind out the evening before our hunt within 150 yards of where
we expected the birds to be roosted.
The
next morning was chilly and foggy with no wing at all, a great time
to be hunting.
The
birds were a bit late sounding off on the roost, but when they did
it was from all around us, except
form the area we expected them to be.
We
heard at least 10 different toms letting every hen in the area know
where they chose to spend the night.
A safe bet is that we heard 100 gobbles from the toms situated around
us prior to flydown time. It was a
great morning to be outdoors.
My
guess is that most of the birds left the roost about 7:15 this particular
morning, which is probably
45 minuted later than normal, but the fog kept the in the trees
a bit later than usual.
About
7:20 I was making some soft clucks to try and entice a tom our way
when the woods near us erupted
with several hens flydown cackling and a couple toms gobbling at
them within 80 yards of our blind.
Within
two minutes we had six hens come out of the woods into the field
and right at the decoys
surrounding the blind. They came in and checked out the decoys for
a minute or two and continued past the
blind out into the open until they were about 40 yards past the
blind.
One
hen made a couple of clucks and a gobble erupted about 50 yards
from us on the field edge, it was a
nice longbeard in 3/4 strut letting his ladies know where he was.
He
was not going to check out our decoys despite some clucks and purrs
from my slate call, the group of hens were keeping his focus.
He
made it out into the open and was following the hens at decent pace
when he got to about 35 yards from
the blind and crossing at a slow walk my Dad decided to take the
shot and whiffed on it (lead shot doesn't
do too well on turkeys if you don't hit them with it), the bird
had no idea where the boom came from and only
took a couple steps before Dad shot again and this shot was on the
money relieving this longbeard of his
future worries. I checked the time on my cellphone, it was 7:26
AM and we had one bird down, one more to go.
As
we had heard several other birds gobble several hundred yards out
we decided to let my Dads bird lay
for a minute to see if another oppurtunity presented itself and
I got a shot at a nice tom.
Some
soft clucks and yelps every few minutes were getting a response
from a bird several hundred yards
out but he was not coming any closer to us.
After
about an hour of this standstill treament from the far off bird
my Dad went out to get his tom and
tag it. He stealthily did this to hopefully avoid being seen by
any birds and settled back into the
blind. His tom was 21 lbs, 11" beard and 1 1/8" spurs,
a respectable bird in anyones book.
We
continued to yelp and purr every ten minutes or so and got responses
from the same tom the first half an
hour or so and then no responses at all after that.
About
9:15 a lone hen wandered in and she stayed with her new buddies,
our decoys, for quite a while.
Each
time she would give up on her new friends and begin to wander away
a few soft clucks would bring her
right back to the decoys. You can't beat having a live hen around
when you are pursuing a spring gobbler so
we did our best to keep her near the blind hoping she would help
bring in a tom presenting an oppurtunity
for a double on toms in one morning.
She
hung around until just after 10:00 and at the point that we realized
she had given up on the decoys
my Dad asked if I had any days off during the week to hunt if I
was unable to tag a bird this day.
I
was explaining how busy I had been at work and a weekday hunt was
out of the question when I noticed a
bird on the edge of the field out of the corner of my eye.
I
quickly identified it as a longbeard and moved to get my gun up
to the shooting hole in the blind.
This
tom was angling away from us and had no interest in our decoys whatsoever,
I don't know why this was
the case but he was most definitely heading into the woods away
from us.
I
got my gun out the shooting port and settled the scope on the toms
head. He sure looked a lot smaller
than the turkey targets we use to pattern our guns and I pulled
my head away to make sure my eyes weren't
playing tricks on me.
I
whispered "he looks a bit far through the scope", dad
whispered back "if you're going to shoot, you
better do it now because he is not coming any closer".I thought
to myself, with Hevi Shot well patterned out
of my gun it shouldn't be an issue.
I
settled the scope on the toms head again and clicked the safety
off, I took a breath and exhaled and
settled the crosshairs and pulled the trigger.
He
dropped like he was hit with a club, high fives ensued along with
a "nice shot" or two.
I
unloaded my gun and unzipped the blind and we headed out to take
a look at my tom.
While
not a huge bird by weight (18 lbs) he had a long beard with a few
strands several inches longer than
the main portion of the beard and nice well worn spurs (1")
and obviously had been around to fool a few
hunters in previous seasons.
I
got my tag out and maked it accordingly and picked up my bird and
turned towards the blind and realized I
was not wrong when I said he looked like he was a long ways out.
I
pointed out to my Dad how far we were from the blind, and he said
"that was a long shot".
We
walked back to the blind to get our things together and I kept looking
back to see the spot where I had
shot the tom and marveling at the distance at which he was cleanly
killed by the #5 Hevi Shot.
Upon
getting our things together I decided to pace off the shot to get
an idea of the actual distance.
The tom was standing next to a lone tree and I paced it off from
the shooting port that I shot him from and
it was an amazing 65 paces. That would be close to a 60 yard shot.
I was pretty happy with myself once I
realized at what distance Hevi Shot had done its job with complete
effectiveness.
My
bird was 18 lbs, 1" well worn spurs and his beard measured
14 1/8" including the eight extra long
strands. A true longbeard in anyones book.
I
am convinced this was the bird that was gobbling a ways off all
morning. He couldn't stand waiting for
the hen to come to him so he snuck in to investigate. He never made
a sound, and just appeared out of
nowhere at the field edge. A cagy old bird who probably had seen
a few buddies take a load of shot in
the head in the past.
I
don't believe I would have taken the shot at this tom without having
patterned my gun and knowing how it
shoots with Hevi Shot and knowing Hevi Shots effectiveness on large
waterfowl from my own
experience, Hevi Shot is the best!
Thanks,
Matthew
LaCombe
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