Posts: 9
From:
Registered: Aug 2006

posted April 01, 2007 08:35 PM            

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I had been keeping an eye on a flock of about thirty hens and four gobblers on a place I don't hunt very often, but for some reason decided to check on it last week, pretty well had them paterened I thought, so when a buddy was looking for a place to hunt with his boy I had the perfect spot. opening morning of the youth season we headed in there plenty early. We walk about 100 yards across a pasture and get to a shallow creek that wasn't so shallow. about the time we figured out how to get across the sky opened up !!! Turkeys busting out every where above our heads !! CRAP !!! hunt over !!! We make our way back out of the creek bed discusted and just about pack it up as we have plenty of time to make it to another area, but I get to thinking. heck we only scared off about a dozen birds and the flock is much bigger than than so we decide to set up right there on the creek bank, not exactly my first choice spot but would have been a dang close second. it's still dark and I put out a couple hen decoys and then set up the blind real quick and me, my buddy, and his boy pile in. We sit there for probally 15 minuetes and then it is starting to get light enough you can see in the trees and tell if there are any more birds up there. nope empty,and I figure hopefully they are up the draw from us and will stil come by as usuall. we sit there till about 6:30 when my buddy says there he is, I figure yea right, but after about four "there he is's " I figure I better take a peek. What the hell ? I could just barely make out the form of a turkey on the horizon and my buddy assured me he had saw a beard, problem was you would loose him in the dark as soon as he headed towards us any further, I grabed my slate and scratched out a few light yelps hopin to possibly slow him down for a few seconds to by time as you could literally see further every second, he never made a peep, but it did slow him down a little bit but he was still coming when he got to about thirty yards I started whisteling a kee kee to him to try and hold him there for a little bit and that finally stoped him, the gobbler was finally nervous enough to hold his ground. Soon you could see good enough to shoot easly and I told the boy his call I could try and crank him up into gobbeling, or he could go ahead and take the shot. The turkey crumpled at the shot and didnt even twitch. I steped out the window and was the first to the bird WOW nice bird!! My buddy and the boy were walking up and I was fixin to show them the nice spurs that were showing when I reached down to pick up a leg to see the other spur when all hell broke losse, the turkey started off in one of those low ground wing flapin emergency take off's with me in hot persuit! I knew better than to try and step on the tail and pull out all the tail feathers on the kids first bird, so I did all I could do...I dog piled the bird and held him down for a bit and then figured out this turkey wasn't going to give up any time soon, so I had the buddy cut the birds neck. When every thing calmed down we admired the bird, taged him and headed to the truck, not believing what had just too place.To walk in, bust birds and then have a tom come back in while basically still dark was a tactic I would have never bet on working.
Back at town we took pictures and sized the bird up. 21 lbs. not real heavy but still a dang nice first bird, 10 1/2 " beard, nice and thick, but looked like the winter had been hard on it, and the spurs...1 1/2" right on the money and sharp as needles!!! dang nice hooks on that bird !!!!
Now comes the delema... I have a bad case of spur envy !! I'm pretty sure if I let the kid keep the spurs then they will fall off into that oblivian called a kids room, never to be seen again, untill the family dog mysteriously throws one up on the living room carpet. so how do I gracefully obtain ownership of them? I'm thinking I would offer up to guide the kid again in trade for the spurs, but don't want to sound pushy about geting my hands on those spurs, but then again I figure the kids chances of getting another bird any time soon with out somebody at least thinking they know what the birds are doing, is slim to none.
Oh and in case some of you are wondering...yup pretty sure...Kevlars Son !!! He had that same evil look in his eyes just before he got the knife to the neck !!!!

IP: 4.244.195.45

Posts: 528
From:Maryland
Registered: Nov 1999

posted April 02, 2007 03:21 PM         

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Mo, I'm ashamed to even admit I know you, trying to steal that poor kids first spurs. Especially really nice ones.
You go out and get your own damn spurs boy!
Nice story though.

I'm just razzin' ya bud, but I'm serious too...You keep your damn mitts off that boys bird. If he loses them or let's the dog make chew toys out of them, that'd up to him. If he has no interest in them at the moment, maybe you can preserve them for him and return them to him at a later date.
INFACT, with that being such a fine bird, especially for a youngster's first bird, I think you should offer to pay to have a full body mount done for the kid being it's his first bird and all.

IP: 70.16.168.236

Posts: 209
From:South central WI
Registered: Apr 2000

posted April 07, 2007 12:32 PM            

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Dang MO ain't it a nice feeling to get one of those youngsters a bird. Congrats on makeing a stupid blunder into a really nice and succesful hunt.
Jane and I took a young lady and her dand out this morning and got her a bird. It was no way as good a bird as yours but it was a very nice 17 lb jake. The place we went I had seen tons of bird and heard lots of gobbeling. Today nothing in the gobbling part and didn't hear a bird on the roost. Maybe the snow falling had something to do with that. Anyway about 7:04 or so we spotted some birds across the fence on the neighbors property. I did the best calling I knew how on a slate, Boxcall and diaphram, low and behold they turned around and slid up through a small hedge of woods and came into the decoys. The three jakes stayed out about 10 yards from the farthest decoy and wouldn't come any closer. Close enough I thought but they stayed so close together that she couldn't shot. They then started to leave when two broke off from the other one and I told her to kill the turkey. One shot and she dumped him flat. He lay there and floped his wings a few times.
After the picture takeing and puting away the blind and all the other gear our youth hunt was all over.
Got home and put the pictures on the computer and found we got some nice pictures.
We don't get to hunt now untilll we go to SD next Sat.
Callem in and shoot straight. WI bowhunter
By the way glad you didn't take that kids spurs. I know from the way it sounds they are an admiral set.

IP: 209.83.13.189