Wednesday April 15th, opening morning of the 2009 Turkey Season found me sitting on a ridge about 18 miles north of Spokane on a private 160 acre piece of property. I was patiently working a Tom until about 9:30am, yelping and sweet talking to him. He must have had several girlfriends because he didn’t want anything to do with me. I couldn’t go to him for he was on the adjoining private piece of property to the NE of where I was sitting. I saw a couple of hens and they fed by me but no Tom’s were following them.
I decided to leave him alone for the rest of the morning and headed south about 5 miles to another tract of land that I had permission to hunt on. I visited with the land owner for 20 minutes and shared a couple of stories about family and my kid’s activities.
She gave me permission to hunt her 40 acres; I was really excited because I knew there were birds adjacent to her property on the north side. I saw them when I driving to her property around 10:00am. There was a “Big Boss” Tom on the NW corner and I had visions of him coming to me..... Slowly I snuck up the hill through the woods towards his location. I was about 50 yards from the NW corner when I setup to call; there was a light breeze from the west and skies were clear and sunny. I got a hen to respond after my first series of yelps and I had a good feeling that a tom was with her. I yelped a couple more times and sat my slate call down beside me. Much to my surprise, 3 strutting toms were following 2 hens and they were headed down the fence line coming directly towards me! What a beautiful sight, 3 Toms strutting, sort of jousting for position with the sun shining on them! It was an Awesome Sight!!
I had the sun to my back which I try to do when setting up to call if at all possible. I focused on what I thought was the dominate tom, he was all puffed up, tail fanned out and dragging his wings on the ground. His head was bright red and blue and capped in white, his beard was long and hanging low on his chest, defiantly a mature 4 year old bird. One of the hens started getting a little nervous and turned left heading north angling away from me; the big tom came out of his strut and stretched his head for a look at what she was doing. He was about 20 yards away when I put the bead of my Remington Model 870 WingMaster on his head and squeezed the trigger. I anxiously got up to collect my prize; he was a monster tom, 23 lbs with a 9¾ inch beard and ¾ inch spurs. It was a fantastic way to start the 2009 Spring Turkey Season.
Friday Morning Turkey Hunt…..
I arrived 5:30am at my hunting location, it was an 80 acre private piece of property about 1 mile east of Wednesday mornings successful hunt. As I was putting on my coveralls and uncasing my shotgun, several Toms began gobbling to the east of me. I headed quickly up the ridge to pinpoint their location.
Several hens were off to my right, they started to cluck and purr and think about pitching down from their roost trees. They were in the same roost trees that I hunted the year before. But the toms continued to gobble to the east of me about a ¼ mile away; I was going to have to make a decision on which birds to pursue.
After a dozen more booming gobbles from what sounded like a single tom I was persuaded to go setup on him. I cruised over a couple of small ridges and down through a very wet creek bottom then back up on top of a beautiful rounded ridge overlooking a small shallow basin with a good view up to some large roost trees. I setup against a large ponderosa and laid my shotgun down beside me. I roughed up my slate call with my small scouring pad and took the wooded striker and gave that tom the prettiest serious of love sick yelps you ever heard.
The Tom was maybe 100 yards away across a small basin and up on the next ridge still roosted in the trees, he gobbled back at me immediately. I waited a couple of minutes and gave him a few more soft yelps , he couldn’t take it anymore. He pitched to the ground and started strutting my way. I called once more with 4 or 5 soft yelps and he responded with a booming gobble!! He was coming fast and my heart was pounding out of my chest. The pine tree in front of me had several dead branches hanging down to the ground but I could see through the branches clearly, about 20 yards away the tom came up the hill and appeared in full strut looking for his love sick hen.
I patiently waited with my shotgun on my knee until he stepped out from behind the branches and gave me a clear view of his bright red head and long beard hanging from his chest. The bead of my Remington Model 870 12 ga. shotgun settled on the base of his neck and I slowly squeezed the trigger. A resounding boom broke the silence of the morning; the aroma of gunpowder filled the air all around me as I watched my 2nd tom tumble to the ground.
I looked at my cell phone and it was 5:55am, I slowly walked over to my trophy and sat down beside him thrilled that the morning went so well. I unloaded my shotgun and leaned it up against a nearby tree. I examined his beard which was 9” long and it had a cute little wave at the end of it. I grabbed his leg and much to my surprise he had no spurs on either leg, I was sort of bummed about that but he was a monster bird weighing in at 20+ pounds.
My spring turkey season was over all too soon, but I had Jon and Thomas that I could go hunting with and I looked forward to calling them in a bird…
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