We took off last Friday to head down to the lease early enough to do some scouting and get a plan setup for Saturday. Got game cam cards and found this pic. Man there is a lot going on here! Notice how that feeder is leaning? One of those big hogs knocked it over just a couple days later.



Had to ride out a hail storm in the camper Friday evening. Sat there puckered up for a while looking out the window as it went from pea sized to dime sized. Luckily it never got any bigger. Then the winds blew in. It was cold, wet, and windy so we figured they'd be quiet and looking for some open areas. We got in early and setup a brush blind in an open flat between two draws. There is a dead feeder there but birds usually cross through there throughout the day, too. We just used a couple of hen decoys figuring if non-dominant toms came by they might still come in. Real light calling. The first bird to come in was a lonely hen. At first she was hangin' out with the decoys, then she decided she didn't like one of her new buddies. She kicked the carp out of my brother's decoy. This went on for 15 minutes...



Finally she left. Around 10 a few hens came in and hunkered under the oaks next to us and started talking away. Can't beat the real thing! We finally got a couple of gobblers to work. Both came in silent but struttin' away. After a bit of a show one of them starting getting nervous but I got the other one before they took off.

At that point the only direction we hadn't seen birds come from was the west. Joking around I told my brother to watch, next gobbler is gonna poke out behind that cactus. About an hour later it was a lot like the same setup. A group of hens came in to check out the decoys. Sure enough eventually came the gobbler right where I said. He came in quiet and didn't make it all the way in. Once the hens started to make their way out and he turned to follow I was able to get him. Two birds down for me!



We went back to camp for a while then tried runnin' and gunnin' in the afternoon. The crazy wind had nobody talkin' so it turned out to be more of a hang out and drink beer event. No complaints tho. We had one gobbler that got hung up. We could see him struttin' around 75 yards away but his hens didn't come all the way to us, so he didn't either. We kind of slept in the next morning. There was way more wind than was forecasted so we decided to put out a jake with a submissive hen right in front of a deer blind. If a hog came out that would be a bonus. Well, we were about to call it quits when after the last call a tom came up from behind us. He came in struttin' the whole way but was quiet. He did a circle around the decoys to size up the jake. Once he decided he could take the jake he opened a can of whoop arse. He would beat on the jake for 5 minutes, take a minute to catch his breathe, then do it again. After 20 minutes I decided I was worried for my brother's decoy.



All gobblers had beards over 10". One great weekend considering the conditions. I can't wait to go back and get my son on a bird or two in a couple of weeks! Hopefully it won't be so windy and we can do some runnin' and gunnin'.

Heck of a story Larry and great hunt!!

Excellent video. Look at the blood back spatter cloud (Misting blood) at minute 1:02 Those are the things we look for in a case of a shooting situation. It tells a lot of the story. In this case the story is dead turkey!

You can see the shot cup peel off to the right of the bird.

Congrats, Hope to join you in the fan holding club real soon. That top pic does look like a block party going on.

Charlie

You're right, Wayne. I thought I was seeing dust from the shot hitting behind him. I went back and watched it in slow motion and frame by frame... no doubt that is what it was!

There is one frame right when the shot gets to him, it looks like his skin is pulling back. It reminded me of this guy.

That pup photo is hilarious

Yes it is called BPA, "Blood Stain Analysis".

Hunted South Texas this weekend. Gobblers were "henned"up and taking wide routes around decoys. We started to intercept them on their daily routes and it worked.