So opening day I tagged my first ever Tom but it was not without its challenge and involved a 500 yard chase and a second finishing shot. Today's hunt was different but certainly interesting. I had an unexpected cancellation at work that freed up my afternoon at about 230 pm. I had seen tons of turkeys while out driving around today so thought I have just enough time to race home, buy a second tag, grab some gear and head out to a friend's farm. This time I brought a pop-up as the weather was wet and foggy. My plan was to go back to my first set up spot and retrieve my decoys which i had stashed in the bush. Walking over in the fog I heard gobbling about 100 yards from my old set up and low and behold i could just make out 3 toms about 20 yards from the tree I had set up against for the opener. No way I could get any closer without getting busted and no way to get my decoys without getting busted. So I headed about 400 yards away across the field and set up the pop-up against the bush line with no decoys and started aggressively calling. The fog more less lifted about 5 minutes after I set up and the toms started coming in like they were on a line gobbling non-stop.

The view from the blind - toms came from the hardwood treeline on the horizon:



The toms hung up at about 70 yards clearly not liking the fact that there was no hen(s) in sight. They than circled, hopped the fence and headed into the bush behind me. I changed my calling to a much softer more subtle cluck and they than headed back to the fence about 15 yards from the blind. The lead bird hopped over and I put the bead on his head and pulled the trigger using the side window of the blind. I only had the window slightly cracked with just enough open to point the gun and see.

The view of window and the opening i shot through:



The tom went down immediately and did the funky dance for 4 or 5 seconds and than still - no second shot required this time.

The bird:

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Shotgun used was a 20 gauge O/U with factory full on top and modified on the bottom. Shells were 3 inch Rem 1.25 oz. #6 Nitro Mags.

Spurs:

Nice

Congrats!!

Nice Tom and good looking gun congrats

Congrats

That's a nice looking bird.

Congrats! Cool terrain. Where was this?

Mid Western Ontario. Snows been gone for about 2 weeks and just starting to green up. They introduced about 200 birds 25 years ago and we now have a population of about 100,000 and a 5 week spring season with a 2 tom limit.

Congrats!

Very nice! Congrats