Ole One Spur the Wet Public Land Gobbler

[hookinembig]

Glad I talked myself into going out in the nastiness this morning. My dad and I went out to some public land this morning for a little pain and suffering in the rain. We had went out yesterday afternoon and did some scouting in the rain. We walked a good ways in several different areas and finally found a nice place to set up and some fresh tracks so we made a plan to come back in the morning. We get to the land around 5:15 a.m. get ready put the ponchos on and get walking. We walk 15 minutes to the spot we had picked out and got ready set up against a small bushy tree in the middle of a field that isn't to far from a wood line in front of me and my dad is sitting on the other side of the tree facing the opposite direction(Lucky him his back was toward the wind I was catching the blowing rain to the face all morning.) I set out the jake and hen decoy and we get settled in the rain. Daylight comes and nothing is making any noise. I make a couple of yelps and nothing. I wait a little bit longer and make some fly down cackles and a couple yelps. Its getting to be about 6:30 a.m. and my poncho starts to leak right in the center of my chest and the wind is starting to pick up. My optimism is beginning to fade ever so slowly. Since the rain is picking up I put my gun under my poncho and take a glove off to lift my poncho up a little bit to catch the water from dripping on me. About 7:00 a.m. my right hand is getting cold so I put my glove back on and switch hands holding up my poncho to help catch the water as it leaks through. I'm really starting to get discouraged but I guess I enjoy the suffering. I hit one more series of yelps and sit and enjoy my little world of misery. Little did I know my day was about to turn around but not without some drama.

About 7:15 a.m. I see what I thought was a branch move out of the corner of my eye because the wind is getting rough. I glance over and its a gobbler stomping directly towards the Jake decoy. As I am looking I see another turkey behind him and thought it was hen. As I watch them pass by me I realize they are both gobblers. I tell my dad two gobblers(turns out he had watched them come off the road and feed in the field and then they spotted the decoys and let them walk past him so I could get a shot - that is simply awesome). Mean while I then begin the task of getting my gun from under my soaking wet poncho to be able to get a shot as both gobblers start to work over the Jake decoy. It is taking me forever because I practically have to take off my poncho to get the gun to my shoulder. The second gobbler is now over by the hen decoy and the bigger gobbler is still whipping my jake decoy to death. I raise my gun and put the green dot on the smaller gobbler's head near the hen decoy, hoping to shoot that gobbler and give my dad enough time to get a shot on the gobbler occupied with the decoy. Well this is when things go crazy! I pull the trigger and to my amazement the bird is walking away and starts flying away. Clean miss it takes a moment for me to gather myself and pump the shotgun and aim on the other gobblers head. Boom and same thing again and the bird starts running away. I am falling apart mentally at this point. I pump the gun again and follow the gobbler running across the field and drop the hammer for the final TSS shell in the gun and it drops him in his tracks. I stand up and by this time my dad has stood up and asks if I got him. I said yes hes down and we head to the bird. As we get to the bird it was exactly 50 yards back to were I was sitting. I assume my relex sight got bumped off and I hit him at 50 yards because the TSS pattern was able to spread out enough. I am glad I had those 720 #9 TSS pellets for that final shot I needed all of them. What a hunt and I am grateful my dad allowed the birds to pass him. Gobbler ended up having a 10 3/8 inch beard only on spur on one leg and a nub on the other and weighed a little over 20 pounds and my first public land bird.

This hunt will stick in my brain the rest of my life and I am thankful we came away with a bird. Thanks to my Dad and ole one spur!

You can see in the first picture over my left shoulder are the decoys a little of to the right and the bushy tree over my left shoulder 50 yards back. The second picture is me with my bird and still with my glove off from holding up the poncho. The last photo is from a old house with a overhang that we stopped at to regroup and get out of the rain for a second and get a couple more pictures.

Thanks for reading,
Hookinembig

[OLE RASPY]

Congrats on a rainy day gobbler.

[hookedspur]

Congrats on a nice bird.

[soiltester]

I won't hunt in the rain unless on a paid hunt far away from home, as it doesn't do the gobbler justice, with all of his beauty of colors in the sunlight

Congrats on stickin' with it and making your hunt successful

[GLS]

nice bird and your dad is generous. It pays to check zero occasionally during the course of a season or if any significant time has passed since the last check. My 20 gauge hit the hardwood floor hard earlier this season and sure enough, it changed zero just enough that it had the potential to affect zero that could have made a difference had I not caught the problem. I checked it with a dove load at 25 yards and windage was off. zeroed at 25 with the dove load and it took one shot at 40 with tss to fine tune the zero.

[MAK]

congrat's great story - any bird on public land is a good job, but this is a nice one.