I've managed to hunt all but one of my days off all season, either calling for or videotaping someones hunt, 5th season I was up as the trigger man, my first day to hunt was Saturday morning, I watched 2 big gobblers go right into the woods Friday night right before dark and had a plan, me and my friend that was going to be filming the hunt went in very early to set up a blind, it was pouring down rain but let up right at daylight, the first bird to show up was a hen that came into the decoys and put on quite a show, she almost looked like she was strutting, her tail feathers were fanned out and she was purring real loud as she circled our hen decoy occasionally pecking at it, we didn't get that part on film because the 2 big gobblers were out in the field at 100 yards and we wanterd to be ready for them. After about 2 hours of watching them strut they turned and walked away from us and the hen, going off the property we were hunting, tried another setup and had a Jake come through at about 70 yards.
Saturday evening I roosted a bird that I have roosted and seen before and felt good about the setup the next morning. Of course it was raining again, so we had to pack in a truckload of stuff, the blind, 2 foldup chairs, gun, video camera, tribod, bipod, etc. 3/4 of a mile, we got all setup early and waited . . . the bird gobbled a few times on the roost and twice once he hit the ground, then . . . s i l e n c e. after sitting in that blind for 5 hours we were about to go crazy and had only seen one hen that came into decoys, it had stopped raining so we headed out to try and find a bird, 2 setups, and 1 1/2 hours later we decided to pack it up. we were blind calling on the way back to our first setup to pick up all our stuff. There were 3 hens out in the field from where we had setup in the morning, so as we watched them we thought this might be the same 3 hens that I saw fly up with the Gobbler the night before, then we heard a GOBBLE, close, we called once and could tell he was turned and headed our way in a hurry, the next call he was coming thru the timber behind us, he hit the field and almost kept going, one more call turned him towards the decoy we snuck out in the field, he came in and froze up at 30 yards, I think he knew he might be in trouble, he looked at me and the decoy, I had the crosshairs of my scope on his blue and white head waiting for the signal from my buddy filming, then he said "KILL HIM" before he was finished saying that I had pulled the trigger and the Gobbler was down.
From the time we heard his first gobble to the shot was less than 5 minutes, and the time was exactly 12 noon. I honestly did not know if this was a Jake or a Gobbler and it didn't matter, we just wanted to get a good kill on video, he turned out to be a good bird, 1 1/4", very sharp spurs, 10 3/4" beard, weight was 22 lbs.
The video footage was quick but good, if I figure out how to convert I will post it, Here are a few pics . . .



http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g125/huntrz_2006/trky5-3-092cutlo.jpg


http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g125/huntrz_2006/spurs5-3-092lo.jpg

Jake checking out the Gobbler . . .

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g125/huntrz_2006/trky5-3-093lo.jpg


the camera from the blind . . .

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g125/huntrz_2006/canonGL1.jpg

Beautiful Tom HZ! Congratulations.

Awesome Bird!! :cool::cool:

Conragts


if I figure out how to convert I will post it, Here are a few pics

Come on Z dont act like you dont know how to convert, I'm sure the guy that owns the camera can show you, we want to see some turkey video. :D

NIZE! Way to go!

Congratz huntrz! Great Bird! You had a great season!
Very Nice clear pics! :)

thats great ...good job

Nice job. Getting good video is always a challenge.

Congrats on your great hunt and nice looking bird Huntrz.

way to go you son of a hunter, huntrz !!! nice bird, and glad to hear you scored. hope the hatch is good this year, with all the rain we have been gettin, it makes me wonder how good the hatch will be. once again buddy, congrats.

Congrats on the turkey, way to go we will be waiting on the video. Great pics.

Great job H!

Very nice bird Huntz congrats. Howard

Congrats Hz, did you use PB & G in your set up?

Congrats Hz, did you use PB & G in your set up?

I said earlier that I had the PB Deke, I was mistaken, I have B-Mobile, for this bird we had just enuff time to stick a hen decoy out in the field before the gobbler came in, not sure what type deke it was, but it was enuff to turn him in our direction. I did have the B-Mobile out with two hens in this area that morning, the only thing that came in then was a hen.

Someone told me the other night that they thought turkey hunting was too easy,
all you have to do is roost one the night before and go out and kill it the next morning . . .
of course they've never been turkey hunting.
I wish it was that easy, wait, no I don't, sometimes it does work out, and when everything falls into place,
it does seem easy, other times you would wonder how anyone ever kills one of these birds with a brain the size of a pea.
If turkey's could smell like a deer, you would be lucky to ever kill one.
You can get away with bad camo and some movement on deer, but turkey will not let you get away with that.
They are P-A-R-A-N-O-I-D, if something doesn't look right they're gone.
The farm that I killed this bird on, I had went out trying to roost birds on six different nights
and also went out and listened to them in the mornings before work, trying to pattern them.
roosting meant getting there at 6 pm, walking 3/4 of a mile in, sneaking in to the area they roost,
waiting for them to fly up, not getting out of the woods until 8:30,
2.5 hours x 6 nights = 15 hours that I spent trying to roost birds in this area.
It was no accident that I picked the spot we were set up, but the birds still had to cooperate,
luckily we just happened to be there at the time the bird decided to fire up and come on in,
PATIENCE, is what killed this bird and just being in the right place at the right time.
being in this Gobblers living room for 7 hours that day and not getting busted,
especially walking around trying 2 other setups was a lot of luck
and a little of just knowing how to move around without spooking the birds.
The Sunday before I called in a big Gobbler to this same set up, right into the hunters lap, literally,
the bird walked right up the edge of the field within 7 yards of the hunter, looked at him and he fell apart,
when the bird turned to walk to the dekes he walked right in front of the barrel,
instead of waiting for the bird to get out farther away where the shot pattern could do it's job,
and we could get some good video footage, he pulled the trigger, rolled the bird over, it got up and took off.
the pattern on a turkey gun at that range is very tight, very easy to miss or make a bad shot.
Yes, luck played a big part of this birds demise, but timing was the key.
If we had got there 5 minutes earlier we would have bumped that bird walking out.


Gotta Love the Turkey Hunting! Give it a try, it's Easy!




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O yeah it's reeeel eeeeeazy :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

People see turkeys in their car while driving and say to me, "They must be easy hunt, I see them all the time"

Or "I see them in the yard, out my back window"


Yeah? I say, "Step out of your car or back door and see what happens"...:)


Fact is the average turkey harvest success rates are around 20% for most states. I'm not sure what the exact rate is for Illinois in fact I think the rate might be lower .

O yeah it's reeeel eeeeeazy :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

People see turkeys in their car while driving and say to me, "They must be easy hunt, I see them all the time"

Or "I see them in the yard, out my back window"


Yeah? I say, "Step out of your car or back door and see what happens"...:)



I have several times...Haven't you seen my pics? :D

It's all about doing your homework for these trophies. All I know is that a lot of you guys are doing that! We seem to have the most turkey harvests posted this year on SILO. Maybe SILO is just getting bigger??? Great job Huntrz! and everyone who took the time to chase em!