NONTYPICAL TURKEY – MODERN FIREARM RECORD
1. Wayne June 103-8/16 2008
It was May 3rd, 2008; it started just like any other day of turkey hunting. I arrived at the farm at 5:30am and began the long walk to the spot I wanted to hunt. It was a fairly windy day but I could hear the toms gobbling off the roost already. Around 6am I got to the spot I wanted to set-up and I could see that the toms were on the ground now.
Once I was all set-up, I started calling and got a response right away. In fact, they even started moving my direction. It was almost coming together too well. I called again and got another response. They seemed to be really fired up and still closing the distance pretty quickly. The birds were now about 100 yards away so I decided to sit quietly and let them approach.
The next thing I knew, for no apparent reason, the birds turned around and started heading in the opposite direction! Knowing that I needed to get their attention again, I called to them and they answered but kept going in their direction of travel. I called once more and again I was greeted with a response but they continued heading away from me until they disappeared out of sight completely. They were still answering my calls although the sound was getting farther and farther away.
I had just gone from feeling like this hunt was in the bag to complete and utter dejection. Not wanting to give up, I sat in that spot for an hour and kept calling to them until finally they got out of hearing range. It was still really windy so I knew that though I could barely hear them, they really weren’t too far away; it was just the wind making it hard to hear.
I decided to follow them and see if I could cut the distance down so I walked about 40 yards and stopped to call and listen. I did this several times with no response but as I crept along through the bush that they disappeared into, I got within 75 yards of the corn field on the other side and called. Within seconds I had two toms running towards me! As they approached they would stop and gobble. I kept calling until they walked right in to 15 yards and I took the first bird that presented a shot.
After the flopping and wing flapping was over, I walked over and picked up the beard and it wasn’t until then that I realized my tom had multiple beards! I took him to Tim Steen of Tim’s Taxidermy and had him do a full body mount so I will have something to remember this hunt by
