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I got an invite to hunt in Pike Co last week with a good friend. This was actually my first time to hunt in the Heart of Dixie.

We drove all night from NC and arrived in time to take a nap for a couple hours before Time to get out and go hunting.

Here's the way it went down.

We split up and I went to my pre-designated spot and listened for gobbles - and heard some back in a swamp and made a move on them. I knew there was at least two gobblers, maybe three. Heard the most gobbling I’ve heard in a very long time after the birds flew down as I tried to work them in and away from the several hens they were with. The bad news is that I was set up in a bad spot, not knowing the land, and couldn’t get the turkeys over on my side.

They eventually drifted off through the swamp with the hens and finally quit gobbling back at me. So after losing contact, I did a little running and gunning to check a different side of the property.

With nothing happening, I came back to that original spot about 830 or 9, hoping that they were tired of the hens they were with and perhaps would work my way.

And sure enough, I not only got a response from those same birds way off, but they started losing the distance. And learning from my previous set up mistake, I set up in what I thought was a very good spot based on where they were. They answered me each call and started coming fast. The bad news is that they were coming to me faster than I expected, and caught me adjusting the direction I was facing on the tree after they were already in range. I felt sick. Very sick.

And that was the sour note the first morning hunt ended on.

In the meantime, my buddy killed a bird.

That afternoon we went to a different spot, and looking around, decided that my best option was to set up in a field where I saw dusting sign, and do some cold calling. I was prepared to sit till dark if I needed to.

About two hours into my set up, I saw a big, red, white and blue head pop up over the rise in the field, looking my way. He was about 150 yards away and made a beeline to where I was. It was interesting to see him never take his eyes off me and to see once again how precisely he pinpointed and knew exactly where the calls were coming from, even though I hadn’t called for about two minutes and he came from somewhere completely out of sight and at a completely different elevation, walking right to me. When he got to 42 yards and stopped, looking like he was not sure he was comfortable with that thing sitting against the little pine tree tree over there where that hen was calling from, I eased the savage 20 up and let him catch the full frustration of my early morning mistake with those other two toms.








On the second day, I had five hens and three Jakes fly down right to me off the roost, but there were no toms. I hunted hard all morning but never got any action on a gobbler.

In the afternoon I went to another place with my buddy. We decided to set up and cold call in the corner of a field. He set out a couple Dave Smith decoys and I didn’t object.

The highlight of that hunt was that as we were working a turkey that was gobbling to us, a game warden came up and checked our licenses, and walked right out into the field looking for corn or something. I could not believe it, because he had even heard the turkey gobble once and knew we were working it. Needless to say, no more gobbling and no turkey came in.

So we then went around the property trying to learn it a little bit and stayed around till dark to try to roost one. And we did. Though he didn’t gobble, we heard him fly up.

The next morning I came back to that spot by myself early enough to get set up on the edge of the field where we thought the gobbler was roosted and hopefully would fly down to in the morning. He gobbled several times on the roost, but then flew down the other way.

However, after I went off after him trying to relocate him, I eventually found that he had actually flown about 300 yards through the woods and across a large pond or small lake.

After finally figuring out where he was gobbling from I made the long walk around to get to his side and try to work him there.

I got him to respond to soft calls but he would not budge. I tried to ease closer to him and work him from about 75 or 100 yds, but he still would not budge. I figured my set up was terrible, which it was, because he would have had to either walk through water or through very thick stuff to get to me. And I had no way to swing around and adjust my set up because it was terribly thick. So as I was contemplating what to do, I heard a limb break and looked up to see him sailing back across the pond to where we had come from.

At this point I figured that he was a young timid bird and was avoiding me. I was pretty certain that he was the same bird from the previous afternoon, and I was getting tired of his antics.

So I walked back around the pond to get back over to the other side where I thought he had flown to. There was a nice woods path that I figured he might be walking down so I figured I’d approach via it.

So after about a 30 minute walk, I got to where I thought I should be and sat down to call softly. And sure enough, he answered me, not too far away. And must likely from the path I was on. He had a distinctive soft gobble so I now knew it was the same bird that we had worked the afternoon before and I had been chasing all morning.

After about 20 minutes in that set up he never came. And he never answered me again. So I decided to ease up the path slowly and see if I could get a visual on him. So I did, and I did.

I saw him in full strut about 120 yards down the path. And at that point, I knew he had a hen with him. So I sat down right there in the path to silently watch from a distance. After a couple minutes I glimpsed a hen and noticed that she kept looking down the path towards me where I had called from. So, I hoped and hoped she'd head my way with the gobbler in tow. Since I had them pinpointed, and knew she was thinking about me already, I remained silent. And for the next 30 minutes she kept looking up and slowly pecking around my way to see if the hen she had heard calling down there would show up.

And then suddenly, she quit the pecking and started coming on down the path toward me. But alarmingly, the gobbler did not follow. That was about the worst case scenario I feared.

It didn’t take very long and she was right up on top of me. I was extremely nervous because I knew she would start putting and I figured that the hunt would be over soon as she did that. I don’t know why the gobbler was not following her, and all I could figure was that there was another hen down there still with him. Then, as expected, she stopped and putted at me, three times. But she wasn’t sure what I was and did not seem overly alarmed. In fact, she sat down right there about 15 yards from me off the side of the path where the gobbler couldn’t see her, and started to preen a little bit. I thought she was going to start dusting or something.

After a couple minutes of her sitting there and about five minutes since she left the Tom, and while I was beginning to cramp up because I couldn’t move a muscle, I looked down and saw the gobbler heading my way in a semi hurry, looking for that hen that left him. So I slowly eased my gun up into a shooting position without the hen even noticing my movement, and waited for him to get to about 30 yards.

And then I let him know that I really liked him a lot and appreciated the game he’d played with me the last two days.

Congrats. Great read!

good post ! great pictures, glad you got your turkeys, sorry Alabama game warden was an idiot !

It happens a lot, I think they take joy in screwing up someone's hunt

Great story and very disturbing that we have jackarse game wardens walking around messing up hunts the way you described. He could’ve waited for you to shoot one first. You must’ve been hunting his honey hole. Glad you got that “young timid” bird

When I cleaned the bird I found a fresh wound in his breast and a Hevishot pellet. Had to have been shot no more than two or three days earlier. So, you may be right.

Thanks for the story and congrats!

Congrats! That was fun just to read.

That ain’t no young timid bird either. Nice hooks!

Great read and congrats

Congrats

Great read! Glad you had a good trip to Bama

That young timid bird had a nice set of hooks Hal. Congrats!

Congrats!

Congrats and great story to go with it. Where are you from in NC?

Congratulations Mr. Hal.

Congrats Hal, I heard you might be headed to our great state !

Congrats Hal! Nice spurs!

Congrats Hal, great read!

I live in Garner. Grew up in Dismal Swamp country.