LOL at all these stories! My hunts are all the same - set up on the turkey, call a few times, when he gets to 40 yds yelp at him to make him stop and raise his head, shoot, collect turkey.

Its really kinda boring.

Well, maybe things have gone wrong a time or 2.

Many years ago on opening day, I heard a turkey gobble in the woods beside a field. I got set up along the edge of the field, and then a whole flock flew down, with 2 strutters and about a dozen hens. Since it was opening day, I called aggressively. The gobblers would answer, but of course wouldn't leave the hens. I had my gun on my knee aimed in their direction, when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

A longbeard was standing in the edge of the field to one side and looking right at me. There wasn't a bit of cover between us, so all I could do was be still. He started to me and was coming fast, and I couldn't do anything but watch. At 40 yds, I realized he was heading to a road that leads to another field and he was also about to get behind some brush and be gone. I decided to swing the gun and shoot quickly.

I shot just before he went behind the brush, and it looked like he went to flopping. I could get a glimpse of him through the brush, so I fired 2 more rounds to make sure he was dead. I stood up to go claim my prize, and he was just standing there - I hadn't even touched him with 3 shots.

For a minute we both just stood there, and then he took a step forward, and gobbled! I don't know what he thought those shots were, but they weren't gonna keep him from finding that hen. I tried to raise the gun slowly, but this time he caught the movement and ran back the way he came. I shoulda just let him go, but there was too much adrenaline pumping by now and I shot at him as ran through the opening. He pitched up and flew to the end of the field where the other turkeys were and went out of sight.

I don't think I've ever felt so foolish. I didn't jump up and chase him because I knew the other turkeys were still close by. After sitting there a few minutes, I decided to slip out and go somewhere else for a couple of hours. I thought about drowning myself in the pond, but finally decided against that. I just walked around in a daze for a while.

Later in the morning, I slipped back to the field and saw that all the turkeys were gone. I went to the place where I first shot and there was no sign of a hit. Then I walked over the where I shot the last time and the ground was covered with feathers - I had hit him and didn't even know it. I walked down to the end of the field where he flew and the turkey jumped up and hobbled a few feet - had a broke leg and numerous other injuries but was still alive. I didn't miss with shot #5.

Did I say that all my hunts were kinda boring? Well, maybe not.

over confidence can be a bad thing in turkey hunting....

I was hunting a bird in Greene Co that would roost near the property line, but on the place I could hunt. Every morning he roosted 50-100 yards from a small pasture that bottlenecked into a large pasture. He'd strut with the hens then all of them would walk to the larger pasture. I couldn't hunt the pasture.

I finally called the owner of the property and got permission to hunt there also..ha ha dead bird walking.....

next morning I was set up at the bottleneck. The bird gobbled on the roost maybe fifty yards behind me. Hens started flying down into the smaller pasture. Finally the gobbler walked out into the pasture at 40 yards. I decided to let him show off for a while before shooting.

I had him dead, whats the rush I said....

I was hid pretty good an so called a LOT more than I normally would. I had hens at ten feet and called to them. The gobbler was gobbling like crazy and the hens were talking to me. It was quite a show for maybe 45 minutes.

The gobbler at times was seventy yards out from me but I didn't worry because was where he wanted to go. Finally the hens started to head for the larger pasture, passing me at 20-40 yards. The gobbler took notice and headed for the bottleneck where I waited to kill him.

At 35 yards I called and he stood up tall and looked down my gun barrel. I pulled the trigger on him......and he launched into the air and flew away...WTH? I just sat there ..stunned...I got up and walked off the distance. 37 good steps. No sign of a hit. I have no idea what happened.........

troy

I was walking out late one morning after fooling with a group of birds that had quit gobbling and thought I would yelp one more time...turkey gobbles. I am on one road and he is across a bottom on another road thinking there is no way he can get here, so I yelp again and he gobbles.

Our place is being clear cut at the time so I can't move off the road b/c he will spot me. My only hope is that when he gets in the remaining timber then I can move with the goal being to get in the creek bed and kill him coming down the hill.

He starts gobbling on his own as he moves down the ridge...I get about 75% of the way down and realize the rest is a small bluff so I am looking for a place to jump in so I can setup facing the other hill. He gobbles again and he has beat me to the bottom, so I have to setup - behind me is clearcut, so I can't move back or he'll peg me, so I sit looking down into the creek bed. There are no trees and the bluff is so steep that I have to sit with my foot on a tree, keeping me from sliding down.

This has happened so fast that I'm not really worried b/c he's hot and will be flopping in a couple of minutes...Wrong. He drums and he is moving to my left, but I can't see and he drums again moving up the ridge where I had last called. I purr trying to bring him back in front and he double gobbles. He drums again and he is moving into the clear cut, so I have to shuffle around, but if I move my foot off the tree I am sliding down the bluff. He drums and gobbles at I'm guessing 20 steps, for what feels like 15 minutes, but is really only a couple. I am down on the barrel, but have no idea where exactly I am going to see him and know that I have to shoot the second I see head or he is going to bust me.

I can borderline hear the bird breathe, he is so close. He finally walks to the edge looking and I shoot at 4 steps with the gun braced about 2 inches from my elbow.

I start walking him out and I am having to change hands every 75 yards and start worrying about how weak and out of shape I am. I get him back to our 25 lb scales and he bottoms them out. Other than my first kill and the first bird I called and killed on my own, he is my favorite.

Me and a buddy were sitting at a gate one morning waiting on one to betray his location. It was just starting to get a little gray in the sky and he and I were sitting there talking strategy. There was this damn whipoorwhill just tearing it up in the bushes about 20 yards from the gate. My buddy started talking about that thing and how it was getting on his nerves. I remember he looked at me and said "You know, I have heard those things all my life and I have never seen one". Then he reaches down and picks up a rock and chucks it towards the bird. I hear a flutter of wings and then I saw it flash as it flew by and then it hit my buddy right in his face. It hit him so hard that it knocked him off of his feet and onto his back. I walked up and stuck out my hand as he wiped the blood off of his nose and I asked him "Did you get a good look at that one"?

We both had a good laugh... well me more than him.

Great stories guys, really enjoying the reading.

That reminds me of another one. Good story.

not a kill story but what turkey hunting can do to people:
i had taken a guy that was 56 at the time turkey hunting earlier in the year to get his 1st turkey and had wound up getting him 2 birds by the time this hunt took place.i had told him to meet me at the gate where i hunt and we head on in to hunt before we go to work.we didnt have any kuck that morning and were driving out and i smell something and ask did he fart and he gave me this look.
he then tells me while he was waiting on me to get there that morning that he thought had to fart but chit his pants.i asked him why he just didnt go home and he replied that he wasnt missing any hunt that i was willing to take him on but could i hurry up so he could go home and take a shower to get cleaned up.
i had a big laugh and told him to think of what all he had missed in 56 years of not hunting.

There were 4 of us hunting some public land in south Alabama a few years back. We got to the parking spot at about 3 am and started walking in. We had about a 1.5 mile walk. We got back to a good listening spot on the river and were all standing around listening and whispering back and forth when I saw something coming down the field road running right at us. I had just enough time to open my mouth and point before it went right up in the middle of us and bounced off of about all of us before it got un tangled and left as fast as it came. It looked like a coon but it was so dark none of us could really tell. You talk about 4 guys doing some foot shuffling. Scared the chit out of all of us.

Oh boy.

ain't nothing like chitting yourself for a Dang turkey. I would like to go I'm record and say that I have not done it yet.

I have puked several times though after I shoot one and it just started about 4 years ago for some reason. It is something to do with my nerves or adrenaline or something. I'll puke after every one of them if I need to though so I am not going to complain. It does make anyone who is hunting with me laugh their arse off though.

I've told this one before on here I think but I'll tell it again. I didn't really get started turkey hunting until I was 16. I started hunting with a friend my age who had killed a few and knew more than I did about. We hunted every weekend pretty much and he was doing all he could to get me my first bird.

Well anyway, we hunted a lease I was in that had about a 40 acre pasture on it. The owner baled hay in it and there were hay bales scattered across the field. Well we slipped up on this field and there are 3 gobblers strutting out there, and two of them are strutting on top of hay bales. I've got pictures somewhere I need to dig up but I had never seen that before or since. We managed to set up on them but they weren't leaving the middle of the field and their hens.

So the next weekend I go back by myself because my buddy can't go. I head to the hay field at first light and there's a bird gobbling just off the field. I set up on him and he's answering me and everything else but he's sitting out in the field by Himself and won't do anything. This goes on for about an hour and I get impatient so I plot out a scheme. The bird was strutting about 15 or 20 yards from a bale that was between us. I slip back and get the bale right between us and start slipping. I'm bent over going as fast as I can but watching to be sure I keep a straight line. It was about 150 yards probably and. Took me a while to get to the bale. Finally I made it and peeked around the bale and sure enough he was still there. I threw upon my gun around the bale and shot him at like 30 yards. So that was my first turkey. Sure wasn't the way I would've liked for it to happen but I was as proud as I could be. Since then I've managed to figure out how to kill them with more conventional methods

Have you ever ran a blitz on a gobbler?

My cousin and I set up on a bird one morning that was roosted just off a fresh clearcut. We got as close as we could to a log landing we thought he would fly down in. He flew into the landing and went into strut and seconds later a hen flew in with him. 80 yards out and he won't budge! 3 hours later we're still there watching him strut in circles and my cousin leans over to me and says blitz him. So I use his fan and a few gallberries to crawl within about 60 yards and the next time he turned away in strut I ran all out toward him. I'm pretty sure there were some strange thoughts going through his mind when he hears a racket and looks around to see a bush running at him full speed but it was confusing enough that the next thing through his mind was #4s!

Crenshaw I love those methods.

Some of my favorite kills are the ones I made happen.

I used to meet a buddy a some land in Chilton County. We would pull through the gate and meet at a dusk to dawn light on the property. Well, I was the first one there that morning so I stepped just off the road to pee. My buddy's headlights were coming so I stepped a few more steps off the road to do my business. About the time I get started, all hell breaks loose in a bush 10 feet away. I piss all over creation and jump out in front of my buddies truck and nearly get ran over in the dark. He thought I was being funny and trying to scare him. It turns out that a hen was sitting on eggs and between me almost pissing on her and another truck coming in she takes flight as I am in mid stream. I thought Bigfoot was jealous and was gonna kill me.

What's unconventional about that? Crawlin'>Callin'

X2. I'll take them about any legal way I can get them.

Don't get me wrong I will too I has just rather call one in than stalk one

I will (have done) do anything but shoot one out of a tree when I get too close at daylight. Don't know why, but, I was told a long time ago that it was unethical. However, I did shoot one that I was calling to that was still in his roost tree and then flew from that tree to a tree almost over me. I figured I called him in. The new guys better learn quick that every turkey in the land is not going to come in like the TV shows.