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Thursday A.M.  the first tom I set up on this morning was roosted in one of these big oak trees This morning was considerably warmer than the last 2 days, and it seemed to really make the gobblers loosen up and gobble a bit more. Hunting the exact same area where I heard 1 gobbler yesterday, I heard 5 gobblers this morning. Granted, they were spread out pretty well, but it was still 4 more toms than I heard yesterday morning. One tom was gobbling especially well on roost, and he turned out to be in a spot I was familiar with and actually was the "easiest" one to set up on. He was on the side of a ridge and there was a little finger of grass field that I was figuring he would fly down in, as I have seen turkeys there on several past occasions in the early morning. I walked upright as long as I could, and then crawled through the tall grass the last 75 yards or so, as it was getting pretty light. I got set up against a good sized tree that I figured was a little over 100 yards from the tom. Once I was set, I started yelping and purring. He answered my calls about 75% of the time, which was a definite change from the last few days. About 6:15 a.m. I heard him fly down. I couldn't tell immediately whether he flew up the ridge towards me, or down the ridge, but I was figuring he flew up towards me. My curiosity was answered about 90 seconds later when I heard him spitting and drumming and then right afterwards he came into view, coming up the hill a little at a time, in full strut, his head alternating colors between blue and white as he changed postures. He was looking hard for the "hen" he heard. My first available shot would be when he was just past my tree, so I waited until he came into view in my first shooting lane, and I pulled the trigger. The shot was all of 12 yards, and he dropped like a rock. I love it when it happens like that! An "easy" morning like this every once in a while more than makes up for all of the tough mornings. This tom was a nice bird, most likely a 2 year old. It weighed 20 1/2 lbs., had 1" spurs but his beard had a fungus and was only about 1" long. This made 2 years in a row that I had killed a mature tom that had little or no beard because of a fungus. Last year I killed a nice tom in Kansas with the same problem. Oh well, they're still a beautiful bird even without the beard, and the meat tastes the same anyway!  my early morning tom laying right where he fell  Hunt Conclusion I'm writing this part on Friday. I had every intention of going out again this morning (Friday morning) and trying to get my 2nd Missouri turkey, but in the middle of the night on Thursday I got some sort of stomach virus and spent a good part of the night feeling very ill. When my alarm rang at 4:30 this morning I felt awful and decided not to go out, so that's the end of this Missouri Turkey Live Hunt. I wanted to get more good live turkey photos for this hunt, but when the moment of truth came, my gun, not my digital camera, had my full attention. Check back to www.huntinfo.com starting this weekend for another Spring Turkey Live Hunt, this time from Kansas.
Joshua Flournoy owns and manages the Livehunts.com web site. Joshua resides in east Texas with his wife and four children. |
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