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Bob Dombeck
05-13-2011, 07:27 PM
I finally got lucky and took my first WI gobbler on May 4th at 5:50am.
Very exciting as he was gobbling off the roost as soon as we left the vehicle. He pitched down about 75 yards from me and gobbled constantly but didn't want to come in to my dekes. I was using a mounted hen and a plastic jake but he just stayed at that distance and paralleled me. I then saw a hen pitch down about 125 yards from me in the direction he was heading and I thought it was all over. She yelped a few times so I did also and she liked that. There were actually three hens when they crested the little rise in the field. Two of them actually flew over the barbed wire fence to come into my dekes so that was great. As they left him he just stood there for a minute as if to say " hey where are you going, I'm right here" Then he slowly started to follow them. About that time I had another hen fly right over my blind from behind me. I could hear the wings coming and she dropped right in with the other hens.
I let him get to about 25 yards and pulled the trigger. He tipped over and the hens never even left for about another 5-10 minutes.
Very odd as he did not have any visible beard. I have heard of this but have never seen it in person. I've heard this may happen due to it freezing off etc. He weighed 21lbs.
I was using my 12ga. VH 28" bbls. choked .037 each barrel and used Kent Matrix 2 3/4" 1 1/8oz. #5 shot.
Here's a couple of pics.

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii1/Parker-VH/DSCN0305.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii1/Parker-VH/DSCN0307.jpg

Dean Romig
05-13-2011, 09:41 PM
Yup, could have stuck to the ground in a freezing rain... at least that's what I hear. The beard won't simply freeze off, it has to freeze to something and then the bird rips it off trying to get unstuck.

Where I hunt you cannot shoot a tom with a beard shorter than 3".

Larry Frey
05-13-2011, 09:43 PM
Congradulations Bob,
That is a great looking bird and it sounds like a very exciting hunt. At 25 yards are you sure you didn't blow that beard clean off?:)

charlie cleveland
05-13-2011, 11:48 PM
nice bird glad you got him..ive seen the no beard thing in mississippi before..heard some weierd ideas why the beards fall off...our legal beard lenth is 6 inches...good storey and you gave all the facts us turkey hunters like to here... thanks charlie

Richard Flanders
05-14-2011, 11:52 AM
Nice story, bird, and gun Bob. I have a question for all the turkey guys... how long does it take and how do you pluck those monsters?? They look like it would take a chainsaw to clean them...

Bob Dombeck
05-14-2011, 01:10 PM
Plucking is not too bad. I use a turkey fryer with water in it brought up to about 140 degrees. Dip the bird for about 30 seconds and it really helps the feathers pull out much easier.

charlie cleveland
05-14-2011, 07:09 PM
for me with bad hands to pluck one for the oven it takes me a good hour to pluck and clean the bird....now if you skin the bird for deep frying no feathers to pluck just pull skin and feathers off together..maybe 15 minutes this way but still the cleaning part...much easier for me to skin the bird but for cooking in the oven the lady folks like them plucked... charlie

Marc Retallack
05-14-2011, 08:05 PM
Charlie

Roasting bags do a decent job if you want to make a skinned turkey in the oven. Not quite as good as one with the skin on but they come out pretty tasty all the same.

Cheers
Marc

Rich Anderson
05-15-2011, 11:46 AM
Nice bird Bob congratulations.

charlie cleveland
05-15-2011, 09:26 PM
never tried the roasting bags will have to follow up on this tip.. thanks mark.... charlie

calvin humburg
05-17-2011, 08:21 AM
Good en Bob and a nice picture. And good job for cleaning him right. Good job to all who don't take the easy way out (cutting out the breast).

Dean Romig
05-17-2011, 10:19 AM
Oops... that leaves me out.

charlie cleveland
05-21-2011, 07:12 AM
gotta be some more turkey hunters out there with a good storey..... charlie

Dean Romig
05-22-2011, 08:57 PM
Just returned from Vermont this evening. I couldn't get out hunting until this weekend and I normally get there for the May 1st opener. This morning I had a gobbler yelling his authority all over the scrubapple hillside but the trouble is that he was nearly a half mile away and with the beaver pond studded creek between us it just wasn't going to work. I gave him a short series of yelps and he clammed up and never spoke another word. I guess the hens are all 'nested up' now and a yelping hen is just out of place now.
I hiked back to camp and Jamie and I had some breakfast but we were keeping an eye on a tom and a hen diagonally across a 40 acre cornfield. The hen was in the harrowed cornfiels (too wet to plant yet) and the tom was in the timothy grass adjacent to the cornfield. They were about 30 yards apart. I decided to sneak down the gravel road bordering the upper side of the field and then cut down across the cornfield hoping to catch them in one of the low-lying spots where they were hidden from me.
I pulled off the sneak pretty flawlessly except when I got down to the bottom the turkeys were gone. I decided to try the knee deep timothy in case they were hunkered down waiting for me to pass by. So I zig-zagged through the timothy and I could see their fresh trails in the still dewy grass but I about gave up after a while. I was just about to head beck to camp when I decided to try a section about forty yards farther on. Suddenly the tom flushes like a cock pheasant from 25 yards away... I felt like yelling "ROOSTER"!! It was a right to left quartering shot. I could see he had about a six-inch beard so I swung through and fired the right barrel (full choke just like the left one) and missed. I led hum too much in my excitement... I hastily fired the left barrel and shot right over top of him and that's the way my turkey hunt went this year :banghead:

charlie cleveland
05-22-2011, 09:21 PM
those old big turkeys are harder to hit flying than about anything ive shot at flying....thats a good storey makes us fellows not to feel so bad when flub up...were was your cly bore gun when you need it.... charlie