And over so soon too. I have never hunted turkeys until today, when my 2 week private land license was legal. Seen them while waterfowling, hunting deer and squirrel, and especially on the many farms where I enjoy shooting woodchucks and barn pigeons off season.
One good farm in my Co., where I have had the privilege of hunting/shooting for nearly 25 years, spotted some in picked over corn fields that border a nice beaver pond, which is always good in the Fall for waterfowling. Lotsa Wood ducks, so lotsa oaks and heavy cover- also good for deer (but I hunt in Northern MI in the Club Counties) so I pass that, also it is shotgun zone for deer and I prefer the scoped 30-06!
So i bought a senior license ($6.00) and reloaded some older blue paper Peters pie crimped duck loads- No. 2 lead- stuffed them with 7 & 1/2 chilled Lawrence antimony shot, recrimped the pie crimps, and decided to see if i could "bushwhack" a Gobbler-
No calls, no decoys, just like most of my waterfowling, and all my deer and varmint hunting with rifles, pick a known spot and wait- and use Camo.
Someone once asked me how it was that I kill so many crows in the late winter and into spring- special calls? special choke or shot loads? No, my secret weapon is a full camo face net, plus I follow the sunglasses mantra taught by the late Gunny Long T'ran-- that being- NO diddy-bop shades- all black no glare frames. And if you wear prescription glasses, that also applies.
We had heavy frost Sun night, so I lingered over coffee with my farmer friend- discussed the coming Morel pickin' season, steelhead fishing- I got out to the brushy corner where the 88 acre picked corn field sits, took my seat- camo everything, gloves too- and like the frames of my Ray-Bans, the grommets on my Trish Setter boots were rubbed with a flat black Magic marker-
About 10:45- 5 mph NW breeze, some crows and woodies flying, I saw three black humpies over in the far corner, along the old rusty fence- and I guess the spot right, as they were headed for the seep creek about 40 yards from where I sat-like a rock--one of the black humpies had abig shiny red wrinkled head- the other two "ladies" wore drab-- Had to wait until the hen moved ahead of her Paramour- put the front bead on the ventilated rib on my personal "Bo-Whoopie" snicked the safety foreward, and touched the front trigger on the Big 12 2E 32" Nitro steel barreled double that was made in Fulton, NY- the Gobbler jumped up from the impact, and I gave him the second barrel- both a full choked and the gun has 3" chambers, but is NOT a Longrange-
End of story- beginner's luck? You betcha. I stopped at the Parnell Party Store for some Ice tea and decided to buy a Lottery ticket-Sorry it wasn't a Parker, my 12 30" F&F PH has Twist barrels and ain't no way I'm gonna shoot Express loads in that- at least for now. Come Fall, I might.
Oh yeah- wasn't "Duck Soup" a Marx bros. movie???