Turkey Report

[Phil C]

I called this bird out of a deep bottom in a burn area. I was traveling to my camp site and stopped for a break. Decided to use my box call to yelp a few times and got a response back straight down about 500 yards. Called again and had two gobblers go off, one a little further down the road.
I was parked in the middle of the winding dirt road so I relocated the truck about 100 yards down the road where I could pull off. When I called again the bird that called the first time was clearly making his way up out of the valley. I had brought my VH 20 with 32” barrels along so I grabbed two shells, a few calls and headed back up the road where I had called the first time.
The burn area had very little cover but there was a small current bush on the side of the road. I hid behind it and Yelped a few more times. This time 2 gobblers answered back at about 250 yards. I kept calling every few minutes to encourage them to make the steep climb. By now I had 5 birds going off.
Unfortunatley I had very limited visibility. Five minutes later birds gobbled at about 40 yards and I got a glimps of a bird. Shortly a hen appeared in front of me at about 8 yards, putting and looking around. Suddenly off to my left a gobbler stuck his head up from behind a rock. I quickly shot and he bounced high mutiple times down the hill finally coming to rest against a downd pine. With that two other gobblers took to the air. At about 15 yards. The bird I estimate is a 3 year old and is an average size bird. I think the picture makes the bird look much larger.
My 20 gauge is choked Full and Full and has factory 2 7/8” chambers. I was shooting 3” shells with 1 7/8 oz of a 5,6,7 blend.