First Fall Tom with my VH

Quack me up! · 10-22-2009, 10:40 PM

My wife and went on our annual fall Turkey hunt at my relatives land in Wabasha Co. MN last week and I managed to take my first Tom ever in the fall season. I had five toms come in together but they didn't seem to want to come in to my Jake decoy so they stayed out at about 31 yards. I decided to take the first one that seperated from the others and gave him a dose of Kent Matrix 1 1/8oz. #5's. The VH did it's job. It's a 12ga. 28" barrels choked .037 each barrel.
The weather was pretty lousy with rain/snow and temps in the 40's most of the week so I was very happy to even see a Tom as we seem to usually only see Hens and Poults in the fall. It made it even more special as I shot it on our anniversary and I'm very fortunate to have a wife that will spend our anniversary in the turkey woods every year. Unfortunately she didn't get a bird but not for a lack of effort as she sat in the blind every day for nine hours, five days in a row. She did have a hawk come down and knock over her decoy which was a great experience to witness.
I actually think this was the longest distance that I've ever shot a turkey so I was happy to see the Parker was up to the task using relatively light loads.
I'm going to try and attach a couple of pics so bear with me if it doesn't work right away as I haven't done it on this new forum before.

Dean Romig · 10-22-2009, 11:37 PM

Nice work Bob! That's quite a nice set of tail feathers - looks to be a mature bird, not a jake as I had suspected in the first picture.
Hey, I didn't know toms had pointed primaries!?! The only ones I have seen up close is springtime gobblers with the primaries worn right off from using them as outriggers while strutting. Did you weigh him?

Richard Flanders · 10-22-2009, 11:45 PM

Good thing killed that big boy; hed'a likely beat the snot outa you had you missed! Nice bird....

Quack me up! · 10-22-2009, 11:57 PM

Whoops, I thought I had the info. in there. It weighed 20lbs. and had a 6 1/4" beard. 1 1/2 year old bird I'd guess as it only had about 1/2" spurs.

Dean Romig · 10-22-2009, 11:59 PM

So now I'm even more surprised by the full-length fan. That's a dandy bird and he'll eat very well after eating seeds, berries and grasshoppers all summer long.

MarketHunter · 10-23-2009, 04:19 PM

Nice work Bob!

DLH

Mike Grierson · 10-23-2009, 05:04 PM

Congradulations,great looking bird,have never had the optunity to bag one yet.Plenty of deer around but the turkeys are hard to find....Mike