On May 4, 2010, Jerome and I got up at 2:30 am and headed out the door to our favorite spot to turkey hunt, this is our fifth year of getting my bird from this piece of property. We walked under a star lit sky with a half moon shining giving us great light to our place of set up. We were set up at 3:40 am and snoozed until 4:30 am when we heard a hen start yelping instead of hearing some gobbling. The fun began when Jerome started sassing back and got her all riled up and mad. She was the boss hen and she did a lot of talking.

At 5:00 am we heard some gobbling which were some Toms but when they got off the roost they followed the boss hen into the field away from us. Jerome tried to get the Toms to come to us but they stayed with her. She kept talking and Jerome kept sassing back but the Toms wanted nothing to do with us. I was getting discouraged but Jerome said don’t give up I can call in some more birds.

At 5:45 am Jerome looked to his right and sure enough three Jakes that was behind us came in running to our decoys. The Jakes were leery of the decoys so they came within 5 ft. of us and did not know we were laying there! We did not have any cover other than the long grass; we were lying on our stomachs spread eagle. They were so close you could hear them breathing and putting, I thought they were going to kick our butts. They stayed there for about five minutes which seemed longer but they finally moved along, we have never had turkeys come in that close before! I had my head down the whole time and was shaking so hard but Jerome kept an eye on them for me and at one time they were looking eye to eye. They still did not know that we were humans and that I was going to whack one of them.

The Jakes finally walked away eating as they were heading towards a corn field. At 40 yards away I shot one of them from behind. It was not a big Tom like I wished but being beside my husband calling in the birds for me was all worth the exciting hunt. None of the hunts we have done together has ever been the same! The temperature was perfect, the sun rise was spectacular and I found a four leaf clover, how can it get any better than that.

I shot a 15 lb. Jake that had a 3 inch beard and ¼ inch spurs. I used a 12 gauge shot gun with a super full turkey choke using a 3” magnum, #4 shot. Jerome set up the shotgun for me with a 4X power shotgun scope that works great for fast target acquisition.