It all started the night before when my husband and I scouted turkeys on some property we had permission to hunt that belonged to a farmer. We watched eight turkeys roost on an island of pines in the middle of a large field and came up with a plan of how we were going to sneak in close enough without getting seen by the birds. There were five boys and three hens and we were ready to get one of the boys.
We went home and got six hours of rest before getting up at 3:00 a.m. We gathered our gear before walking across the big fields close enough to the island. We had managed to sneak in behind the roosted turkeys and be within 150 yards of the island of pines.
Jerome used two hen decoys attached to fishing line to give the decoys some motion. We sat back in the woods about 10 yards with the decoys about 20 yards out in the field. He also set up some leafy camo cloth in front of us.
We were set up for some action by 4:15 a.m. and by 4:45 a.m. Jerome starting yelping, purring, and clucking. The response was almost immediate and we even heard one of the turkeys doing the fly-down cackle. Jerome started responding with some more calling and that caused the turkeys to move into location. He used his string to make the hen decoys move which brought a hen about five yards in front of us and she did not know we were there. Another hen flew down and walked through the long field. A jake walked by and than another jake came around the corner just clucking away. He got ten yards from us and was clucking, purring, and gobbling being real loud looking for the hens. Another jake came by at about 35 yards and I shot him. I wanted to get the big Tom but he did not appear and Jerome told me not to be too picky. At 5:15 a.m. the hunt was over thanks to good scouting and watching the fly-up of the turkeys.
I used a Remington 870 pump shotgun with a Super Full Turkey Choke with a 3” magnum, copper plated #4 shot. One thing that saved my hunt like many other turkey hunts was a 4 power shotgun scope.
The turkey only weighed 15.1 lbs. with a 3” beard and ½” spurs. It was not the Tom I wanted, but the hunt itself was exciting watching the turkeys play out with my husband's calling and seeing their reaction. Turkey hunting is my favorite hunt out of all the other hunts I do with my husband because you interact with the birds. It was great having my husband beside me and helping me get my bird, now he can rest so next week he can go out and hunt turkeys with his bow.