...someone's going to be a full body mount. And since we need ad rep Tom Cross in good shape at the Turkey & Turkey Hunting offices, the tom is bound for the taxidermist.



Here's what happened earlier this week according to Tom:

After two evening hunts of hardly seeing a bird in my secret honey hole, I asked my friend J.P. what’s up with the birds. He said something has them spooked, and they are all on the east end of the land. Well, the east end of the land is a long walk.

The next morning I got up extra early and headed east. After a long walk, I made a few locator calls to find the birds. To my surprise, the gobblers were not on the east end. They were on the west end, where I was the last two evenings. 

So after a really long half trot, half run, I was back to where I started. I located the toms with a couple yelps. They were in a perfect spot, and did not see me set my decoys.  I set them so the toms would have to walk past me to get to my Pretty Boy and my three hen decoys dressed in A-Way Turkey Skinz.
 
After a few calls while the toms were still on the roost, I took my hat and slapped against my leg to make it sound like a bird flying down of the roost. After a minute or two the birds pitched down, but onto the upper hay field. 
   
I could see four hens making their way down the edge of the wood line. I could just make out a fan through a couple trees. With a quick readjustment of my sitting arrangement, I was left laying on my back with a log to prop up my gun.


   
The toms met up with the hens in a narrow finger of the hay field that led directly to my set of decoys. I didn’t call again, fearing I would be busted. I wasn’t hidden very well.  The two toms saw the decoys. They looked excellent with the Skinz. The two toms left their hens and started toward me. I couldn’t believe it.

At this point, the toms were 125 yards away. The boss tom strutted and gobbled a few times and closed 45 yards. The subordinate tom, which had the reddest head I have ever seen, helped me out when he got about 10 yards in front of boss tom. That triggered something in the boss tom. Both came running. I love the waddle they do when they are running with that big ol’ beard swaying side to side. 

At 25 yards, I put the bead on them. But they are too close to each other. If I pulled the trigger, I feared injuring the other. They slowed down, but the stump from the tree was now in the way and I couldn’t see the birds. I just hoped the blue head would be the first head past the the end of the log.

It was.

I quickly moved my gun over and laid on my back. I put the bead on his head and pulled the trigger. Poof! The big boy was dead.

I apologized to the other tom for taking out his friend, but reminded him he was the boss now as he slowly walked away.
   
My bicep was really sore since I never really shouldered the gun, but I didn’t care. The big boy was laying on the ground.

After further inspection the bird had 1½” spurs and weighed 22lbs. 12 ounces. It was my biggest spurred to date.



After a big thank you to J.P. and a few pictures, I was on the way to show the bird to my family. My wife, out of the graciousness of her heart, is allowing me to do a full body mount!

Turkeys are amazing creatures, able to adapt to a number of environments and situations. As these pictures show, not even being impaled by a stick can slow a turkey down. Take that cockroaches!

Source: cjonline.com

“Addicted” might have negative connotations in some references, but not when it comes to turkey hunting for 81-year-old Earl Groves. More than 50 years after hearing his first gobble he’s still loving every minute of it and can’t get enough.

“I really don’t know why I went the first time which was back in 1958 or so,” said the Gastonia, N.C., resident, just a couple months shy of turning 82. “I had a good friend that I used to fish with in the Florida Keys and he asked me about going turkey hunting and I did and I’ve been doing it ever since.

“We didn’t have any turkeys then (in North Carolina) and about the only place that had any turkeys was south Florida and that’s where I started,” said Groves. “There wasn’t but about a half-million turkeys in the whole country when I started.”

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Source: Star Tribune

Abigail Teschendorf just turned 12 and has been hunting turkeys for only two years.

But on Sunday, the Lino Lakes sixth-grader calmly bagged a record gobbler -- with a dead-on shot using a bow and arrow.

Hunting with her father, John, in Anoka County, Abigail shot a tom that strutted within 7 yards of their blind.

Using the weight and beard and spur lengths, the bird scored 81 points under the National Wild Turkey Federation's scoring system -- making it the highest-scoring Minnesota bird taken by a bow and arrow of the seven currently registered with the federation. And it's the eighth highest-scoring Minnesota gobbler overall in the NWTF's records, which includes about 200 Minnesota birds.

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by Jacob Edson, F&W Media Outdoors Editor

Hunters are this nation's top conservationists. Last year alone, hunters
contributed $721 million to wildlife conservation. Hunting license fees and
special taxes on hunting equipment fund state game and non-game management
programs, preserving and improving millions of acres.

This morning, for Earth Day, I did my part and collected the "greenest" meat
I could find. No hormones. No pesticides. And best of all, the money I paid
for all that scrumptious turkey meat went to the Wisconsin DNR for wildlife
management, not a wealthy chain store owner.

Of course, watching that gobbler strut and gobble for 10 minutes was a nice
little bonus. My hands are still a tad shaky.

So celebrate Earth Day. Go hunting.

Source: knoxnews.com

Talk about a whirlwind week for Bruce and Rene Thompson.

First you go to Jamaica, which is good. Then you get married, which is even better. Then after you've spent the best part of the week at a snazzy resort you ... hop on a plane and get back to East Tennessee in time for opening day of turkey season.

A lot of women would think they were in the Twilight Zone.

Rene Thompson thinks she's in heaven.

After dating for roughly a year-and-a-half the couple, who live in Louisville, decided to tie the knot when they figured out things didn't get much better. In 18 months, Rene and Bruce had been on a turkey hunting trip (he got one, she just went along to watch), went deep sea fishing (she caught a 6-foot-1 blacktip shark), deer hunted together (this past season she killed two), went on her first hunt for shed antlers (she found one) and finally decided to get married.

Throw in a mutual love of camping and four-wheeling and the couple figured they would always have something to do.

They got engaged. She booked the trip to Jamaica. He wondered how close it was to opening day of turkey season.

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By Jacob Edson - F+W Outdoors Editor

I just returned from my first turkey hunt of the season. I'm proud to
report that Mississippi treated me pretty well, serving up my very first
double-bearded tom.

This particular bird seemed to be one of those tough Mississippi
toms we all hear about. On the first morning of the hunt, he was one of
the few birds that gobbled well. However, the swollen Noxubee River had
backed up into several ditches, preventing any approach.

The next morning, my guide and I heard him again. Recognizing that this was
the same bird, we decided to execute an extreme end around. We drove
several miles around the property to come at the bird from the "right" side
of the ditch. Problem was, when we got there, the bird had already shut up
and refused to honor any of our hen talk. We did find him though – on the
wrong side of another creek!

We could hear him drumming just 60 yards across the backed-up flow. By the
time we made it to a crossing with our HuntVe 4x4, the tom was long gone.
However, his tracks revealed this was one of his favorite hang outs.



We decided to wait him out. And at 6:05 p.m. the old Mississippi longbeard
returned. I had been watching a hen peck in the swamp behind me, but I was
able to slowly swing my Knight KP1 into position. When the tom reached 35
yards, a 3-inch load of No. 4s sent him tumbling into what must have been the
biggest mud puddle in Noxubee County.

Not only was it my first double-bearded tom, but my first afternoon gobbler
to boot!

The Turkey Call Webinar is tonight. For those last-minute attendees, click here to register. You've got 45 minutes!