It was a cool cloudy evening and the day before Alabama’s opening day of spring turkey season. I had sat down at the dinner table to think out my first morning’s strategy of how I was gonna outsmart a turkey that had been busting my butt wide open for the past two years. This turkey wasn’t just a two year old bird anymore and he had outwitted me the last two seasons.
I had been scouting this one boss gobbler for the last three weeks and the mornings were shaping up just right for a perfect opening day of spring turkey season. As I bowed my head over my little bit of grub that I had sat aside for dinner I asked the good Lord for thanks for letting me have what I had. I had also asked him for a chance at that gobbler, that had been laying the smack down on me for the past two seasons. My prayer went like this. “Dear Lord thank you for this day and bless me the turkey hunters way Amen.”
Maybe I should have asked him to look down on me with a great big smile and hold everyone back while I eat a while. But to my luck there was no one else in camp but me. I just had this gut feeling that the bird of my nightmares would be in my, fryer by lunch the next day. I ate my food and washed up, and double checked everything needed for the next morning. Can you Imagine that I didn’t get the best sleep that night for the insane reason of worrying about that turkey.
I knew what tree he was in and I also knew that he didn’t have the first hen within 500 yards of him. He was a loaner and a smart one at that. He didn’t live to see five years old for being stupid and dumb. I had only made four shots at this turkey in the past two years and had missed him all four times. This season was gonna be different and I could feel it deep down my spine all the way to my toes.
The night had passed and the alarm rang at exactly at 3 am. I had to make sure I was gonna be in the woods one hour before sun up with my gun and box call in hand. As I grabbed my coffee and my coat, I headed out the door and I had my first whiff of clean air. I stood on the front door step and put me a pinch of snuff in my lower lip and climbed into the camp buggy headed to the one spot that was gonna give me that chance to kill that bird dead.
Sun was to rise at 6:16 am and I was under my tree and standing at 5 am. Everything was so calm that you could hear things walking through the woods from a mile away. I placed another pinch of snuff in my lip about 5:45 am and the first sound of gobbling shook me, and nearly blew my hat off my head. That was him OK and he was very close. Almost too close that I know he could have heard my heart pounding in my chest. “thump” “thump” “thump” I didn’t know how much I could take of it so I spit what snuff out that I hadn’t, already swallowed and took a deep breath and bellowed out the perfect owl sound that I had in me.
That darn gobbler double gobbled, and even triple gobbled at me and then went silent. 6:30 am there he go’s again no more than 40 yards from me and still in that big southern pine no more than 20 feet up. If you were to be sitting above him in a stand you could have spit on him and put his eye out. I took one deep breath and he pitched down no more than ten yards from me. As soon as he hit the ground it was too late for “em”.. The trigger was pulled and I had done what I set out to do and that was to kill a bird that was out to take me down for a third year.
Did you know that every time you hear a turkey tale the bird always weighed over 20 lbs and had over 1 inch spurs and he always has a beard that is over 12 inches. Well how bout this one for size. The bird in this story had two beards and both were over 13 inches long, he weighed 26 lbs and sported 2 inch spurs on both feet. Too bad this was my tall tale huh. I wish I could have seen that bird in real life.
So what did ya think? I hoped you enjoyed reading my Tall Tale of “The Gobblers Last Season” as much as I enjoyed making it up for you to read. Remember dreams always come true in Tall Tales. I hope to bring you more stories like this in the Tall Tales section of Hello Hunting. So visit daily and keep clicking.