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04/01/2006	Gobbler	Liberty Hill, SC	Remington SP-10	9:30am	30 Yards
Opening day got off to a wet start. I got up at about 3:00 and opened up the door to my back porch to feel how cold it was and was surprised to find that it was pouring down rain. Not one to give up on a day's hunt just because it's a little wet outside, I proceeded to get ready as planned, and when I opened up my garage door my new friend Pete was outside waiting for me. Pete is a new addition to the folks in my hunting journal this year. While doing some research on my upcoming African safari, I stumbled across an internet forum dedicated to African hunting. I posted a few notes out there and was surprised to get an email from a fellow who lives right down the road from me. He, like me, is around 40, is a computer programmer, and is thinking about his own safari in the next few years. Today would be his first time turkey hunting. It was still raining when we got down to the lease at around 5:45 or so, but it was starting to taper off. We drove on out to where I wanted to start hunting and were immediately pleased to see that the logging road I had chosen to walk was torn up from turkeys scratching. We were further pleased when my first owl hoot was rewarded with an answering gobble from a couple hundred yards away. We headed down the road, occasionally owl hooting, but the turkey never answered again. As it got a little bit lighter, we tried some yelping and a fly-down call, but still no luck. Giving up on the first logging road, we headed a little farther into the lease and got on the next trail. My yelps here were rewarded with something that sounded like the first note of a gobble then abruptly stopped. Again, no more sounds emerged from this area. Next we decided to try a food plot, and as we turned down the road that leads to that particular field we spotted two turkeys about 100 yards off to our right. We couldn't tell what they were, so we made a long stalk through the woods but when we got up to where they had been the turkeys were gone. I'm pretty sure they were hens, so we gave up on them and went on over to the food plot. No luck there, and I was quickly running out of ideas. I decided to head us over to where Ted had killed his two jakes in one shot last year. We set up about 40 yards apart, and I did a couple of yelps, a series of cutts, and then shut up completely. We sat quietly, waiting for something to happen. After about 15 minutes, I heard a sound in the woods to my left. I jerked my head around and saw two red turkey heads starting to run away. I couldn't see the beard on the first one, but on the second bird I saw a good sized one so I raised my 10 gauge and fired. The turkey fell to the ground while his partner took to the air. I looked over toward Pete hoping he would get a shot, but the bird was gone before he got the chance. We ran over to mine and put him down with a close range head shot. Turned out to be a 19 pound gobbler with a ten inch beard and one inch spurs. We took some pictures, then went over to the grill to get something to drink. Debating on whether or not to go ahead and clean the bird immediately, I called Arnold to tell him about it and learned that he had killed his own turkey this morning. That sealed the deal. We drove over to his house, exchanged congratulations about our turkeys, cleaned mine, then went into town for lunch. After a quick meal at Little Al's in Heath Springs, we decided to give the Briarpatch a quick look around. We stalked down to the bottom field, which is usually full of turkeys, but today is was empty. Giving up on this lease pretty quickly we went back over to Liberty Hill and made three or four more stands, but saw nothing the rest of the day (other than a couple of hens on the side of the road).

04/01/2006

Gobbler

Liberty Hill, SC

Remington SP-10

9:30am

30 Yards

Opening day got off to a wet start. I got up at about 3:00 and opened up the door to my back porch to feel how cold it was and was surprised to find that it was pouring down rain. Not one to give up on a day's hunt just because it's a little wet outside, I proceeded to get ready as planned, and when I opened up my garage door my new friend Pete was outside waiting for me.

Pete is a new addition to the folks in my hunting journal this year. While doing some research on my upcoming African safari, I stumbled across an internet forum dedicated to African hunting. I posted a few notes out there and was surprised to get an email from a fellow who lives right down the road from me. He, like me, is around 40, is a computer programmer, and is thinking about his own safari in the next few years. Today would be his first time turkey hunting.

It was still raining when we got down to the lease at around 5:45 or so, but it was starting to taper off. We drove on out to where I wanted to start hunting and were immediately pleased to see that the logging road I had chosen to walk was torn up from turkeys scratching. We were further pleased when my first owl hoot was rewarded with an answering gobble from a couple hundred yards away.

We headed down the road, occasionally owl hooting, but the turkey never answered again. As it got a little bit lighter, we tried some yelping and a fly-down call, but still no luck. Giving up on the first logging road, we headed a little farther into the lease and got on the next trail. My yelps here were rewarded with something that sounded like the first note of a gobble then abruptly stopped. Again, no more sounds emerged from this area.

Next we decided to try a food plot, and as we turned down the road that leads to that particular field we spotted two turkeys about 100 yards off to our right. We couldn't tell what they were, so we made a long stalk through the woods but when we got up to where they had been the turkeys were gone. I'm pretty sure they were hens, so we gave up on them and went on over to the food plot. No luck there, and I was quickly running out of ideas.

I decided to head us over to where Ted had killed his two jakes in one shot last year. We set up about 40 yards apart, and I did a couple of yelps, a series of cutts, and then shut up completely. We sat quietly, waiting for something to happen. After about 15 minutes, I heard a sound in the woods to my left. I jerked my head around and saw two red turkey heads starting to run away. I couldn't see the beard on the first one, but on the second bird I saw a good sized one so I raised my 10 gauge and fired. The turkey fell to the ground while his partner took to the air.

I looked over toward Pete hoping he would get a shot, but the bird was gone before he got the chance. We ran over to mine and put him down with a close range head shot. Turned out to be a 19 pound gobbler with a ten inch beard and one inch spurs. We took some pictures, then went over to the grill to get something to drink. Debating on whether or not to go ahead and clean the bird immediately, I called Arnold to tell him about it and learned that he had killed his own turkey this morning. That sealed the deal. We drove over to his house, exchanged congratulations about our turkeys, cleaned mine, then went into town for lunch.

After a quick meal at Little Al's in Heath Springs, we decided to give the Briarpatch a quick look around. We stalked down to the bottom field, which is usually full of turkeys, but today is was empty. Giving up on this lease pretty quickly we went back over to Liberty Hill and made three or four more stands, but saw nothing the rest of the day (other than a couple of hens on the side of the road).