Got out of work early yesterday... Take a nice little ride home, takin it wasy. Drive by one of my permission farms and there is 3 toms in full strut... WWWWHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA Floor the gas pedal in the focus to get home and get my stuff, get back to the farm birds are still there, 20 yrd off a deep ditch. I got in the ditch 1/2 mile down the road from the turks, water is over my knee boots of course... FInally after a LOOONG sneak im within 50 yards of a mature gobbler HE is in full strut 5 yrds off the woods, bout to go into the woods, i quick crawl up the bank, to the edge of the field get up, put my elbows on my knees and get the gun solid, bird is strutting away from me. PUCK PUCK on the mouth call, he sticks his head up WHAM... Knocked the puddin out of em, get up and go out there to see other birds flyin away and all of a sudden the SOB gets up and takes off runnin, now its a foot race, im runnin through a chisel plowed field with 80lbs of water in each boot... Imagine how well that worked, well it didnt and i ate crap, shoved my gun into the ground about 4 inches and lost sight of the tom in the brush.......... I gave him about 20-30 minutes and searched the whole woods as good as i could and never found em... I was pretty pist, nice mature bird, 11 inch beard for sure... My big boy was with em but the big boy was about 80 yrds out... Hes got 3 beards, for SURE 20 inches of beard on em... Give em another week or two to settle down and that guy is gonna be dinner!!!!!! This is the first turkey in 5 yrs that i shot at and didnt fold up on the 1st shot........
Pry a good thing that i didnt get a follow up shot tho... When i got back to my truck and unloaded my gun, i inspected my barrel... Yup, about 6" of the end of my barrel was jampacked with dirt....... Woulda surely blown up my barrel and possibly put shrapnle in my face if i took another shot with that dirt obstructing the barrel... Still hate leaving wounded game....... But maybe The Good Lord was saving my face by not giving me a follow up shot!
