Well all in all i had a good season. Started off early season trying to get my buddy out with the bow, our work schedules were way different then eachothers so we only got out once or twice, one time we got skunked, then the next was over prom... which he had a date... and he had to be ready for pictures by 3:45.... What happens at 2:45... 2 toms at 60 yards not wanting to commit to the calls just strutting. We waited for ever and they never came in and we had to spook them out ALL because he had a fricken date. got good footage though
Then my season roles around and we get skunked for about the first 2 weeks then all of sudden the action picks up but we never could get the birds to do what we wanted them to do. Then the second to last weekend we go to this property and we see tons of deer but not hearing or seeing any thunderchickens. we leave the prop at around 11:30 and on the way home i knew of a different property that we have permission to hunt on and i know this property like its the back my hand. I know what trees they roost in every night. and the guy i was with "filming" me had no clue what to do. so i said lets go over the hill top of this field see whats on the other side then go on from there. I no longer peeked my head over when the camera man grabbed by head and pushed it down and said " theres 4 to 6 toms strutting 400 yards away!" and i took a peek and there was 6 struttin there stuff.
So we hauled back to my car and called the land owner. he said on that side of the field there was a church that we have permission to park at. so we hi tailed over there, parked, loaded, grabbed the camera, and left everything else in the car. we had about 500 yards of shear army crawling through thorns and briors. then once we were around 40 yards off the field i peeked over and they all were still there. and when we were ready to get the camera set up... the screen said ( Battery Depleted).... camera man just tells me we've gone to far to go back to get the battery. so i crawled up another 30 yards and took my head out of the dirt and seen a toms head, no more than 18 yards. pulled the benelli up and when i had it on my shoulder and looked up, he was at 12 yards looking right at me..... neetless to say i gave him a tad bit of remington super magnum turkey load led poisoning! He did a full back flip and piled up right there. The camera man comes up to me after i jumped on the bird and we looked at how big this bird was. he just looks at me and says " you know that this one was the smallest one of the whole bunch, the one strutting right behind him had 3 inches of beard on the ground!" You know what, that just means ill have a fantastic trophy to shoot with the recurve next year haha
Thats the story of this year and my first thunderchicken!
