Is roosted roasted?

[hatracked]

Tell ya in the am We filmed big boy strutting on his limb before he closed his eyes tonight. He has no hens .

[jplittlebuck]

most times they are roasted John, unless of course you trip over a log or somthing on your way in, LOL i always seem to catch my best sleep from 70 yards away, waiting for him to wake up, cant tell you how many times in that situation i've been jarred awake by his thunder first morning gobble, because i was dead asleep, LOL good luck with that in the AM!!!
P.S. try not to blind your eyes to much ! LOL

[hatracked]

I think this ones roasted as well. Hes got one place to fly down to a cultivated pactch of new blueberries about 1 acre in size. The exits from the patch that these turkeys are typically willing to use neck down to 10 yards from our gun locations. Short of a miss , me or my son should nail his butt this morning. Theres four more roosted with him that we believe ar jakes but could never get a clean enough look through the leaves to tell. Hes perched center stage to fly right down into that patch and the swamp behind is full of water. Got to be as close to roasted as they get.

Well see film clip at ten.

[SCtrkyhntr]

Looks like there will be turkey for dinner .

[hatracked]

In this case were talking marinated ! ;D

SCturkeyhunter, my son Michael , and myself slipped in this morning and got set up. My son covered the righthand exit of the new blueberry bushes and I covered the left. Behind the birds is a nasty swamp which we knew the birds wouldnt travel through.

At sun up all was quiet for a long time . Too long almost . I figured this for a couple cluck two or three tree yelp hunt , so I was waiting for the tom to roll before I talked to him. Well at 640 all five gobbled pretty much simoultaneously. Everyone was where they were supposed to be and I knew roosted was roasted right then. But there was a twist before it was over.

Two jakes were the first to drop into the field. The flew down out of view of the camera towards my son. Within 30 seconds I saw them easing back towards us and the hen deke. We waited and watched and while I had seen the tom in the tree earlier in the morning I couldnt now. At some point he flew down probably at the base of the tree. I couldnt tell you how the other two got down , we never heard a wing beat out of any of those three.

Ten minutes after seeing the first two fly down I catch movement behind a little older patch of blueberries right in front of us. It was three or foru jakes moving left towards the exit point we figured , but they were in tall grass with only their heads showing.

I watched the first four birds cut through a small opening got my gun ready for number five which had to be the tom. Sure enough after giving me a chance at killing an entire next generation of toms , the four cleared the opening and a big old white head hit the opening. The bird had to lift his head to see the deke , and if it werent for that i doubt we'd ever have seen any of them.

Up comes his head for the thrid time obviously popping in and out of strut. I told Dusty I was going to drop him and he informed me getting it on film was out of the question. He was all out of shape and the birds werent helping. Too late in the season for all that crap so I told him to plug his ears.

I let a load of sixes go at him at 30 yards through two rows of thick blueberry bushes . I had a hole cantelope size all the way to his head and that was more than enough. Like shooting targets at the state fair the target fell over and dissapeared behind the high grass. An occaisional wing flapping let me know he was down.

I get up run over to the bird and take a double take. Here's my bird flopping , all 15 lbs of him sporting his whopping 6 inch beard. In a tragic case of mistaken identity , I shot the wrong bird. LOL Or did I? We really dont know . We were certain there was one tom in the bunch cause we filmed him on the roost and looked at him this morning strutting the tree. Who knows , hes legal, hes dead , and were going to eat him tonight.

[DaveHawk]

Sounds like a great hunt John, Thanks for the story.

[jplittlebuck]

Great story, i was sitting right on the end right till the last wing flapp, Been there before Bud, done the two legged turkey trot, over to what i thought was the biggest Boss on the hill, only to see a little jakes eyeballs wiggleing giving me the OH S**T look !! LOL
Yeah,, the way i look at it, it just gives the big Tom one more year to sharpen up his spurs !!!

[hatracked]

Despite the fact the hunt came up short on spurs , it was an excellent hunt that I wont ever forget. What a great place to hunt , with great hunting buddies as well. Ive had a great time hunting with SCturkeyhntr this year and watching the turkey fever grip , take over, and now transform my son into a turkey hunter has been fantastic. If theres one thing that worries me every season being a guide , it would have to be the fear of missing out on the things that really drew me to turkey hunting in the first place. I didnt miss out yesterday .

[SCtrkyhntr]

It has been a good year so far, we have seen a lot of turkeys die and made some new hunting buddies. Now that we are all carrying guns we got to down a few more before season ends.