Post by bsutravis on Apr 29, 2017 11:58:32 GMT -5
As long as my son and I have been hunting turkeys, we've always dreamed of that perfect scenario where a pair of gobblers come into range and we pull off the, "3-2-1 SHOOT" and drop both birds. Opening day we finally made it happen! After an amazing morning of listening to well over 1000+ gobbles from 4 birds that worked all around us we headed back in for some lunch and a nap before hitting the woods again for the afternoon/evening hunt. I was still setting the Dave Smith hen and white-faced jake about 25 yards out when I heard 2 birds gobble in the same vicinity where we lost track of them earlier in the morning. I rushed back to the blind and I talked back and forth to the birds, but they never wanted to come up into our field. Eventually the gobbling subsided and Kyle and I set in for the typical afternoon hunt of light calling and plenty of waiting. Nearly 3 hours had passed in the sweltering blind since we heard our pair of gobblers when we heard the familiar crunching of leaves off to our right. My son got his Mossberg onto the BogPod, I started the GoPro rolling and then set my Benelli on it's BogPod and we waited.... We saw the first longbeard skirting the field edge at 25 yards, my son could have easily taken it but I told him to wait. I figured he was going to check out the field and then come out. Just then we saw the 2nd longbeard following behind, so then we knew we had a chance for the double-up. The birds were walking away from us and Kyle wanted me to hit the call but I just sat firm and waited. Sure enough the birds emerged into our field behind a clump of trees 50 yards out. The lead bird went in and out of full-strut several times, but the 2nd bird was more hesitant and stayed back a few yards and just watched cautiously. Eventually both gobblers cleared the brush, but the lead strutter just wouldn't cut any distance toward the decoys. In retrospect my white-faced jake was facing away from the gobblers and I feel that perhaps they were intimidated by it, not realizing it was a jake, but instead thinking it was a boss-tom. Kyle repeatedly told me he was on his bird to the right and that we could take the shot. After 4 minutes of the show I figured they weren't going to come on in so we waited for my strutter to turn sideways, and for his bird to have his head stuck out. We almost pulled the trigger when my bird ducked his head so we had to wait for a 2nd opportunity. A moment later the stars aligned and I started the, "3......2.......1......." The sound in the blind sounded like one HUGE shotgun blast, and then it was over. There was a slight moment of, "What happened?" as the birds just dropped... never flopping or flapping a single time after being hit with the 3 1/2" load of #5's from our shotguns. We could barely see the bodies through the yellow cover of the ragwort, but we knew we had been successful in out attempt to double-up! A memory I will truly cherish forever!
My bird: 25lbs - 10" - 1" and 3/4" spurs
Kyle's bird: 19lbs - 10.5" 1 1/8 and 1" spurs
