I love to tell a story. And this one I’ll never, ever forget. I’m sure I’ll repeat it ten-thousand times before I pass on many, many years from now.
As customary whenever I tell a story...put on a pot of coffee.
Go ahead, I’ll wait for you to get back before I begin.
I wake Koy up at 4am. The night before we hunt together sometimes he climbs into bed with my wife and I just so that I don’t forget to take him. A couple of shakes and an encouraging, “Come on, go get a turkey” pat on the behind by my wife and he’s out of bed and putting on his camo.
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A sparse fog hangs just off the meadow like a tattered, grey pall at 5am as Koy and I make our way to our spot on the back corner of our land. It’s a 600 yard walk from the truck and the dewy grass has our pant legs saturated as we settle in on the woods edge. Koy is ten yards to my right against two short saplings. I’m against a thick maple. There are early growth laurel trees in front of us breaking up our outline. I place a hen decoy 20 yards behind me and to the left, right at the corner of the field and tree line.
The sun is edging its way over the tall trees to our left.
At 5:20 the toms start gobbling. One to our left, over the small bass pond and one hundred yards away. One in front of us, 50 yards into the woods. Two to our right, 50 yards into the trees. Another about a quarter mile behind my right shoulder and still another tom 150 yards behind my left shoulder, almost in a direct line to the hen decoy.
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I set up at this same spot two times last week and let four jakes walk on one day. The next day was quiet as a funeral. Today I was lucky, the toms where back gobbling.
We work a tom in from in front of us and another from behind me. They get closer and closer then hold up. I second guess myself for using the decoy and think they’ve held up out of range. At 6:15am two hens fly down into the horse corral. Then two more hens fly in. I thought that might break the single toms loose, but it appears the boys already found a date for the morning. The hens are calling loud and aggressive, so I hammer right back trying to pry a tom loose. Nothing happening. Maybe they spotted us moving a bit as we had come under a fierce mosquito attack.
About 6:30 a tom steps out of the woods across from the bass pond and stops. He came in quiet but won’t take a step forward. He’s about 60 yards away looking at the decoy. That darn decoy! I’m going to really kick myself if we don’t get on a bird because of this decoy. I try luring him over with some kitten purrs and soft kisses. He’s looking and looking and pacing back and forth like an expectant father, but becomes suspicious after 20 minutes and disappears back into the maples.
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Eight o’clock, the birds won’t re-visit this area until later in the afternoon. We head over to the now posthumously named after today’s tom, the “Turkey Kill Highway”, a worn trail on the near side of our land where a thick forest and swamp meet a meadow and a circular clear cut. A trail where the turkeys walk from the woods to the meadow. You’ll always find a handful of feathers, loads of tracks and see scratch marks. The same area where our oldest son Big Bear and I took our first birds. We set up about 50 yards away from that spot under a small oak tree. Koy sits on the left side, I sit on the right.
I’ll give the hen decoy another shot and set her about 35 yards away on a makeshift stake I made from a broken branch after I broke the plastic stake in my haste this morning. Having the hen in this spot gives a tom a good visual from four different directions. Four directions that we’ve previously seen toms come from. I hang a ten foot piece of burlap low to the grass between a tree and low hanging branch. Koy lays his head on the extra burlap and goes to sleep. Quiet. I figure I’ll have to wait till 10 or 11 o’clock till the toms leave the hens for a shot at a bird.
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It’s about 8:30am. I remember what Ray Eye says about calling the birds aggressively and that turkeys are never really quiet. They’re always making some sort of noise. And I figure a tom is never going to walk over here just by luck although they do frequent the Turkey Kill Highway. It’s been my style to be aggressive with my calling and I’ve been on the birds all season that way, give or take a day or two. I’m not going to change it up now.
I do a long series of excited cutting followed up with soft putting and purring. Three minutes later, a hen shows up walking from our left to our right about 30 yards away. I wake Koy up, he sits up but doesn’t have his mask or hat on and I think the bird’s going to see him and bust out, but she doesn’t. She hangs around for five or six minutes and actually stands side-by-side with the hen decoy for a bit listening to my soft calling.
Across the meadow right at the start of the clear cut I see a red head bobbing left to right coming out of the sweet gum trees and ducks into the woods 75 yards away. He never made a sound and I think he’s going to circle around and approach the hen or my calling from our right. So as I’m looking to the right for the tom, here come four jakes through the woods right along Turkey Kill Highway. They stop and look around for a hen about 40 yards away in a six foot clearing between two trees. The actual space is much smaller because of where Koy is sitting a thin, split trunk tree narrows the space to about three feet. I blow them a couple of kisses of cottony soft purrs. They gobble and tap dance with excitement like a virgin groom on his wedding night. One yard closer and Koy has a dynamite shot at one. They run into some cover, but a soft putt brings them back out. A cluck and all four necks straighten out.
![Image]()
I never take my eyes off the birds, but out of my peripheral vision I had expected to see the barrel of Koy’s shotgun come down past my left shoulder. I turn my head and the barrel is pointing straight to the clouds.
“Why the hell is your barrel facing the sky?”
Initially he was facing the opposite way and had to turn to his right and used his shotgun to prop himself up and turn.
“Get your gun up”
Koy: “I’m trying”
“You’re going to blow it! Take ‘em! What are you waiting for?”
Koy: “It won’t work!”
“What won’t work?”
Koy: “It’s not shooting!”
“Is the safety off?”
Koy: “Yeah”
At this point I’m ready to hand him my shotgun.
“Push the forearm forward.”
Koy hears it click, lines up the beads, squeezes the trigger and sends a 2 ½ ounce load of #4 shot 40 yards out of his Mossberg 20ga. The turkey hits the ground flapping his wings. Koy high steps over some down branches. I follow. The bird is hit hard but I tell Koy to put one more in him just to end it quick.
![Image]()
Our youngest son’s first tom. Thirteen and one half pounds. Five inch beard with ¼ inch spurs.
Could these guys be next?
![Image]()
As customary whenever I tell a story...put on a pot of coffee.
Go ahead, I’ll wait for you to get back before I begin.
I wake Koy up at 4am. The night before we hunt together sometimes he climbs into bed with my wife and I just so that I don’t forget to take him. A couple of shakes and an encouraging, “Come on, go get a turkey” pat on the behind by my wife and he’s out of bed and putting on his camo.
A sparse fog hangs just off the meadow like a tattered, grey pall at 5am as Koy and I make our way to our spot on the back corner of our land. It’s a 600 yard walk from the truck and the dewy grass has our pant legs saturated as we settle in on the woods edge. Koy is ten yards to my right against two short saplings. I’m against a thick maple. There are early growth laurel trees in front of us breaking up our outline. I place a hen decoy 20 yards behind me and to the left, right at the corner of the field and tree line.
The sun is edging its way over the tall trees to our left.
At 5:20 the toms start gobbling. One to our left, over the small bass pond and one hundred yards away. One in front of us, 50 yards into the woods. Two to our right, 50 yards into the trees. Another about a quarter mile behind my right shoulder and still another tom 150 yards behind my left shoulder, almost in a direct line to the hen decoy.
I set up at this same spot two times last week and let four jakes walk on one day. The next day was quiet as a funeral. Today I was lucky, the toms where back gobbling.
We work a tom in from in front of us and another from behind me. They get closer and closer then hold up. I second guess myself for using the decoy and think they’ve held up out of range. At 6:15am two hens fly down into the horse corral. Then two more hens fly in. I thought that might break the single toms loose, but it appears the boys already found a date for the morning. The hens are calling loud and aggressive, so I hammer right back trying to pry a tom loose. Nothing happening. Maybe they spotted us moving a bit as we had come under a fierce mosquito attack.
About 6:30 a tom steps out of the woods across from the bass pond and stops. He came in quiet but won’t take a step forward. He’s about 60 yards away looking at the decoy. That darn decoy! I’m going to really kick myself if we don’t get on a bird because of this decoy. I try luring him over with some kitten purrs and soft kisses. He’s looking and looking and pacing back and forth like an expectant father, but becomes suspicious after 20 minutes and disappears back into the maples.
Eight o’clock, the birds won’t re-visit this area until later in the afternoon. We head over to the now posthumously named after today’s tom, the “Turkey Kill Highway”, a worn trail on the near side of our land where a thick forest and swamp meet a meadow and a circular clear cut. A trail where the turkeys walk from the woods to the meadow. You’ll always find a handful of feathers, loads of tracks and see scratch marks. The same area where our oldest son Big Bear and I took our first birds. We set up about 50 yards away from that spot under a small oak tree. Koy sits on the left side, I sit on the right.
I’ll give the hen decoy another shot and set her about 35 yards away on a makeshift stake I made from a broken branch after I broke the plastic stake in my haste this morning. Having the hen in this spot gives a tom a good visual from four different directions. Four directions that we’ve previously seen toms come from. I hang a ten foot piece of burlap low to the grass between a tree and low hanging branch. Koy lays his head on the extra burlap and goes to sleep. Quiet. I figure I’ll have to wait till 10 or 11 o’clock till the toms leave the hens for a shot at a bird.
It’s about 8:30am. I remember what Ray Eye says about calling the birds aggressively and that turkeys are never really quiet. They’re always making some sort of noise. And I figure a tom is never going to walk over here just by luck although they do frequent the Turkey Kill Highway. It’s been my style to be aggressive with my calling and I’ve been on the birds all season that way, give or take a day or two. I’m not going to change it up now.
I do a long series of excited cutting followed up with soft putting and purring. Three minutes later, a hen shows up walking from our left to our right about 30 yards away. I wake Koy up, he sits up but doesn’t have his mask or hat on and I think the bird’s going to see him and bust out, but she doesn’t. She hangs around for five or six minutes and actually stands side-by-side with the hen decoy for a bit listening to my soft calling.
Across the meadow right at the start of the clear cut I see a red head bobbing left to right coming out of the sweet gum trees and ducks into the woods 75 yards away. He never made a sound and I think he’s going to circle around and approach the hen or my calling from our right. So as I’m looking to the right for the tom, here come four jakes through the woods right along Turkey Kill Highway. They stop and look around for a hen about 40 yards away in a six foot clearing between two trees. The actual space is much smaller because of where Koy is sitting a thin, split trunk tree narrows the space to about three feet. I blow them a couple of kisses of cottony soft purrs. They gobble and tap dance with excitement like a virgin groom on his wedding night. One yard closer and Koy has a dynamite shot at one. They run into some cover, but a soft putt brings them back out. A cluck and all four necks straighten out.
I never take my eyes off the birds, but out of my peripheral vision I had expected to see the barrel of Koy’s shotgun come down past my left shoulder. I turn my head and the barrel is pointing straight to the clouds.
“Why the hell is your barrel facing the sky?”
Initially he was facing the opposite way and had to turn to his right and used his shotgun to prop himself up and turn.
“Get your gun up”
Koy: “I’m trying”
“You’re going to blow it! Take ‘em! What are you waiting for?”
Koy: “It won’t work!”
“What won’t work?”
Koy: “It’s not shooting!”
“Is the safety off?”
Koy: “Yeah”
At this point I’m ready to hand him my shotgun.
“Push the forearm forward.”
Koy hears it click, lines up the beads, squeezes the trigger and sends a 2 ½ ounce load of #4 shot 40 yards out of his Mossberg 20ga. The turkey hits the ground flapping his wings. Koy high steps over some down branches. I follow. The bird is hit hard but I tell Koy to put one more in him just to end it quick.
Our youngest son’s first tom. Thirteen and one half pounds. Five inch beard with ¼ inch spurs.
Could these guys be next?
[up]
