I knew better than to reply to Full Choke’s missing thread! I happened upon 4 turkeys in the SE leg of the Co-Vid turkey tour...chose the wrong one as they were getting gone and shot a jake...oh well, it’ll eat just fine. That afternoon, I call in and promptly missed a studly gobbler. Today in IN, I leave my spot to go hunt some morels, find about 50, go back to my spot, and 4 giant old Toms were in the field. I sneak around to get in front of em, coax them to ~40 before one spots me...I draw down on one that hadn’t gotten squirrelly yet...and miss twice. Birds haul ass around a field corner, and I think I might run into them if I ease down the little road inside the wood line. I do. First darts across road, second same. Third pops out and gives me a good shot. Benelli click, as I guess something snagged my bolt in the jaunt from miss 1 spot. I slam it home and draw down and shoot as bird drops into dip in road I didn’t anticipate or see...miss 2...this one at 25. As I stand there with an empty gun and other shells not in vest but back in truck where my bud who borrowed them Monday left them...bird 4 pops out on road at 10 yards the runs straight away for 15 before dropping into the dip and disappearing. Walk back to truck...get shells, decoys, camera. Walk back. Set up. Call. I heard I stand gobble. 5 minutes later he blows my doors off at60 yards. I talk back. He talks back. I turn on camera and position and go silent. He walks out at~20 and will walk into frame at 15 where I’ll roll him. He gets just about there and doesn’t like something he is seeing with the decoys. He then hauls ass to 25ish and I’m able to get “on” him. I’ve removed back sight thinking it was causing me to miss high. Line him up...pull trigger...he flys off. I’m about as pissed as can beat this moment, so I sit stewing for 30 minutes. As I get up to call it quits, I see a smaller bird 200 yards off enter the field but it has no desire to come to the shooting range. I belly crawl to a ditch...belly crawl in the ditch. Finally get as close as I can make it. It’s going to be a poke, but I finally have a bird with head up and still with the three dots (put the back sight back on after the last miss) at base of neck. Boom. It rolls and flops. As I get close, I realize it’s a friggin hen. Shot was 50-55 yards. I tought I saw a beard from 200 thru the binos, but nowIm getting worried. I knew the bird didn’t look right, butI saw a beard right?! Grab her by the neck and sure enough, beard. I’ve only seen one bearded hen, and it did not have a rope...this was a pretty damn good beard for a tranny. Still...5 shells fired prior to that I got him freaking air. Dammit full choke...I knew as soon as I hit reply that I had put the low-down voodoo jinx on myself. I’ll post pics when I get to a computer...probably post the video too.
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