all out brawl

[Carolina Counsel]

While I've seen some cool turkey behavior in the past, I had never seen an all out brawl. I've seen the irritated spurring of one another and some chasing, but not to this extent (of course I've also see the flogging of dead birds). Took the two boys, 8 and 13, to a big, 50-70 acre field on Saturday morning where we knew a handful of gobblers were spending time (because we scouted the evening before). No gobbling on the roost, but as soon as the sun started poking up, three hens hit the field about 250 yards away. Got three birds fired up pretty good, two off to one side and one behind us. Shortly thereafter, three jakes came out to join the hens, followed a little later by two nice longbeards. I tried everything to pull the hens to me, but they, and their companions, wanted nothing to do with us. They all seemed to just be hanging out and feeding, with one of the gobblers remaining in strut pretty constantly. It all changed when another longbeard came out from our end of the field. He skirted us at about 45 yards (I am not letting kids shoot that far), ignoring my pleading and barreling toward the party in the middle of the field. As soon as he got there, he went into full strut, then all hell broke loose. The hens hightailed it as soon as the flogging started. For the first few minutes, the three longbeards jumped in the air at one another trying to spur each other. The goofy jakes just stepped back and watched, slowly circling the melee. Then it got really interesting. The flogging stopped and the two strutters went chest-to-chest, pushing each other and wrapping their necks around the other's neck for several minutes. After a while, they just resumed feeding and slowly filtered off, following the hens back into the woods. I hoped I could pull one of the non-boss birds to us, but I couldn't even get them to gobble. I told my boys that this was an awesome opportunity to see turkeys turkey even though we didn't get to kill one.

Unfortunately, I continued to show the boys how best to screw up on minimally-gobbling birds for the rest of the weekend, screwing up three different attempts to circle and close on three different birds. It sure is hard when a) the gobblers are henned up pretty much all day; and b) they just won't gobble. Had fun anyways. Thought I would share since this site has been so slow.

Feel free to toss in a story about cool turkey fights you've seen before.

[Sasha and Abby]

Good story

[darealdeal]

Good story!
Saturday before the season started this year got to watch around 15 birds from my living room window. 4/5 hens the rest all chasing each other and fanning. Watched this while drinking coffee for about an hour.

[Calibogue]

I've only seen what you just witnessed one time and it was badass!
Kudos to you for not putting a jake or strutter in the field and having your boys double up on gobblers with no opportunity to take the win.
Sometimes, it's OK to lose!

[Calibogue]

I've only seen what you just witnessed one time and it was badass!
Kudos to you for not putting a jake or strutter in the field and having your boys double up on gobblers with no opportunity to take the win.
Sometimes, it's OK to lose!

[FULLCHOKE]

Funny you post about fighting. I also have never really witnessed a good one until the past few days. I’ve been on 3 same gobblers since Saturday evening. Two of them can not stand the other one.

Saturday evening, witnessed a pretty good fight at about 100yds, they all separately went to roost, I marked the trees, and I thought to myself that it was a done deal in the morning.

Sunday morning: Snuck in two hours early and got right in the middle of them. Like under the master bed middle of them. Haven’t done that in a while but this piece of property has been slammed lately and I wanted to kill one as soon as he hit the ground. Bird one hits the ground at 50 yards, following a hen that had roosted nearby. He goes into strut for the hen, and as soon as he does the other two pitch down and immediately go to battle. It was the two versus one. They fight in a bottom for over an hour at about 60-100 yards. Fighting purrs, flogging, jumping up in the air and floating down, you name it, I saw it. Gobbling their heads off, but didnt care one bit about hens or calling. Well, unbeknownst to me, another hunter snuck in completely silent (probably to the gobbling and the racket). The birds still fighting drift to the edge of the bottom and bang, he shoots, but misses. Within 100yds of me. Birds run off, gobbling their whole way out of there. I laid low and didn’t want him to know I was there, he got up and walked out. I was pretty bummed but stayed out and ended up following them around all afternoon and roosted one of the three yesterday evening.

This morning: Only one gobbling, the one I roosted. Had a good setup but wasn’t as aggressive to his roost. He gobbled okay on the tree, hits the ground and acknowledges me. We’re within probably 200 of each other. For the next three hours I watch as he slowly slinks in, only gobbling every once in a while but directly at me. I’ve never seen a gobbler sneak like this before. He was almost hunched over, head low as he walked through the bottom. He’s only move a yard or two at a time. He finally gets to 50 yards, and I think to myself that it’s almost over. I haven’t called in about an hour, and he fires off a couple gobbles right at me. Out of nowhere, the two birds from the day prior (I presume) appear trotting through the bottom and flog him. He tucks tail and runs after a quick beating and they follow. I was pretty bummed and had no motivation to chase them any more and deal with all that.

Like you said, it was awesome to just watch turkeys turkey.

Left that property, ate lunch and came to a new piece. Struck up a gobbling bird a couple hours ago, we’ll see what happens. It’s nice to not worry about them and have a fresh bird to hunt though.

[PharmHunter]

Good stuff.