# Victory--my first season, my first bird



## johnnycake (Jul 19, 2011)

The whole story of my first turkey season is one of angst, despair, agony, hope, romance, betrayal, and triumph. But, I don't have the time to fully write it at the moment, so maybe later. 
Long story short, after playing with this tom for the last two weeks and always just not quite being in the right place at the right time, I finaly caught a break yesterday.
After 3 hours of sitting in my meadow, having to kick a trespasser off (in the hour after flydown no less---moron) who 'didn't see the bright orange no trespassing signs every 20 feet', and hearing him shoot 10 minutes later at the bottom of the ridge I was hunting, I was pretty bummed. However, it would appear that he missed, as the gobbler took off up the ridge gobbling away. 20 minutes later, I could hear him in the meadow below me. So I clucked away on my box call, and miraculously he was love drunk enough to come in. Now, I had set up in the back of this meadow based on where I had run into the birds the previous day, as opposed to setting up at the narrow entrance like I usually did. Just my luck, he decided to walk the trail 80 yards away from my set up. He did stop and keep gobbling at my hen decoys, but he just wouldn't commit and continued up the road. My dad and I were sure we had just blown our chance. As he continued to gobble at the top of the ridge we made a plan to sneak up and set up on the top of the clearing, hoping to draw him back down. But, as we got to the top, I spied him sneaking away through the trees. Busted. We headed back to our decoys and decided to try again. As we sat back in our meadow, we could hear him gobbling higher up on the ridge. After 30 minutes of him not budging, we decided to try and circle above him and hopefully find some sort of opening to set up in. 300 yards into our hike, we heard a hunter start hen calling at the bottom of our meadow! At first, we were pretty pissed, but then this guy sounded pretty good! And the tom thought so too! So we decide to set up between the tom and the other hunter. As we got to the edge of the meadow again, we were able to glass back to our decoys we had left, and lo and behold, the hunter was an actual hen! I guess our calling in her turf really pissed her off! She was standing exactly where we had been sitting calling her head off, and the tom was loving it! We tried to guess where he would come down off the ridge, and after a bit of disagreement with my dad, I won out. Good thing too, as where my dad wanted to set up was exactly where the bird came out, 25 yards away from where we settled down. 
He came in, all puffed up, and just before we could take a shot, he turned back into the trees. Depressed we held out hope in our lucky lady, and sure enough, she came through and started calling like crazy! He came right back in and this time, we were able to draw a bead on him. Since neither my dad nor I had ever gotten a bird, I suggested we both shoot to increase our odds of connecting, plus, we could then share "our" bird. My dad had other plans, and "forgot" to take his safety off, and I was the only shooter and that was all that was needed.
He weighed in just under 18 lbs, with an 8" beard and 1" spurs. I couldn't be happier! and now, just need to get my dad a bird!


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## Dunkem (May 8, 2012)

Nice post!


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## longbow (Mar 31, 2009)

Dad forgot to take his safety off did he? Riiiiiight...... He wanted you to have the bird first. That's what Dads do.
Good write-up and congrats on your first turkey!


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## Bears Butt (Sep 12, 2007)

Great story! Congrats on a fine bird!


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## hawglips (Aug 23, 2013)

Congrats on your first bird!


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Wow, that's cooler than the other side of the pillow!

.


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## goosefreak (Aug 20, 2009)

nice! once you get that first bird and a good one at that, its all over from there....HOOKED!


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## silentstalker (Feb 19, 2008)

Congrats!


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## outdoorser (Jan 14, 2013)

Sweet8)


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## johnnycake (Jul 19, 2011)

This has been a real blast, thanks to all the info and help I've gotten here from you guys on the forum, especially for the morning that copple2 came out with me last week. You guys are top notch.


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## copple2 (Jan 23, 2008)

johnnycake, great bird man! All that time you put in paid off! Well done.

copple2


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

I often forget to take my safety off when my kids are tagging along. Congrats!


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