4/13 It started Thursday evening when Lucas and I went out and roosted turkeys where I planned to hunt the next morning. The next morning we were out early, well before the first hint of daylight. There was a full moon and the turkeys were already gobbling. We set up the decoys, video camera and waited. At first light Lucas gave'em a few yelps on one of his slate calls that he made to let them know we were there. They would gobble right back to him. We gave a few imitation fly down sounds and a few more yelps, they liked that. Lucas called in two hens and one of them walked right up to our decoys and acted like she wanted to fight but didn't.
We waited a few minutes to let them walk on out into the cornfield that we were in and then Lucas started in calling again. In just a of couple minutes there were several heads that appeared over the rise in the field. He was calling the whole darn flock in. They were moving around so much it was hard to count them. One tom, and not the biggest one, spotted our decoys and headed for them. We decided with so many eyes out there that I had better take him as soon as I could. Lucas whispered for me to shoot (meaning he had the camera on them) but if I would have shot at that time I would have hit three toms. The lead tom finally moved over and I shot him. We just stood still and watched them. The turkey I shot was flopping around and several of the toms ran over and tried fighting him. While they were doing this I counted 23 turkeys in front of us. There were 11 toms, 6-7 jakes and the rest were hens. We keep the camera rolling until they all left and went out into the field feeding and strutting.
The turkey weighed 24 lbs. and had a 10 3/4 in. beard.
(4/17) Lucas called in a hen with a 6-7 in. beard. We have a closeup of her on video.
(4/18) About 4:45 am I went to go out on my back deck to see what kind of weather we were going to have when I saw a coyote at the edge of the yard ( due to the night light ) where we had thrown out some food scraps. I slipped back into the house and loaded my 17 HMR, slipped open the door and shot him at about 30 yards. He yelped, spun a couple times, ran about 30 yards out into the field, made three 15' circles and fell over.
He's the biggest coyote I've ever shot. It was a male and weighed 44 lbs. He was a dark colored one.
Well, shortly after this Lucas got up and we were headed out to get him a turkey.
We got out early and slipped into the little creek bottom where the turkeys had been roosting. We set up the decoys and camera and waited for it to get light. When they started gobbling we were right accross the little field from them. Lucas used one of his calls again and called in 4 toms. He shot the strutter of the 4. It weighed 24.5 lbs. and had a 9.5 in. beard.
Now the bad part.
We were driving home about 6:40 am and a 1/2 mile from our house when a deer ran out of the woods and caved in the side of my truck. I looked in the rear view mirror and say the deer flopping and sliding down the road. There was a lot of hair flying in the early morning sunlight. The deer managed to get up and run off. I went back and looked for it, but didn't find it.
I got two estimates on repairing it, one was for a little over $3300.00 and the other one was a little over $3400.00.
4/28 Lucas and I went out this morning, 2nd day of the IL. 4th season to see if I could fill my 2nd permit. I roosted the turkeys last night and we went in before first light and got the decoys and camera set up and waited. We didn't have to wait long before they started gobbling. We were sitting in the edge of a timber that looked out over a newly planted corn field. Just as it started to get light there were 7 deer that came into the field from the creek and started milling around in the field. We watched them for about 40 minutes. They spotted our decoys and decided to investigate. They came within 20 yards of our decoys which were about 8 yards in front of me. Finally they left the field.
We were planning on giving some imitation fly down sounds, but there were several crow roosted right up behind us in the trees that we didn't know were there. They started cawing and thrashing around making a lot of noise which probably didn't help our cause.
Shortly after they left Lucas called a Jake right into the decoys. He would look them over and leave only to go about 20 ft. and come right back to them. He did this 4 times and finally Lucas made some fighting sounds to get him to leave so we could change locations since one group of turkeys went north and one went south.
We sneaked up over a hill in the field and spotted two toms down along the creek that were heading our way. We slipped back down the hill and went along the edge of the field to head them off. I spotted a hen coming around the corner of the field about 80 yards away so we backed up and set up again in the brush. There ended up being two hens and one came as close to me as 5 yards. I let them pass by and here came the two toms behind them. I shot the lead one at 15 steps. He weighed 19 lbs. and had a 9 and 3/4 in. beard.
It wasn't a real big bird, but the hunt was great and we have it all on video.