Hey,

This is about a week late. I got home and left the next morning at 3:15 a.m. to head to South Dakota on a Mission Trip with a bunch of teenagers. Anyway, here is the story.

My first day of hunting (Thursday, March 23) with a friend named Scotty was exciting. I was in birds all day long, but nothing materialized.

I headed back to my normal spot to hunt in South Carolina the second morning, after hearing a handful of gobbles that sounded like they were in the next county we moved several times trying dry calling set ups for about one hour. At around 10:30 a.m. we decided to try one more field.

At 11 a.m. we sat down on the edge of the field and began dry calling. We decided to stick it out until 11:45 a.m. then slip out for lunch. The hunt was uneventful until 11:35 a.m. we heard a gobble from the pines directly to our left. He hadn’t gobbled at our calls but his gobble seemed to show intent. I moved enough so that I could face the direction the gobble came, and about 6 minutes later he appeared on the edge of the field about 150 yards away. He would trot about 15 yards and stop to half strut. He did this all the way in until he got to about 40 yards and he began to skirt the decoys. When he walked behind our strutting decoy I got my gun up and he got nervous. He turned to slowly leave in the direction he came. He was 18.5 lbs, double bearded 9 inch beard and an 8 ½ inch beard, with 1 inch spurs.

When we were back at the lodge taking photos a friend of mine noticed as I fanned him out his tale was a jake fan. Further inspection would reveal that his feathers had some sort of abnormality that caused them not to mature. I don’t know for sure, but I wonder if that is why he would only half strut as he came into the decoys.



Because I had already killed two turkeys at my normal spot. I asked Scotty if he cared if I tagged along with him again this morning. We went back to the pond where we had worked a gobbler two mornings earlier. He had strutted in a beautiful open area near an abandoned fish house. So we got set up in that area and put the decoys out. We set the decoys closer than we normally would have liked, but the open area made us a little uncomfortable walking away from the pine trees we planned to sit on that morning. The decoys were about 12 yards in front of us.

The birds began gobbling around 6 a.m. and we heard about 5 different turkeys. A couple of them were close, but none inside that area where you feel confident that you have a chance to call them in to your set up.

At around 6:10 a.m. a bird in front of us about 125 yards and slightly to our right pitched out the tree and sailed in front of us across the pond to our left and landed about 200 yards away on the far left corner of the pond on the edge of the damn. As soon as he lit another turkey sailed to him from behind the damn and a third bird pitched straight down on him.

They began chasing each other around and strutting. It was difficult to see them because fog was coming off the pond. We knew that none of the turkeys we had heard gobble were the ones we saw pitch down. These two things combined made us think they were jakes. Scotty and I continued to call to them softly and a bird behind us began to move our way though he was a long way from us.

After a few minutes they began to walk left to right across the damn to our side of the pond. I continued purring and clucking to them. When the reached then end of the damn Scotty told me they began to run behind a small clump of oak trees. I yelped at them and they gobbled. At least one of them was a mature bird. In a moment I would see them running toward us and they actually jump the log like a high hurdler as they approached in a single file line. Scotty said they were jakes, but I told him the first bird was a longbeard. His rope was swinging! It wasn’t long before I realized all three of them were longbeards.

They sprinted the final 80 yards and the bigger of three birds threw the brakes on one yard from the decoys only 13 paces from Scotty and myself, who sat exposed on two bare pine trees with no cover. The third bird was unable to stop himself and he ran past the first two birds and actually ran into the decoy.

As they approached I had told Scotty to kill one then I would try to get a shot. I also reminded myself that they would be inside of 15 yards and to take my time. I believed with my tight choke I would have a better chance of killing one at 30 yards.

The bird that ran into the decoy got nervous so Scotty made his move to shoot. I heard him fire! As I began to lift my gun to get on a bird in that instance I could hear wing beats lifting off the ground. In a split second I actually had the sinking feeling that I was going to kill a turkey and Scotty had missed, since I could see the other two birds weren’t flying. I got on the one retreating to my right and killed him. The other bird ran to about 40 yards and stopped, believing Scotty had missed I yelled for him to kill the other turkey. He nailed him!

I would then look to see the first bird Scotty shot at struggling to take flight and barely landing in a loblolly pine only 80 yards from us. He was having trouble standing on the branch and was obviously wounded. Eventually he fell out of the tree dead.

The tail of the tape was a 17.10 lbs, 10 inch beard and 3/4 inch spurred bird for me. Scotty had killed the first bird weighing 17 lbs, 9 ½ inch beard and 7/8 inch spurs and his second bird was 18.5 lbs, 10 inch beard and 1 inch spurs. It was the first triple for both of us. In South Carolina two birds in one day is legal.



I got back late last night and leave tomorrow afternoon to hunt in South Carolina. I'll report when I return.

nice pics, congrads