Opening day of NC season, took my wife out trying to get her a bird. We set up in an area where there have been several longbeards, hens and jakes. After about 20 minutes two jakes came in to the call, then spotted a jake decoy we had set out. They circled it several times, half strutted, brushed up against it and basically put on a grand show before finally drifting off out of site. Terri couldn't decide if she should take one of the jakes, but after some conversation she agreed to pass and wait for an adult. We made several more series of calls, and about thirty minutes later I heard a turkey strutting. It was windy, so I had difficulty in pinning down his location. Turned out that he was behind us and to our right, dreaded place for a right hand shooter. I saw the bird and he wasn't moving much as he was on a little open flat. We called soft hoping he would move twenty yards or so to get in a position where he could see the decoy. Upon the call he broke and came directly at the tree we were sitting against, and spotted us as we were now silhouetted against the open field where the decoy was located. I had earlier maneuvered the gun around, and shot him at approximately 12 steps. He is 20lb 6oz, 1.25" spurs and double beards 10.5 and 5 inches. Bad feeling to shoot your wife's turkey, but a worse feeling to let him spook and walk off! Convinced Terri to hang tight, as there are several more adults using the same area. Within thirty minutes after the shot, two more jakes came in and saw the decoy, then were joined by the original two jakes that had earlier paid us a visit. They chased each other and put a show on before drifting out into the field. As we sat there watching these four jakes, a gobblers head appeared across the field about 150 yards from our location. The four jakes spotted the turkey shortly after we did and started yelping, gobbling, half strutting and took off towards the turkey in a very fast trot. They went over the hill out of site, a few loud aggressive purrs, wing flaps...then all was quite. Five minutes later the four jakes came back into site and headed back across the field to where they had been. Moments later, the gobbler head appeared across the field again, then started marching toward the four jakes. The gobbler turned out to be a very large jake with six of his buddies in tow. Once out in the field, they spotted our little jake decoy and trotted over to check it out, followed by the original four jakes. The eleven jakes then chased each other, had foot races, jumped at each other and tried to intimidate the little jake decoy to no avail. Finally they lost interest and wandered off feeding across the field. I went trough another series of calls, about five minutes later a nice longbeard appeared out of nowhere to our left headed directly to the source of the call. He spotted the decoy and the live jakes choosing to ignore all. He eventually got behind a large oak allowing us time to shift the gun in his direction. He strutted then stepped into an opening at approximately thirty yards. I whispered to Terri "when you have a clear shot with his head up, he is in range". At that instant the gun went off, the turkey crumpled, Terri's head flew back from the recoil and I got a busted lip!!! Terri's turkey is 21lb 8 oz, 1 inch spurs and 10.5 inch beard....happy she passed on the jakes!!! Great start to our NC season.
