Saturday morning I went in to a spot I hadn't been to for a while, and hunted hard all morning without making any contact whatsoever with turkeys. It was cool and still, and a beautiful morning to be out. I covered a couple miles, slowly, and stopped to cold call in a couple areas that had fresh sign around. But I never connected with any birds at all. So, at about 11:00 I started heading back to the truck calling and listening as I eased along.
At high noon, I crested a steep ridge, and with no warning, the bottom exploded with turkeys. There were 15 or 20 of them that fanned out over about 180 degrees. I could see some uneven fans among them, so I figured it was a brood flock. It was like a very large covey rise of gigantic quail. Some of them landed in trees not far away, so I scattered all those till I was pretty satisfied that I had them spread out fairly well. Then I crossed the bottom and set up on the opposite steep ridge facing down into the bottom with my back towards the turkeys. I didn't even think of it at the time, but setting up facing away from the turkeys might seem strange to some. But it seemed like the correct position to take there.
After about 10 minutes, I started calling sporadically. I started with a 3 note yelp. And then a couple minutes later a 4 note. Five minutes later, I picked up the pace.
At 12:25 I heard a jake do a single yelp back off over my left shoulder on top of the ridge. It was real steep and I figured he'd drop down before he got to me and approach at a lower level if he was coming in. He kept up the single note yelping, and I commenced to sweet talk him in.
At 12:30 I heard his footsteps in the leaves, and then caught a glimpse of a red head about 30 yds directly to my left. He had dropped down to my level and was angling in towards me. He went behind a big oak tree and I got my gun pointed just on the other side waiting for him as he cleared the tree. He stepped out and paused, with some small brush between us. But I was shooting the super shot 9s, and I know that the brush wouldn't faze it, so I put the bead on him squeezed the trigger.
The shot fipped him over, and then silence. I couldn't see any movement, and didn't hear any rustling in the leaves. For a second, I wondered if I'd missed him, but I'd seen him flip over so I knew I couldn't have.
So I picked up my calls, snapped my seat cushion up, and walked over to him. He was limp as a dish rag. He never flopped at all. Not one flap. Not even a quiver. I have seen that a few times with the super shot nines, but I was pretty impressed to see that with the 28 gauge.
That was my first January turkey, and my first with the 28.
It was loads of fun.
