All I can say about this morning is wow. Been a tough 3 days on public land and boy was the thoughts of why am I doing this to myself every day with the 3 a.m. wake ups and the sore muscles from walking alot of miles every day I almost forgot this morning when I heard him what a turkey gobbling actually sounds like. But finally after this morning I was reminded why I do this and why this really never gets old.

So I arrive to the old turkey university stomping grounds being ready to be schooled again by old Tom. Make the turn to get to my area and I'm shocked to see it's on fire. Litterly flames are shooting out of trees and I can still smell the smoke on my beard while typing this and I'm litterly wondering what am I going to do now. So I get to where I park and notice the fire hasn't made it across the road and the area that I wanted to hunt had been spared. So made the walk this morning and got to the listing spot and looked at my phone and it was 5:50. As I waited I hear a tree off in the distance falling and when it hits the ground birds started gobbling every where. My jaw dropped I thought I was in some crazy dream with what I heard. So instantly make a move to the closest one. He was down in the creek bottom roosted on the side of a ridge. So I made it as close as I could without being spotted maybe 150 yards and I setup just listening to the craziness of 6 birds around me just tearing it up. So it gets to flydown town and I do a flydown sequence. And he looses his mind. Never called again and waited for him to make the next move and he didnt read the script. Instead of flying down in this really nice Creek bottom he decides to fly and land on the ridge above me. Knowing that we are now not playing on the same level I make a move quick and bear crawl up this steep rascal. He would gobble every min so I knew just how close he was to the edge. I get about 10 yards away from the crest and I see it starts to flatten out and I decided this was it. Made a call he was probally 40 yards took him about a minute and I see his fan and that big old head and I let him have it at 15 steps.

My best bird to date and public land to boot.

Stats.

20.5 pounds
1 1/2
1 5/8 spurs
Beards 1- 7 3/4
2- 9
3- 8 3/4
4-12 1/4

That's not fog that's smoke.

Man that is one heck of a bird gobblin! Congratulations and it was on public land, that's so awesome

Great bird, and way to keep your focus. A lot of people would have gotten distracted by the fire and wasted time calling the fire department! Just kidding, I'm sure you knew it was already being taken care of.

Ah, yea. Now that is one fine bird. Congratulations on a great hunt.


Earl

Congrats on a dandy of a bird!!

Doug

You will sure remember that one for life. Congratulations on a bird of a lifetime. Fire and all and you still killed a monster. Great job on a truly epic public bird!

What awesome gobbler, Wow I see I hasn't really greened up there yet ether. One would think with some of the warmer temperatures we had early on everything would be exploded with greenery.

Good Googly moogly!!! What a bird! Gotta consider having that old warrior mounted. How many hunters has he dodged in his day? Congratulations

Well Worth the wait! Congrats!

Spur champ. Nice going and quite a bird. Congrats

What a stud.. congrats bud..

Very nice Matt

Congrats, That is a nice bird!!

Well worth the 3 am wake ups and long walks to your hunts. Really nice bird, major stud bird on public land to boot! Congratulations