Been playing cat and mouse with this old tom since opening day. He wouldn't come to a call, didn't hardly gobble, and was super wary of a hen decoy.

The past few days I have been deer hunting him and have had some close encounters, but never had him inside of 50 yards

Yesterday evening I sat till dark and watched him go back to roost. I got a really good idea of where he was roosting so I decided to slide in on him this morning before work.

As soon as I parked the truck this morning before daylight I heard him gobbling. He was gobbling every couple minutes on the roost, which is very unusual for that bird. With him being that worked up I decided to take a tom decoy in there with a real fan on it.

Got in there within 100 yards of the roost tree and set the tom and hen decoy out. He flew down about 6:40 and went completely silent. I called lightly a few times and it was crickets. For 15 minutes I didn't see or hear anything.

About that time I see the hens start to pop over the ridge. He is behind them but they are all on the other side of a small creek. They haven't been crossing the creek and I was banking on them flying down on my side so I thought the hunt was over. He didn't even acknowledge my decoys while he walked down the edge of the creek.

About the time he got even with me he perked up and stared my decoys down. He strutted a couple circles for a minute on the opposite creek bank but didn't act like he was going to cross. It is a small creek that you could hop across, he could have walked across it no problem. He came out of strut and flew across the creek, and then I knew it was going to happen. He came charging up to my tom decoy. Gobbled at it a couple times and then went into strut and stared him down.

That was close enough for me so I put the dot on his head and let it fly. 30ish yard shot with the 410 and 9.5 tss handloads. He didn't even flop. Shot him a few minutes after 7 and had him all skinned out and cleaned up by 7:30. Made it to work before 8

Thankful to get this bird, he was not an easy one to kill. Time to get my fiance one now

Way to go that's pretty cool. Nice bird.

Mac

Nice. That's a dandy!

Impressive....and with the .410.

Good luck with your gal's bird.

Pete

Nice Job. Turkey hunting is more fun than Deer Hunting in my opinion. That Gobbling really gets the heart pumping as they Gobble their way in. It does for me anyway!!! Good Hunt and great Job doing your homework.

Great looking turkey

Congrats Great bird and great hunt

Great job and I may have to try some "Fairy Dust" in my 28 gauge and see how it patterns.

Cool story. Congratulations on a nice bird.

Looks like a hoot I’m heading to central MO soon I might barrow my friends .410 and try it out when I’m down there. Nice job getting it done.

Great bird ! Great story ! Congrats.

That's a great hunt and story , congrats ! I've been a 410 fan and user for too many moons to remember.

Great work. The tough ones are special when a plan comes together! The TSS in 410 seems very effective.

Chris

What gun is that? I've got 2-mossberg 500 in 410 but they both have just fixed full chokes but would like to get a barrel that accepts screw in chokes for one of them.

Well done

Thanks all!


It is a mossberg 500. My first shotgun that I was given as a kid. It is somewhere around 20 years old.

I sent the barrel to Steve Rose with Rose Action Sports and he threaded the barrel for Invector style chokes. It is relatively inexpensive, I think it was $125 or so. Great guy that does great work. I run an Indian Creek turkey choke in it and it throws great patterns

You can either do that or buy a Stevens 301 single shot that is threaded for chokes from the factory. It is not much more expensive, I think you can pick one up for $199 and it comes with a halfway decent turkey choke. For me I prefer a pump gun turkey hunting and I've had this gun forever so I didn't mind paying to have it threaded.

Great job !!!
Our season comes in Saturday. I was on the lake about 8:30 and must have heard 20 different birds gobble . Some up until 10 or so

Congratulations. Great story and good work.

Thanks jbyrd. I took the 410 this morning to make you proud!

Congrats on the bird …. U did a fine job on the narrative as well ….