Nick and Tony Kats posted on June 09, 2008 09:40 :: 4039 Views
My son, Tony, and I went up to the UP on the land we deer hunt on over the Memorial Day Holiday weekend. We were on a mission to get a turkey and right out of the gate on Saturday morning we seen two gobblers working a hen on the field that we have had past luck deer hunting.
I missed on an opportunity on Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon. On Saturday evening we did not set up properly and I seen the Gobblers across the field with the binoculars.
On Sunday morning we hunted a spot we thought we would have luck on but no activity. Sunday evening was a bust with a 30 minute hail storm and hours of torrential rains. Monday morning we woke up to clear but extremely foggy conditions.
I could have done a better job with the pics but I was still shaking from all the excitement. You will notice the fog in the background….we barely could see across the field. The first picture is the two turkeys strutting in the distance out of the shooting port in the blind. Both were probably 50 yards out at that point but I managed to catch the one with his tail fanned…….it’s real foggy. The blind is exactly how we set it up for the ambush. Notice the vegetation in the field……….Tony and I have taken deer out of this field.
It was our last shot at a bird and we set-up in the spot that we really thought we could ambush them at. Sure enough at 15 minutes after 1st light I saw the birds across the field heading north of us. I lost them in a crest in the field and did not see them again until about 30 minutes later.
I was slowly calling all the time but not too much. All of the sudden, we heard a big gobble and then they started making there way in to our decoy with a hen leading the way. It took about 10 minutes but they finally came in to within 2 yards of the decoy.
Tony was shooting a single shot 20 GA Topper and we patterned it in the day before. We figured it had to be a 20 yard shot at most for a kill.
He let a shot go out of the portable blind port hole (22 yards) and slammed the lead bird. The second bird started running a bit and I was able to down that bird through the mesh netting in the portable blind. The bird Tony hit and dropped was 20 lbs with a 9.5 inch beard.
The other one I harvested was 17 lbs with an 8 inch beard. Both turkeys were almost identical in size and maybe were twins. I cannot believe we filled both tags at the same time with such quality Turkeys. They were definitely the only gobblers we seen in the square mile we hunted. Hopefully we will harvest more turkeys in our lifetime but I just don’t think we can ever duplicate that. It was a real special moment!! Can’t wait to get these on the smoker……….the field we shot them in is an Alfalfa field and the deer we have got off this field in the past.
Nick and Tony Katsavrias
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