Kentucky turkey season - Day 21 - Tagged out!

What a day in the field! For the first time in a few years, I finally filled both of my turkey tags, and while I was happy to do that, it was a little bittersweet. That's because I was hunting with good friend and fellow "Poor Boy" Cory McBride, and had every intention of letting him put the smackdown on the first bird that came in. But, as often happens in turkey hunting, things didn't quite work out as planned.

I woke up this morning to a thunderstorm, which immediately put a hink in our plans. After going back to bed for an hour, I awoke to cloudy skies, but no rain. I gave Cory a call and quickly began getting dressed. In 30 minutes time, we were headed for the same farm where we killed our birds last Sunday. As we were easing along the edge of the large field, several geese began honking as they left a nearby pond. That immediately resulted in two gobbles from inside the woods that sounded way too close for comfort. With no time to set up the blind or decoys, we tucked under some cedars at the edge of the field.

I grabbed my Knight & Hale Glass Queen call and made a few soft calls and the birds gobbled even closer. I looked over to my left and saw them making their way into the field. It was at this point that I realized just how lousy our setup was. There was a big hump in the field right in front of us, blocking our view of anything beyond about 20 yards. So for 15 minutes or more we watched two tail fans as the birds strutted just on the other side of the hump. They were slowly making their way closer when a hen appeared off to my left and walked right by me and Cory about 20 feet in front of us. As the two toms began angling towards her, I realized that I couldn't swing my gun as far right as I needed because of a branch. As I tried to maneuver the gun barrel around the branch, the hen caught movement and began moving out to the middle of the field - with both gobblers and a couple of jakes in tow.

Watching the birds make their way across the field, I made a desperation decision to get my B-mobile and She-mobile decoys up to the high spot in front of us. Positioning B-mobile in front of my face, I belly-crawled up the hump and placed the decoys. I then proceeded to belly crawl back into place and make a few calls on the Glass Queen again. Peering up, I could no longer see the tail fans and began to wonder if I may have spooked the birds. That thought quickly faded when the two birds popped up over the rise at a dead run! When they got right up to the decoys they stopped and began slow stepping, almost as if to say "OK, what now?"

I glanced over at Cory to see if he was going to shoot and noticed that his gun was laying across his lap pointed in the wrong direction. Hoping things might work out like they did last Sunday, I popped my gun up and dropped the bird on the left. I then watched as the second bird made a hasty retreat to the middle of the field. Cory couldn't swing on him because of some branches to his right. Again, our setup had really messed us up! I actually called to the second bird and had him gobbling and strutting out in the field, but he wasnt about to come back for a second look.

By the time he made it to the far side of the field, more birds had came out and we could see at least four full tail fans strutting in the corner of the field. We waited until they finally left the field and retrieved my bird, hoping to setup on those other birds again tomorrow. My bird only weighted 18lbs, but had an 11 inch beard and 1" spurs. What a crazy end to what has been a truly crazy season for me. A real test of my patience and persistence for sure! Now, if Cory can just connect on his second bird tomorrow, maybe I can put my wife on one Sunday. I'll keep you posted!