Skully
PMA Member
Please excuse the large picture, been a while since I posted pics and I am brain dead today.
Well its been a long year. We lost my wife's grandfather to cancer last April, and then last fall in November we lost her Father to a brain tumor. The wife and my two boys were there as he had his seizure. He was only 53 years old. As if things couldn't get any worse my father was diagnosed with stage four Adeno-carcinoma lung cancer last March at age 59. He fought a hard fight. The chemo really took a toll on his body and the cancer took his 165 pound frame down to around 90 pounds. To make things worse he was allergic to morphine. It was literally the hardest thing I have ever been through. I had a little over a year to talk with him and try to spend as much time with him as possible. He lost his fight this April 14th at his home. Needless to say turkey hunting was the last thing on my mind and I wasn't sure if I would even go this year. A few weeks passed after his funeral and I decided I would quit moping & give it a try. The morning was one of those perfect turkey hunting mornings you dream about. Mild temps, light winds and a star lit sky to sneak in by. I had glassed a big gobbler in this cut corn field a week before and knew he should be close. I sat up in a fence row and threw out a couple hen deeks and kicked back to watch and listen as the woods came alive. As the eastern sun was rising slowly I remember thinking, "I should have heard a gobble by now". About that time they started lighting up. I heard three different birds & one bird half way down the ditch had a deeper louder gobble than the rest and I was hoping he was the one that would pitch out to the decoys. A hen pitched and then a gobbler. And then "Gobb-zilla" pitched and I was amazed at how small the other birds looked next to him. The smaller bird looked like a 2 yr old and he was working my way. The hen was behind him and she was leading the tubby-turk right in my direction! The 2 yr old came right to the deeks and strutted for a while but being my greedy self I let him go, waiting for the BIG one. Well, that was stupid! The smaller bird left the spread and angled out across the field out of range taking the hen and big gobbler with him. I sat there shaking my head telling myself I could have been heading to breakfast with a nice bird but instead I am going to sit here all day hoping for them to come back! I knew the birds really had nothing but open ground where they were headed and I figured that as soon as the sun got high they would mill back toward the timber again so I decided to sit tight & wait them out. I took a little nap and when I looked at my watch an hour had passed. No gobbling was going on and I was about to pack it in when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was a tom coming in silent and he was between me and the decoys facing away from me. I put the bead of the old Remington on the back of his neck and let a 3" magnum load burp. There was about 1/4 inch of skin keeping his head from falling off!
He didn't go far for some reason and even though he wasn't the great big ball of feathers I was after, my tag fit just fine around his leg. He weighed 23 lbs 4 oz, 10 1/4" beard and both spurs measured 7/8". Hope to find time to chase them with the bow again next spring! :way:
