Spring Gobbler Season has busted wide open and them big Kings of the spring are on fire right now. I began my season this past Saturday guiding a trio of Baptist preachers from South Carolina and the Osceolas were absolutely feeling frisky with a hundred gobbles raining down from every point of the compass. It was beautiful!
First up, Jonathan Dumas is a fine gentleman and patient turkey hunter. We had one big longbeard hard gobbling from the limb at first light, only eighty yards from our blind. At fly down, he landed just out of sight and was quickly joined by four Jakes (immature toms). They interacted for a while until the Jakes actually led the old boss tom out and into Mr. Dumas’s shooting lane and at the sound of the shot, the Jakes scattered to the wind while old Grandad did the stop, drop and flop dance. His trophy gobbler sported a 10.5’ of beard.
We relocated and young Logan Ramsey was my shooter. We located a pair of big Kings along the edge of a big pasture at midday. After creeping into a patch of tight cover, it only took a few soft yelps from my homemade box call before one of the pair began slowly slipping in to intercept the hen he was certain he’d heard. But Logan instead offered him a dinner invitation the old thunder chicken couldn’t help but to accept.
Logan was a mighty proud young man as he stroked the bird’s iridescent feathers. Gobbler #2 was a good one with just over 11” of beard.
There were still a few hours of daylight and it was Logan’s dad, Von Ramsey’s turn on the gun. I expected it to be long odds, pulling the hat trick with three gobblers in one day, but we were riding a high and ready to give it a fair shake.
I set us up on a low ridge between two cypress heads and began blindly calling intermittently with soft yelps and clucks. And wouldn’t you know, the biggest longbeard of the day showed up silently and stood unmoving at thirty yards, looking for the hen he thought was calling.
At the roar of Von’s old shotgun, the biggest trophy of the day fell over backward and the celebrations began. It was a truly amazing day to be in the woods. And I couldn’t be more grateful to our Lord above for blessing us so! Von’s trophy tom had right at 12′ of beard!
Any comments or questions about turkey hunting, please reach out to me at [email protected]. God Bless, and good hunting!
Toby Benoit is a best selling novelist and professional outdoors-man with thirty-five years of experience guiding and outfitting for big game all across America. Toby is a renowned archer and turkey hunting expert who manufactures custom game calls and is a regular judge at NWTF sanctioned turkey calling events across the Southeast.
[Courtesy photo]
