I sat out in that bit of rain we had last weekend, waiting for some wild turkeys to come out into a small pasture I was watching. No sooner than the rain stopped I spotted my first hen slowly enter the field, looking all about for any sign of danger. Once she relaxed, another stepped out and then another…
Soon, I had a dozen hens feeding out in front of me and fluffing up their feathers to let the breeder dry them out as much as it could. At one point, they entered the tree line and were all around me, many closer than sixty feet!
Really exciting, is that one of those hens had a beard. It happens only about one in every two hundred hens. It was only a short three or four inches long, but enough to make her a rather rare trophy for one of my clients coming in for the Spring season.
Even better than that beared hen, well after that dozen hens left, fout of the handsomest tom gobblers arrived and once in the open, they fluffed out and began to strut. I admit, my heart began to race a bit while watching them old he-devil toms putting themselves on display. My Bushnell 12×42 binoculars were practically glued to my eyes and I could tell each of the strutters was sporting ten inches or more of beard and spurs well in excess of an inch.
They strutted back and forth, right up until sundown, then left the field for a section of river swamp nearby that field and I heard them fly up to roost.
When I finally made it back to the truck, it wasn’t that far, I just have arthritic legs, I copied everything into my little book I use when scouting. I record things like date and location, then what I saw, when I saw it, weather conditions, the direction of real and where they roosted. Putting together the bits of info in my book can help me establish a predictable pattern on the big strutters to help ensure that when opening day arrives, the sun will go down on some mighty happy turkey hunters who will be sharing my campfire that night.
As always, I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to give me a shout at [email protected]. God Bless, and good hunting!
