April 19, 2017

Taking a Double-Bearded Turkey on My 390 Acre Lease

with Danny Whitt

Whitt_day3_hdr

The 390-acre farm I hunt homes numbers of fields that are mowed for hay. A creek runs through the land with some big hardwoods there too. The turkeys on that land like to roost over the creek and feed out in those pastures. Some folks think that about 400 acres is too small a property to hunt for turkeys. However, I’ve built two small food plots right in the middle of this land. At daybreak, I’ll go to one of those food plots and listen for turkeys to gobble. Often turkeys also like to roost in those big woods, right next to the green fields. Other hunters are on the lands on all four sides around this farm I’ve leased.

Whitt_day3 I hunt this land on Saturdays and Sundays when I’m off from work. I’ve got a small cabin there, so I can hunt turkeys all day Saturday and Sunday. If I hear a turkey gobble, I try to move to within 100-150 yards of the turkey, depending on how much foliage is on the trees and bushes. This property homes numbers of hens, so I feel like the closer I can get to a gobbler before he flies down off the roost, the better my chances will be to bag him.

Three years ago from this property I took the only double-bearded turkey I’ve ever taken. I had roosted some turkeys the night before, and I made a rookie mistake on the morning I hunted this bird. I sat down and leaned up against a tree that wasn’t wider than my shoulders. When I roosted this gobbler, I knew he had hens with him. I got very close to the tom very early in the black darkness. When the tom flew down, he walked in to where he could see me, and I guess he spotted my outline. He then putted and ran off. However, two more toms were behind me gobbling when I called this gobbler in to where I was before he left. After the bird I had intended to take left, I started moving and calling to those other two toms. Finally one of those two birds started coming up the hill to me, and I took him. That tom had 1-1/4-inch spurs, a 10-1/2-inch beard and a smaller beard that measured 4-5 inches.

Day 2: Taking a Big Turkey on 35 Acres

Tomorrow: Wading Water to Get a Turkey

Taking a Big Turkey on 35 Acres

On the morning I took the biggest gobbler I’ve ever harvested on the 35-acre tract I hunt, I first heard that turkey gobble about 100 yards off my property. A road runs right through my land, and I could walk that road bed to get very close to the tom in the pitch-black dark.

Big Game, Turkey, Mossy Oak Bottomland, Firearm

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