Utah Turkeys for Me and My Mom

My mom and I both drew tags for the unit up in our mountains this year, and we were excited! We had a whole bunch of birds scouted out in several different canyons, and we were ready to rock! But, my mom and dad had to go to Cleveland for a Warden's conference, and they would miss the first day. But, my dad's good friend took me out opening morning. We got into a really good group of birds right off the bat. Fred was going to push them up the hill to me (their normal escape route) But, the birds had different ideas and flew across the canyon! We moved over to the next canyon, and saw a bunch in one of my dad's good friend's fields. When we got out, the birds started to slowly move across the field. I was close enough to make them nervous, and the leading 2 hens flew. The two big toms followed. I was right behind them as they crossed the creek, and as they were attempting to climb a steep bank, I fired. I had forgotten that my Benelli has a slight upward bend in the barrel, which takes effect at 40+ yards with some loads, and only the bottom couple pellets hit him. He was a stroker! He had about a 10-11 inch beard. It wasn't enough to slow him down (we saw him later and he was fine) and they escaped onto some private I don't have access to. That evening the only birds we saw were down on some private we wouldn't able to hunt until Tuesday (this was on Saturday) There were 40+ birds there, and two white hens! The next day after church, I went up on the big hill above that private, where the turkeys go during the middle of the day. I called some jakes in to about 30 yards, but didn't want to shoot one. I drove around a bit, found the rest of the toms (down in the private land) and was getting ready to leave, calling just to make sure there weren't any I missed. Sure enough, two anwered me from across the flat on a big hill. I got up where I thought I'd be about 150 yards from them, and decided to call to pinpoint them. They gobbled only 40 yards from me, behind some trees. I began to sneak up towards them, but they flew across and started to run up the hill towards the private! I ran to my wheeler, and flew over there, and cut them off only 10 yards from the fence. They took off, trying to circle around me and go through the fence where they could then fly down to the private fields. I saw they both had good beards, and hammered the second one as they came through the clearing at 30 yards! He has an eight inch beard, and 1/2 inch spurs. His feet are really worn from the rocky ground too, one toe almost worn off! Both birds were shot with 20 ga. 3" #4 hevi-shot, mine with my Nova, my mom's with my dad's A303. My buddy's got a tag for the same place, should have his story and pics too!

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On the first night my mom hunted, we just sat on the hill where I shot mine and watched the turkeys in the private land below, since we couldn't get ahold of the landowner. We did see some jakes and hens (one white one) Today was different though! We got in on the private, and after some close encounters where there were too many toms close together to shoot, we got our chance. They came out of the field and we ambushed them. My mom hit the big tom I told her to in the body, badly wounding him. The second shot made him immobile, but again a body shot. As he sat there, I told my mom to shoot him in the head, and she settled down and made an awesome shot. Hers had about a 7.5 inch beard, with 1/2 inch spurs that weren't worn off like mine were, since hers was living in the fields and not up in the rocks.

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Here is a pic of a white hen too.

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