Wisconsin bird down.

Today was opening day for season 4 in Wisconsin. I got home from work late yesterday and made the two hour drive to the cabin. Didn't have time to pack much in the way of food except for a box of cinnamon rolls and a 6 pack of Diet Dew. Got to the cabin at 9:00 PM, hooked up the battery for the DC lights, chatted with my friend Dave for an hour or so and turned in. He had to work today so I was alone. There was a full moon that shown all night. The alarm went off at 4:30. (We've got this damned alarm clock at the cabin that starts beeping softly and slowly. It then increases in speed and volume until it gets this machine gun tempo with the volume of a truck back up alarm. I think one of the guys "inadvertently" tossed it in the trash once. At least it disappeared. But Dave's son was so proud of the fact that he found a replacement just like it that we just bear it. I do however have fantasies of silencing it with a load of number 5 shot.) By 4:45 I was out the door for the woods, 52 degrees and still the full moon. I drove my pick up about 500 yards across the field to a logging road ( I used to walk it but I'm getting lazy) and walked about 300 yards into the woods. Dave had set up a tent blind on the ridge for his season last week and had left it there for me. I set my decoys out by the light of the moon after I crawled around on my hands and knees feeling for the decoy stake that I dropped when I pulled the decoy out of my turkey vest. At any rate I was in the blind adjusting the windows to my liking and laying out my calls etc. by 5:15. The birds started Gobbling at about 5:30. There were two birds to the south of me on the next ridge about 400 yards across a deep draw and another bird east of me on a similar ridge. I called softly on a little cedar push button call and all three answered my calls but nothing seemed to be moving my way. I had called 3 or 4 times by 5:45 and they all seemed anchored. A hen on the ground was answering my calls just out of sight to the east of me. At one point a large woodpecker was calling in a tree behind me. Every time he called the birds to the west gobbled. I broke out my paddle box call and hammered that a few times and one of the birds to the south started my way. I called about once every five minutes with a 4 or 5 yelp call. By 6:00 he was close enough that I could almost feel the percussion of his gobble and I cautiously poked the gun out of the blind when I could see his tail feathers as he strutted just over the rim of the hill. He finally stuck his head up and came up the hill another 10 feet. He stood there in full strut with the rising sun reflecting off of his feathers. I've got to admit my heart was starting to pound a little too. He was taking his own sweet time coming the rest of the way though. He was in about half strut and was eyeing the decoys from about 15 yds away from them, about 30 yds from me. I couldn't quite get a shot as there was a screen of small brush between us. He'd be clear for a second and then hidden for a second but clearly very nervous. I had a mouth call in and tried to coax him with a soft yelp. He didn't like that at all and tucked his tail and turned his back to vamoose. At that instant I had a split second for a clear shot at the bak of his head. A load of Winchester Supremes in #5 from my old Mossberg 500 leveled him. My watch said 6:03. I paced it off at 32 yards. In Wisconsin we have to tag the birds immediately and register them the same day. I had him to the registration station by 7:30 after packing all my clothes and sleeping bag and buttoning up the cabin. They weighed him at 22 pounds 9 ounces, 9.5" beard, 1" spurs. A typical 2 year old bird for our area. I was home by 10:00. I dressed him out and ground the meat with 3 pounds of bacon and added sage and ginger seasonings for breakfast sausage. By 2:00 I had the sausage in the freezer, the gun cleaned, all my turkey stuff put away until next year and the sleeping bag airing on the line. All in all a great day. RD

Mountaineer, Thanks. No pics as I was hunting alone and the pics of dead turkeys never seem exactly awe inspiring. Wisconsin has a drawing for one tag per hunter in the winter for the spring hunt and then sells any leftover tags in the respective zones and seasons by first come first serve. This was pretty early for them to be travelling that far here too but unless the weather is bad they normally bail out of the tree shortly after dawn. If you happen to set up really close to a lone bird and "tree" call a little too early it's not uncommon for them to launch into your lap before you can see well enough to shoot.