A big congrats to my little buddy, Parker Dyche, on his first turkey!  I see Parker about every day at school and I'm always checkin' in with him on what he's been chasing around in the woods. This past week he killed a double-spurred beast of a gobbler.  Well done Parker!  You the man! 

It's been a long time since I've chased critters with my buddy, Brandon Bruce. After making some plans yesterday at church, we hit the woods early this morning to set up on some gobblers he had been hunting the first week of season. We slipped in early in case the birds were roosted close to our setup. When they sounded off with their first gobble of the morning, right over us, we knew we were in the right spot. Three toms pitched down and hit the ground about 80 yards out. I hit them with a few yelps and cuts to let them know where we were and that we were ready to play.  A moment later they came over the crest of the hill gobbling hard. The thunder rumbled....they gobbled. They made their way across the field in front of us to check out the Avian-X Feeder and Breeder decoys we had set up. Brandon slid his gun up to his shoulder and shot the strutter as it made its last turn. 2 birds flew...one bird crumpled. The boss was dead not five minutes after his feet hit the ground.  
Check out the Avian-X decoys at www.avian-x.com. 

I'm finally back home and got some time to slip off for my first morning in the Tennessee turkey woods. I went old-school with the boomstick this morning.  It's been a dozen years since I chased a gobbler with the 870.  I kinda miss the old days! It was a classic hunt with two longbeards gobbling at every sound in the woods.  I bumped the hens off the roost and was afraid the hunt might be over. However, with some aggressive calling the toms pitched down out in front of me and marched right in.  That gobbler died 3 minutes after his feet hit the ground!  It was a pretty slick hunt.