Tina with her 20 lb. 11 oz. Tom with a 9 1/2" beard and 3 quarter spurs

Jerome set up three hen decoys about 20 yards off a point in the field and got me set up by 4:00am. There were no large trees and very little cover, so we had to lay spread eagle on the ground and hope the turkeys could not see us. At around 4:45am the Toms started gobbling about 100 yards away. Jerome began to do some light yelping to get the turkeys to pitch out of the trees in our direction. After fly down, the hens kept trying to pull the Toms in a different direction from our decoys. My husband did some yelping and the Toms kept gobbling, but the hens wanted nothing to do with our set-up which caused the Toms to stay with the hens.

Finally at about 5:20am one of the hens began to yelp and Jerome began attacking the hens yelping with more volume and interrupting the hens yelping. The hen began to get really upset and came into our set-up dragging all the other turkeys with her. Two hens arrived at our decoys first and began to purr and cluck. At times the hens were 10 yards away from us.

Around 5:40am the first Tom came in strutting and making the spit and drum sound. Both Toms had not gobbled since the competition from the hen and my husband. As the first Tom came out of strut and stuck out his neck, I shot him with my 12 ga. 3” magnum using #4 shot. He dropped right in front of the decoys at 22 yards and the rest of the turkeys took flight.

This was an awesome hunt and without my husbands help I would not have gotten my big Tom. The turkey weighed 20 lbs. 11 oz. with a 9-1/2” beard and ¾” spurs.