Here is the short story on how I shot this wonderful bird:
Rocky (the great friend who introduced me to this wonderful sport) and I set off on opening day Monday, April 28, 2008 at 4:30AM and by 5 we were set up. I erected a blind the night before at 6:30PM and put the flock to bed at 7:30PM. I personally watched about 20 birds all settle in for the night. At 5:02, these same birds began gobblin' about 150 yds behind the blind. They set off another small flock about 200 yds down to my right and as I was about to sit in my swivel seat at the base of an apple tree, some toms sounded off directly in front of me no more than 100 yds away! I almost fell over because I did not expect to hear these satellite birds so close. I quickly put on my face mask and gloves and turned on my red dot True Glo scope. After a few minutes, two toms suddenly appeared through the fog at the top of knoll in the field less than 60 yds away. Their dark silhouettes paced back and forth and I could see against the backdrop of fog that they were mature toms. Rocky was in the blind and he stroked a soft purr on his slate call that had all the birds around us sounding off. In response to this madness, another huge tom flew down out of his roost from across the field and he landed right next to the other toms on the knoll. He made the other two toms look small by comparison and I knew that this was the bird I wanted. The three of them paraded around for only about 30 seconds and decided that my decoys were not coming to the dance. They decided to give my silent partners the bums rush and they all raced down the hill to meet the "ladies". The two smaller birds got there first and began to both serenade and pace around a lone staked maiden. Because the elder statesman was a little more rotund, he took his time getting to the party. When he arrived, he made quite an entrance. He bumped off the other two toms with his barrel chest all puffed out and found his dancing shoes. The two toms folded their tails, lowered their heads and sulked off knowing that this morning was not to be in their favor. Major Tom put on a show that would have made Fred Astaire jealous. I was nervously looking at my camouflage watch and wondering if he could keep this up long enough to reach legal shooting time. After cutting a rug or two and drumming a few tunes through his chest, he suddenly stopped and realized that one of the two wall flowers was not like the other. The brazen jake decoy standing just behind now clearly appeared after the fog had cleared enough to let Major Tom see that the second she was actually a he. With Tom's gaze frozen on the jake, I glanced at my watch and thanked my lucky stars that it read 5:15. At 15 yards, a load of #5 Federal Turkey load from my Remington 870 12 gauge hit him like a ton of bricks. He weighed 21.28 pounds, his beard 10-1/12", one spur was 3/4 inch, the other was 5/8 inch. He scored out at 56.03. Although it all happened so fast, I don't know if I could have had any more fun and was thrilled that the guy who showed me the way was there to witness the taking of my biggest bird to date! - Mark Cronin 94