I have been turkey hunting for about 12 years now and I got the chance to take a newbie on his first hunt this past weekend in southern Georgia. Weather was clear, morning temps in the mid 30's. the night before I took him to a spot where we saw gobblers and hens consistently during the past deer season. We found fresh tracks and scratch and set up the popup the night before.
the morning of the hunt (opening day) we arrived before daylight and set up two jakes and two hen decoys. inside the pop up we waited and heard the first gobble at 7am. I was using two different mouth calls, two different push rod cedar box calls, and a jake shaker gobble. I talked to the bird for about one hour hearing him circle around then come in directly behind us.
It was a good size gobbler with 3 jakes with him....no hens! When he saw the jake decoys courtin the hen decoys he puffed up, turned red, strutted and strummed while making a beeline to the decoys. he passed within 10 feet of the popup and then walked in front of us. I told the newbie to take him and the 3" load of #6 shot put the turkey down.
Got him back to camp and weighed in at 25 lbs, 10.5" beard, 1 1/4" spurs.
I have called in a dozen birds over the years but this was my first score on opening day.
