All Activity

Congratulations. Nice story.

Congrats!

Congrats!

Taxidermy.net is your friend. There's a lot of information on everything you want to do. For skulls I do a "quick" maceration. Quick meaning it only takes a few days at the right temp. to get it done without damaging or even destroying bone. I give the guy using the power washer credit cause I would destroy it doing it that way. Elmers glue it back together and whiten if you want, I never do. Seal it with lacquer spray. Injecting the legs isn't hard and it looks much better than just letting them dry out. Painting them to perfection I'll never be able to do, but they turn out good enough for me. If you want perfectly painted legs reach out to Jay. Beard, trim all the meat off and dip in dry preserve and let it do its thing (dry out). When doing the tail, separate the layers and get ALL the grease and fat out! Your wife or significant other isn't going to be happy if there's a line of ants crawling up your wall heading for your turkey. Don't be scared to wash with dish soap, as it is a degreaser, and scrape or pick it clean. After you've got as much fat and grease off, do it all again. Let the fan dry, pin it down separating each feather, dry preserve and let it do it's thing (dry out). Check it every couple days and replace the DP. Once it's all dry layer the feathers as they should be and use bondo to hold it all together. This is my broken foot turkey. Chased him for two seasons. Must be a tough life being a turkey. Not totally satisfied with the fan on this one, but I'm not nearly as OCD with my own stuff.

Congrats!

Congrats!

Awesome story! Congratulations on a beautiful opening day Gobby!

Gotta say I loose a lot of stuff but my gun is the only thing that is practically apart of me I even hold it when I take a shit🤣

Congratulations

Cool story awesome hunt congratulations!!!

Bird dead around 9:45. About the strangest opening day I can remember.

That was a rollercoaster. Great hunt.

Yes Sir

Great story! Had me excited just reading. Congrats!!

I know Shawn well. Talk to him every day. Good kid. AMEC correct?

Welcome to NJ Woods & Water NJbadgolfer!

Congrats

Congrats Mazz

Nice bird, Congrats!

Congrats Will . Sounds like an exciting morning .

I got an opening day bird again! And it was only the third time I harvested a turkey with my compound bow - the Magnus Bullhead broadhead strikes again. Last year I got my opening day bird with a bow in the same spot, same setup, same broadhead, so I decided to try it again since it worked so well last year, and it did not disappoint. But it was much harder this time around! For those that have short attention spans or don’t want to read the next installment of The Chronicles of Mazz, skip to the bottom for the pics. This is a long one. I couldn’t sleep last night – was too anxious to get the hunt started. I drove to my spot and arrived just shy of 4am, walked in and was set up by about 4:30am. I heard a deer snort at me, and finally I didn’t feel dejected at that sound! HA! Stuff it, Mrs. Deer! I hope I’m all sweaty and stinky and my scent annoys you to no end! I put a hen decoy 10 yards in front of me. I was facing the same direction where turkeys came last year. Since the last time I hunted here last spring, I only scouted this spot once (last week), but I did see some turkey sign, so I felt like I should be good. My blind has the dark covers inside (which I call the blind walls) and under those are some mesh curtains you can slide left or right to open and close them. I opened the front blind wall and spread the mesh curtains out directly in front of me giving me clear shots out front, and the front corners of the left and right side of the blind were put down so I could see through the mesh curtain. I left the blind wall to my back completely covered, as well as most of the left and right side walls (This becomes important later! Keep reading. :-) It was still dark and silent when my setup was completed, so there was nothing left to do but to wait for the woods to wake up. Then, as the sun slowly started peeking through the trees, I heard those oh-so-sweet sounds of the very first gobbles of the morning. What a relief! The birds are still here! I heard at least three - one to my right, two in front (and close)! Exactly where I heard them last year. Amazing, they roost in the same spot year after year. I used my new mouth call (that I finally learned how to kinda/sorta use) (thanks @wjanderso90) and called in three hens pretty quickly. They hung out with my decoy for about 10 minutes, but strangely, there were no Toms following them, which was disappointing. I thought for sure with 3 hens there would surely be at least one Tom in tow, but no such luck. As the morning progressed, I managed to get the attention of those Toms I heard earlier. They would actively gobble and were straight ahead. But they never came closer than about 75 yards. I tried clucks, yelps, purrs on the pot call, and of course the silent treatment - but they would not budge (maybe next year I’ll set up over there!). Using my monocular and looking through the trees, I could see them strutting. I have a feeling they were with some hens (maybe even the 3 hens I called in earlier - they did walk back in that direction), because they never came any closer. They would walk to the left, to the right, but never came towards me. So frustrating! While watching the Toms play hard-to-get, I saw a couple deer walk by. I swear they stared right through me, but they never did get startled. They walked away, but I could see their little minds at work, “Heyyyyyy! Waaaaaaiit a minute! That thing wasn’t there yesterday!”. By this time I was beginning to get worried. It was getting late in the morning and I was not able to coax the Toms in close. I thought by now it would have happened but the Toms ended up leaving, and the woods went quiet again. Soon after, I called in another hen who came in to my left. She didn’t stay; she had places to go and people to meet, so she just waltzed by to where the gobblers were strutting earlier, and she eventually disappeared also. Now I was really worried. It was about 10am at this time, and I needed to make the decision to either leave and go to work, or stay and call out of work for the morning. But there were just too many birds around here to leave, so I decided to stay. Soon after I convinced myself I would stay until noon, I heard a gobble close by and directly in front of me! I quickly got a visual and saw the Tom, again, 50 to 75 yards away, but walking briskly in the direction where the other two Toms disappeared to. I wondered: Was this the third Tom I heard early this morning, the one that was on my right? I didn’t know. I soon lost sight of him, too, and it went quiet again. Now I was really frustrated, and felt like I was just wasting my time. About 15 minutes went by with nothing but dead quiet, and then I heard something very peculiar behind me. “PIT” Hmmmm... that sounds like a Tom spitting. Could it??? .... Nahhhh. Now, my blind wall behind me was closed, so I couldn’t see. But I didn’t bother to check; I thought I was just hearing things. Then...a minute later, there it was again.... “PIT”. O...M...G... is there a Tom behind me? I sloooowly used my finger to slide back the blind wall ever so slightly... and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was a big-ol Tom in full strut no more than 10 feet directly behind my blind !! Now I have no idea what to do. He was supposed to come into my decoy to my front! How did this bird silently sneak up on me from behind! The blind wall to my rear is fully up, to my right there is only a small portion of the blind wall down with only a sliver of the mesh curtain slid open. I have absolutely no shot with my bow at this fully strutting Tom that is literally 10 feet from me! I thought, “Maybe I can slowly open this blind wall and slide the curtain open to get a shot?” Then I immediately thought, “You’re an idiot.” No way with a bird that close could I do anything but hope that he walks around to my right, see the decoy, and immediately head over there to give me a shot. I had to wait him out. But this bird was excruciatingly slow! He would not move. Took forever just for him to walk around the back corner of my blind and get to my right side. But, again, no shot. My right side blind wall is mostly up, with just a sliver of it open towards the front of the right side. The opening wasn’t even enough for my broadhead to get through. I’m afraid just to move forward to shoot out of that sliver of curtain that he will see me. At this point, I don’t know what this turkey was doing. He saw my decoy - I know that. But all he would do is strut, pick his head up to look around, then peck at the ground, then do it all over again, all from the same spot. He seemed to respect the “lady”, I’ll give him that. He was giving her some space - he wanted her to come to him, even though the decoy was maybe 10 to 15 yards from him. So now I’m jostling for position inside the blind, while trying not to make a lot of noise. I peeked out of that right-side part of the blind that I could see out of, but often the Tom would be looking directly at me, but he never spooked. I don’t know what to do. It’s getting late - this bird was taking forever to make up its mind as to what it wanted to do. Am I going to be here when the bell rings at noon with a Tom that I can’t shoot that is now literally 5 yards away? I wait for him to go full strut while he’s facing away from me - when he does so, I slowly open the right side blind curtain a little more..... A little more.... A little more.... I think I finally got the blind curtain open enough where my broadhead will get through, but I have no idea how I’m going to draw, aim, and shoot without him seeing me. I really just needed him to take 10 steps forward toward the decoy. If he would just cooperate, I would have him in my main forward window and be able to take a perfect shot. But he refuses. He remains on my right and will ... not ... budge. He finally takes a couple more steps to a place where I can shoot through the open mesh on my right wall and hit him. I lean back so I’m hidden behind the portion of the right side blind wall that is still fully up, and I draw my bow. I peek back around, aim, and .... he has now walked behind a horizontal fallen tree limb that is about 6” diameter and is just high enough that his head is perfectly behind it and protected! ARGH! I let down on the bow and shake my head. I cannot believe I can’t get a shot on this bird! It’s like he’s doing this on purpose! When he raises his head, the fallen limb is perfectly aligned with his head and in my way - I just see the top of his head above the limb, and the bottom of his neck and body is below it. Absolutely no shot - I need to put a good neck shot on him for this broadhead to be effective. Then, I noticed something. When he bends his head down to peck at the ground, his entire neck is below that fallen tree limb and completely exposed - I might have a shot! But that was not a shot I was expecting, nor was it a shot I was even prepared to make. It would mean I would have to shoot almost at the ground in order to hit his neck as he was pecking at the ground. I did not practice that kind of shot. But, he was still only about 7 yards or so away, and I am sure I am dead-on accurate to at least 10 yards with this broadhead and arrow. He’s still not moving toward my decoy - he’s almost walking in a tiny circle! I have to decide quickly if I’m going to try to make that shot, or to wait some more and hope he makes his way to my decoy. But then I look and there’s a big tree that he might move behind if he continues to move forward, and if he does that, I will have no shot again, and who knows how long this sloth of a turkey will take to get out from behind that tree, if he does at all. So I decide to chance it - I’ll try to make the shot when he gives me the next opportunity. The next time he pecks at the ground, I’m shooting. And there he goes, he comes out of strut, looks around, and then he bends his head down. His neck is fully below that fallen tree limb and completely exposed. I shoot and the arrow flies under the tree limb towards the turkey’s neck. TTHHHHHWACK! ..... WTH? He is startled, but does not seem to be hurt! He doesn’t fall, flop, or anything! He just quickly takes a few steps away from me and looks around. Did I miss?? Did it bounce off him?? Did it hit a small branch off of that tree limb that I didn’t see? What in the world just happened? He was so close, there is no way I missed! He looks confused, startled; then he starts walking away ... He’s at 10 yards, 15 yards, 20, 25... OH NOOOO!! I’m in utter disbelief at what I’m seeing right now. Is it possible that somehow I missed a turkey that was no more than 7 yards from me. I continue to watch him - he isn’t running away. He seems confused as if he doesn’t know what just happened. I’m thinking maybe he’ll come back, so I quickly nock another arrow, and let out a few clucks. I watch him continue to walk away - 30 yards ... 35 ... And then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, he starts flopping on the ground!! My mind doesn’t grasp what’s going on. Did that turkey just trip, I’m thinking? What just happened? He next starts flapping his wings, and I’m thinking he is trying to fly away. I soon figured it out – he was definitely hit, and he’s flopping now. I quickly get out of the blind, and go where I saw him (he’s now 40 yards from the blind). He’s down but it looks like he’s picking his head up. I get to within 5 yards, draw the bow and shoot another arrow at his head Why? Because all I kept thinking about was the story @gobblergetter posted, and I’m telling myself, “I am NOT getting spurred if this thing is still alive.” LOL I'm a big baby. The second arrow hits, and I quickly go over and put my boot on his neck and he starts flopping wildly - I’m still looking out for those spurs!!! But quickly, he gives up the ghost with the final death throes. I looked at his wound, and it appears that my first shot got him right where his neck and body meet (lower than where I wanted, but that was not a shot I practiced so I’m not going to beat myself up too much over that - his head and neck was horizontal, not vertical which is how I expect my turkey head shots to be). He survived the initial slash of the blades, but I think he ultimately bled out which is why he was able to walk as far as he did. I knelt down and had to give the good Lord thanks because I went from wondering if I was wasting my time to ending up with a wild hunt where I brought home a turkey. After filling out my tag and starting to pack up the blind and my gear, I heard two gobblers again out front and at no more than 75 yards! HA! Must have been the two I was calling to and watching earlier. I never saw them, but I tipped my hat to them. Well played, my friends, well played. Maybe next year. Spurs: 7/8” Beard: 9” Weight: 19.5 lbs.

Gone

Congrats Will

Congratulations!

congratulations Will