Spud knocks down a few in SC

Well I hear that yall are having some real good times up there in Maine. My father is headed to my house in the morning to stock the pond in the basement.

We did not get the rain so bad, but it was unreal wind all weekend. Sunday morning it was pouring cats and dogs and the wind was a gale. No one went out but the spud and I. This has been a tough year in SC for birds. We are not seeing very many turkeys at all. Hunted all day Saturday and only saw one tom and he was quick to get out of dodge.

So sunday we sat the edge of a chuffa field in a pop up blind. Every 20 minutes Dylan would work the push button call and I would sound off with the box call. About 8:00 from across the field a jake popped out. A few calls and he marched right into the decoys.

Dylan took aim (finger a trembling) and bang… bird went down, Dylan went down. He was on a bucket and leaning way off balance when the show went off. Rocked him a bit. He looked over at me and I confirmed he had flattend his first turkey. A 15 lb Jake with a respectable beard.

We have a Tom put to bed tonight so we are going to give it another swing in the morning. I did get the whole thing on tape and will throw something together when I get home.


Well Larry AKA “Millerhunts” and I are sitting around reflecting on a great week. Larry and I went out tonight. I was going to film Larry take a monster tom. As fate would have it, the tom went the other way and Larry is going back after him tomorrow. I am headed back to Maine tomorrow as my grandmother passed while we were here and I need to get home to my family.

Well here is the low down on the tom. Dill and I set up Tuesday night in the back of a hidden field behind an old corn field. We never saw any birds so at roosting time we wandered back into the corn field where we saw a big tom strutting and then exit the field about the right time to roost. We figured he had not gone far and planned on getting in early to set up in the back corner.

We were back the next morning 2 hours before sun up. I made 3 trips the length of the field (400 yards) with Dylan and finally got the blind up, chairs, decoys, gun, camera, shooting styx ect….
The tom was nowhere to be found at sun up. I was sure we had made too much noise setting up.

After 3 hours of sitting we needed to hit the road and meet the wife and do the beach gig. Just as we were packing up, some crows went over and a tom bellowed off from a few hundred yards out. Dylan and I decided to give it 30 more minutes and chance the wrath. Dylan wanted to practice with his push button call so he started doing some yelps every 5 minutes. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

30 minutes later a hen came out off to my leftt about 300 yards out. I called and she saw the decoys. She was about 60 yards away and another hen popped out into the field about 200 yards out and came running. All this is to my left, so I moved in my chair to get some film. I started calling very aggressive in an effort to get the hens fired up. I looked back to my right to say something to Dylan and over his head was a tom in full strut only 50 yards away.

I told Dylan to get ready and filmed the tom strut the whole way in. As he got out past the decoys about 25 yards out, I could see he was more interested in the live hens. I told Dill If he had a shot take it. I said it like 4 times. He told me he had no shot, the bird was in strut. The bird moved out some more and I told him that if he could get on the head to shoot. NADA, he said he still had no shot. I called one last time to get him to stick his head up. I heard Dill say “I got a shot now” BAMMMMMMM. The tom went flat at 42 paces. Dylan did not even wait for me or the blind door. He dove head first under the blind and raced to the turkey. I have never seen him more excited.