Rookie Mistake - Pennsylvania
Second time around!
Hunter – Adam Spittler
Cameraman – Jeremy Lengle
One week after killing a PA tom, I still had my second tag to fill. My friend Jeremy Lengle had tagged out up in NY, so he came home a day early. He still had the next day off from work, so he offered to run the camera for me. I looked at the forecast and saw they were calling for rain in the morning. I knew exactly where we were going to hunt. This one farm we hunt always produces gobblers when the weather is rainy. I killed a few birds out of the same location a couple of years prior.
So our game plan was simple, we were going to hunt the blind setup we call "three-acre field". The only problem was I had to work the night before and I could not meet up with Jeremy until 7am. Well I picked Jeremy up and we headed out to this special property. I pulled in where we normally park and got our gear together. It was not long before we heard a gobble out in the field. We carefully walked through the woods to get to my Ameristep blind. We come out a logging road to the field.
To our surprise we looked at the blind and saw a tom all blown up and strutting. Now we had to think of a new game plan. We decided to circle up around and try to call him in. We got to our destination and got all setup. It turned out there was two toms in the field. Jeremy did a little calling and the birds responded. We thought for sure they would be committed to coming in. Well we were wrong! They left the field and circled around behind us. We knew they were pretty far so we decided to head to the blind. We once again got the gear setup and ready. It was not long before the gobblers made their appearance again. The birds came out the same place we did.
At this point they were 75 plus yards away. We tried again to call to them, but they walked off the field in the opposite direction. It was not long, we lost sight of them, but every now and then they would gobble to let us know they were in the area. A half hour or so passed and then we spotted a hen. She was working her way towards the blind. At this point we knew we were in business. We had the real thing as a decoy right in front of us 30 yards away. In no time, we had the two toms closing the distance. One was half strutting the whole time, while the other was alert looking for danger, and it took them about 30 minutes to come the last 50 yards. But when the dominant tom was within 30 yards and I was ready. I took off my safety on the 12 gauge and put the Nikon Turkey Pro scope on his head. I squeezed off and missed! (I made a rookie mistake—I shot when he had his head down). But I was fortunate to be able to get a quick second shot off. That one found the mark. He was a nice bird, 20 lbs 8oz., 8 inch beard and 1 inch spurs.
All I can say it was one fantastic PA season! I got to hunt with my wife and my best friend Jeremy Lengle. And not only that, we killed some birds! It’s one of the finest seasons I have ever had in the turkey woods.