Post by jbnut on May 27, 2018 16:37:07 GMT -5
Well here is the story.
My son & I went out turkey hunting Friday morning, my Birthday, and set up on the edge of the woods over looking a field that he had seen 3 birds in the night before. There were no other vehicles parked on the road so we were sitting pretty. We heard a gobble from a line of trees that run through the field and shortly after 3 birds flew down. While all this was going on there was also a group of deer out there so it was very entertaining.
When the birds hit the ground they proceeded to chase each other around in circles for quite awhile. After awhile 2 of the birds went off to our right and disappeared further up into the field where we couldn't see around the corner of the woods so that left one bird about 100-150 yards in front of us. We each did a little calling and you could tell he heard us but as turkeys do he knew he should be seeing the hen, us, but couldn't so he just stayed put and gobbled quite a few times. Maybe 20 minutes later the other 2 birds came back into sight and came closer to us but still out of range. This might have gone on for 5 minutes or less and suddenly a couple of shoots rang out. I'm pretty sure I could hear BB's going through the trees by me from the 2nd shot. We sat there in shock that someone else was there and suddenly we could see the guy come running down through the field, from the area we couldn't see, and he fired again on the run. The big bird had gone across the road by then and 1 of the others had flown by me when he started to reload on the run and ran into the tall weeds in front of me. When he came out of the weeds the 3rd bird came out also and up comes the gun. We were both screaming, Don't Shoot Don't Shoot, but Bang.
I got up and went to my son to make sure he was alright and in the mean time the shooter realized what happened and all he said from 50 yards away was sorry man. He picked up the bird without tagging it and turned around and went back from where he came from. We both were so shocked at what happened and so mad at the same time it wouldn't have been a good idea to track him down. I still can't believe he didn't come to make sure we were alright.
When I was a kid I had a Great Uncle that always had a whistle around his neck, maybe it's time to get my own because screaming doesn't cut it when someone is "caught up" in the moment.
Oh, and in the spring season in PA you have to call the birds in not shoot them while your running through the field. He came from the same area that the 2 birds went to before coming back. If he was set up there he should have been shooting while they were out of our sight. And we never heard the other guy make any calls but as bad as my ears are I might not have heard him call but my son with good ears didn't hear him either.
The most important thing is we both came home again.
John