I was trying to decide whether to take my bow out, or do a little turkey hunting this week and it reminded me of a good story. You know how I like to tell a good story….


3-4 years ago or so I was out during the last day of black powder season. This day also happened to fall on the second day of the fall turkey season in Osage county. I was watching a trail that opened up into a clearing that had a pond. Now I was sitting on the ground leaning against a tree so I had to be pretty still. So, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye, I very slowly started to turn my head. When I looked over in that direction there wasn’t anything there so I figured it might have just been a squirrel running around or something. Have you ever noticed how many squirrels there are in the woods when you aren’t squirrel hunting? Anyways, I decided to watch that area for a few minutes to see what the movement was. Then there it was again. Something popped up over the hill but I wasn’t quite sure what it was at the time. Then it happened again and I clearly saw it was the head of a turkey.


Now I want to mention that I was hunting on private land at the time. This land isn’t hunted by anyone but myself and a hunting buddy of mine. The owner gets our there during rifle season maybe one day every 2-3 years or so. So, anyway, this land is loaded with turkey that have never been hunted before. Also keep in mind that during the fall turkey are usually seen in bigger flocks than you normally see during the spring season.


Ok, so I was watching these turkeys coming over the hill, and they just kept coming. There must have been 20-30 turkey in this flock. Then they came right in front of me about 20 yards out. Now here I am on the second day of turkey season during the last day of muzzle deer season and I was starting to think that it was getting too late in the day for this area anyway, and I had my CVA loaded with a .50 CAL 245 gr. aero tip Powerbelt bullet. What does one do? Yup, I took the shot.


Now here’s where the story gets weird. Remember, these turkey have never been hunted before. I dropped a nice hen that I thought would be great for Thanksgiving. But, the other turkeys didn’t run. They just stayed there looking at the one that dropped, wondering why it didn’t get back up. It was kind of weird. So I called my buddy on the radio who was sitting in a stand a few hundred yards away watching a field. I told him what I did and asked him if he wanted one because they wouldn’t leave. Although I was very close to them, they didn’t seem to care that I was having a conversation on the radio. I almost felt guilty. So now Brad is running over to come and get himself a turkey as well. Just before he came up the hill he called to let me know where he was so that I could get behind the tree I was up against. He came over the hill and took a shot. His turkey went down. Now about half of them started to scatter. The others still didn’t leave until we walked out to get our Thanksgiving dinners.


Now most people would think that shooting a turkey with a .50 Cal bullet would make a mess. Well both of our shots passed cleanly though both turkeys without damaging any meat. And this was one of the best tasting turkeys I can remember ever eating. If you’ve never tasted a turkey that lives on acorns and pecans you really need to give it a try.


You know, this reminds me of another story when I was bow hunting for turkey when I lived in Texas. But I’ll save that for another day.

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