April 26, 2007Cool video of a strutting gobbler decoy at work
This is going to make you want to stuff the next gobbler you kill just to use it as a decoy. At the end of the segment Freddy says, "Robbie is in there taking a shower. He is gonna have a coronary." Robbie is Freddy's brother. He roosted these two birds and spent some time in the blind with these guys that morning. But he had to leave for work, and the gobblers showed up shortly thereafter. Actually, Robbie, who is about as low-key as anyone I know, was totally cool with these guys shooting "his" turkeys. They had only one gun and Jeff shot first. That black thing you see flapping up is the window screen. When the second gobbler stuck around, Jeff handed Freddy the gun and he was able to kill the other longbeard. Unfortunately Freddy had to shoot out the side window of the blind so that kill wasn't on camera. Freddy, who runs the Vaturkey.com Web site, shoots some video for the guys who put together the Blue Ridge Mountain Memories (airs on WHSV TV in Harrisonburg) and Just Kill'n Time (Sportsman Channel) TV shows. This hunt will certainly end up on one of those shows next spring so I had to do a little begging to get my hands on it. Thanks to Freddy and Max Rowe (of those shows and BTD Outdoors Scents and Game Calls) for letting me slip this sneak preview out there a year early! |
About this blog
While growing up in rural Southern Oregon, Mark Taylor developed a passion for the outdoors while he and his younger brother tagged along with their father on fishing, hunting and camping adventures. Graduating from Northwestern University in 1988, Taylor spent four years as an officer in the U.S. Navy based in Norfolk before moving into journalism. After five years writing about the military for a Norfolk-based publishing company, he became the outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times in 1998. He lives in Roanoke with his wife and twin daughters. .....Advertisement.....
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Comments
[May 15, 2007 11:02 AM]
Kevin MillerAWESOME VIDEO!!!! Did you have a taxidermist mount the decoy, or did you do it yourself.... Has the decoy ever scared a gobbler??? Great Job!! Kevin
[May 16, 2007 2:29 PM]
Mark TaylorKevin, Thanks for checking out the blog.
Jeff had a taxidermist mount the gobbler. It was the first gobbler he killed, about 20 years ago. For some reason Jeff wasn't able or didn't want to display it anymore, but he couldn't bear to part with it. So he started using it as a decoy. He has a mounted hen, too. The hen was just a quick mount done by a taxidermist for $100. The gobblers don't seem to pay much attention to the hen.
A few days after this hunt another friend of mine, Barry Arrington, took a stuffed gobbler on a hunt. His brother had mounted it and, frankly, it looked awful. In fact, the head was actually from an old 3D target. Well, the hunt was similar to the one in this video. Two gobblers spotted the intruder and that was it. Barry shot the lead bird, which weighed over 22 pounds and had 1.5-inch spurs. An awesome bird.
In other words, you don't need a $450 mounted gobbler to do this. The next gobbler I kill -- and it's not going to happen this spring -- I'm going to do the budget mount job and use it as a decoy. Actually, if I kill a hen next fall I plan to mount it, too.
mt
[April 23, 2008 10:42 AM]
tyler brighamthat movie was awesome i may have to try that.i really thought that it was neat. im in school watching this vidoe and everyone heard the gobble and the shot our pa season starts saturday and im pumped for it.