Awesome turkey day

[turkeyfeathers]

So while deer hunting yesterday sitting in my ladder stand I heard the woods start to wake up. A few tree yelps and then a few more, and then a few more. They sounded anywhere from 80 yards to 200 yards behind me. I text by brother ( who is a great turkey hunter and I can't hold a candle to him). He asks "2 flocks? "  I say I think it's one but scattered. For about a good hour I never heard so much turkey tree talk in my life. Then maybe 10-15 minutes of silence til they opened up again. Ha, brother nailed it, 2 flocks. I had one behind me and now one to my left. They were only 100 yards apart at any given time. Yelps, assembly calls, kee kee runs and for the first time I've ever heard fighting purrs. What an incredible sound. Had birds gobbling 3x roll into a purr, a purr into a gobble. I heard sounds I've never heard before. Two rival groups for sure. They kept meandering off and would come back almost in contact with one another. Me sitting in the middle of their meeting ground. I text a friend, he says I've seen that before. "The Jets and the Sharks"  Now all I can picture is these turkeys in a circle whipping out switchblades ! I described what I saw to a coworker this morning and he said "Westside Story".lol   These birds were around me for most of the morning. It was amazing how much movement I could get away with and not having them putt and boogie. I grabbed a few phone videos and snapped a few pics. I'd catch one or two looking in my direction , I'd stop moving and they'd go about their business. A fat guy in the tree wearing an orange vest and I could have shot everyone of those birds but yet you look at a bird in the spring crosseyed and they are gone. I swear they get dumber in the fall and winter. So eventually I had a flock of 14 at 30 yards to my right and at the same time the big flock in front of me crossing the old logging road from the dark pines. 29 birds in all in that one. Totaling 43 birds and a lot with nice beards.  And here we go again: We see deer during turkey season and turkey during deer season, never fails. After a dismal Spring turkey season I hope some of these winter flocks stick around after they split up. And that my brothers property doesn't get sold yet and one more turkey season out of it. And that big male Fisher I saw doesn't wipe out too many of these birds. All that racket yesterday and seeing fisher day before , hmmmm. Bet one may have gotten wiped out as it would have been easy pickens for him to locate and kill one of them as so many. Pretty sure some of these birds came down from mountain across the street ( we hear a lot over there in spring) as guys have been driving that hill hard. 3x I've heard them push it so far this year. Saw one ghostly glimpse of a big bodied deer when I gently walked thru the swamp pines. But hearing and seeing all those turkey was simply priceless. Definitely one of my all time experiences in the woods.  

[grampy]

What a cool turkey tale!  Thanks to a member here, (Maytom, and more on this in another post), I'm really looking forward to spring gobbler hunting again!!! For various reasons, it's been a few years since I've hunted spring turkeys . I will definitely be asking advice from our resident, awesome turkey hunters here, to get me back on track. Great post TF !