Double Beard on a Double Kill

**Nick** · 04-30-2008, 06:13 PM

Opening morning started off cold (low 40's) which at sunrise led to lock-jaw for the gobblers. We stood in the corner of the picked corn field at our lease for a half hour after sun-up waiting for that first gobble.....But it never came. So with 3 tags and 3 hunters, we decided to split up. My Uncle Don was heading to the SouthWest corner of the woods, his brother Rex was heading to clearing on the East side of the woods, and I headed to the edge of an alfalfa field on the North side of the woods. Before I reached my destination I caught a long gobbler in the far back of the field, 400-500 yards away. I sat down and did a few series of yelps on my box call. The bird was facing my direction but not making his way toward me very fast so I wasnt too excited yet. A half hour into my sit I caught movement on a rise in the alfalfa field about 70 yards away.....It was a tom, a different one from the tom I was watching. The bird was heading toward me so when he disappeared in a gully 50 yards in front of me, I got into position. As he began to make his way toward me, he showed himself at 35 yards and stuck his head up looking really cautiously, so I put my bead to his neck and squeezed the trigger. The bird went down, flopped....and before I got to my feet, he was up and flew across the field and into the neighbors woods. I couldnt beleive it!!! Just my luck.....Well the gunshot rose the attention of my uncle, who came to check things out. As we stood there talking about what had just happened, I looked into the field and noticed two big, black lone birds about 300 yards out into the alfalfa. We watched them and could tell they were toms. So I hit the box call once with a series of yelps.....Both birds stuck their heads up.....Since I had their attention, I hit the box one more time and these birds came running in. My uncle and I were scrambling to find a position and get our facemasks on. I sat on my original tree and he sat on a tree 5 yards to my left. I was going to take the bird on the right and he was going to take the one on the left. These birds closed the 300 yard distance in about 3 minutes. They disappeared into the gully 50 yards in front of us, but in a short time popped out. I finished cloing the distance with some soft yelps which in return got a double gobble. The birds were now split up, 20-25 yards away, I said "ready", gave it a second and let the Mossberg sing once again and almost simultaniously, my uncle shot. Both birds dropped without a flop and we both were so excited we both tripped on the barb wire fence and fell face first into the ground. My bird tipped the scale at 26 pounds with beard lengths of 10 1/4" and 4 3/4" and both spurs measured 1 1/8". My uncles was slightly smaller, but still a respectable bird. We topped the day off by Rex killing himself a long beard off the very same spot at 3 that afternoon. A great hunt that will always be remembered.