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Illinois fall turkey

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Joined
Nov 19, 2012
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Took a while to get back on.

My Illinois fall turkey season came down to the last hour for the third year in a row. I didn’t see or hear a turkey in 5 long days of hunting this year. Finally, the next to last evening, I hear turkeys fly up to roost.

The next day, I hunted a different area during the morning, but set up on a ridge leading to the roost area that afternoon. I had my 12 ga. Flintlock because it was very windy, and I didn’t want to risk not being able to light my matchlock in time.

About 1/2 hour before sunset, I spotted a large flock of turkeys making their way toward me. They turned to my left just out of range, but the last bird strayed to just inside my “limit” tree. I touched off the flinter, and all I could see beyond the smoke cloud, was a couple of turkeys flying away. Several big turkeys that had gone down over a hill, came running back up and stopped 10 yards in front of me. Not sure that I had killed the bird I shot at, I slowly reloaded as the turkeys walked away.

By the time I reloaded, all the turkeys had walked out of sight. I got up and walked to the spot the turkey was standing when I fired. There were a few feathers, but no turkey. I walked a few steps to the edge of the hillside and looked down to see the turkey lying in a pool of water at the base of the hill. Whew!

I built my 12 ga. Flintlock 5 years ago, and this is the 8th turkey I’ve taken with it. My load is an 80 grain measure of 2f black, 2 -1/8” hard cards, the same measure heaping with copper plated #6 shot, and another 1/8” card wad over the shot. The 30” barrel has a full choke and throws tight patterns out to over 30 yards.
 

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