Sunday, April 26, 2009

Getting ready for turkey...

In one week, I will be attending my second ever turkey hunt and the first one with one of my truest hunting buddies, The Rabid Outdoorsman aka DuckHammer. This one has been on the radar since the opener of ducks last fall, and I'm as excited as can be to try my hand at a big gobbler once again. And to top it off, my other great hunting partner Matt Diesel will be driving down with me. All I need to do is pick him up on the way.

Okay with that said, I decided to bring out the Beretta Xtrema2 for some target practice (target practice???) just to see how the #5 shot Federal 3.5 inch in 2 oz load would treat my homemade targets. The munchkins took the time to color them in and were quite proud of their good work, and was pleasantly surprised when my oldest suggested that these decoys would definitely bring in those turkeys. I had to tell them that Daddy was going to use them for target practice and they were excited to see how well I would fare.

On the bigger bird, I counted 80 shots from the top of the head down to the base of the neck. For the smaller one, I scored 76 shots and put the wad through it's lower chest. This was attained with a modified choke and about 20 yards away. After some thought about installing a factory full choke, I chose to stick with the modified spread. Rabid also explained that my locale would max out at about 20+/- yards anyways. After some basic research, I'm thinking that the #5 shot has a little over 300 pellets so I'll consider that fairly decent patterning with the modified choke.

Here's the photos from my trials, we'll see how the hunt goes and if the Maine Outdoorsman can put me onto a big tom. No pressure buddy!!!



My oldest daughter's turkey with 80 shots...


Close up


With light in the background


My youngest daughter's turkey with 76 shots


Close up


With light in the background

5 comments:

tugboatdude said...

what were the "targets" made out of?Good luck with your turkey hunt.I have never tried it,I'm to busy fishing this time of year

Downeast Duck Hunter said...

Tug,
I whipped them out of a cardboard box, some magic markers, and crayons. They may look a little suspect but I'm pretty sure that the targets bit the dust. After counting all the hits on the biggest target, 218 holes were in a foot diameter.

I stapled them to some square sticks and paced them off about 20 yards.

We just got our first 70 degree day of the year and word is that the first mosquito was spotted...

Jon Roth said...

Uh yea, I'm pretty sure that will put the hurt on any tom dumb enough to come in for a closer look. Good luck!

tugboatdude said...

well good luck to you,rabid and your other buddy.It's been 90 down here the last few days.I heart Virginia?

Holly Heyser said...

LOVE the targets!

Good luck out there. I got two shots at turkey hunting this spring and ZERO shots at birds. Wah.