My first Ontario wild turkey of 2020!

My first Ontario wild turkey of 2020 (and my second turkey EVER)! My adrenaline is still buzzing as I write this! Since getting access to hunt our neighbors property recently, Eric and I have spent time patterning the local turkey population. Both fairly new at this, we’ve scoured many videos and articles. It has been a fun and interesting experience so far. I also appreciate advice from many of you!

Last night we spotted a beard-dragger of a tom moseying along across a field towards the roosting grounds. We’d seen plenty of turkeys in the area but hadn’t clearly been able to identify a tom in over a week. He hopped into a tree along the edge of the field, letting loose a few gobbles. Although it was forecasted to be a cold morning today at -2°C, knowing a tom was in the area was reason enough to get out.

We were out the door on foot by 4:30am with the blind and decoys set up before 5am. As we sat down and quietly got organized inside the blind, the gobbling began and didn’t let up for 40 minutes! I had goose bumps and a huge grin! Eric gave out a couple soft yelp sequences with a mouth call. At 5:40am the tom flew down to the other side of the tree line out of sight. I was convinced he must have seen us and went elsewhere. After 10-15 minutes, 4 dark shapes emerged from the brush revealing 3 hens and a strutting tom following closely behind. Eric called again. The turkeys made their way towards our decoys, at one point sprinting. They took a hard right getting within 5 yards of our blind! I managed to sit still with my heart jumping in my chest. The tom headed left getting between our strutter and hen decoys where he proceeded to put on a show.

At 6:12am I raised the gun and harvested my second turkey ever with a 10-yard shot. It was a clean and perfect shot. So here he is, my beautiful 20.5-pound tom! What an amazing creature! Carrying this guy home over my shoulder was my workout of the day! LOL! Thank you to Eric for calling this tom in for me and sharing this exciting moment in the outdoors. I can’t wait to cook fresh wild turkey on the Traeger! If you have any turkey recipes, please send them my way! ??

Thanks for reading,

Ashley Rae of