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Monday April 21st was opening day for the Missouri firearms spring turkey hunt. I have always had someone call them in for me. This year, I wanted to do it all myself. I've scouted and watched all the turkey calling videos I can handle. I've soaked up all the advice seasoned hunters could give me. Monday morning between 0720 and 0930, I was able to talk a few hens in. My confidence was now running high. from 0930 until 1045 I didn't hear nor see anything. I did not hear a lot of gobbles or yelps, the birds just showed up very quietly. I started heading for the truck. I pulled out my blaze orange vest flap, gathered my stuff and went towards my wheels. As I topped a knoll( which I learned to do slowly) I spotted a gobbler in full strut twenty yards behind my damn truck. I dove to the ground and low crawled back to the wood line. I tucked away my orange flap and crawled back into the field to deploy my hen decoy. I crawled back into the wood line and took a peak with my field glasses. The big tom was now in the middle of the field. I let out a few purrs and clucks. HOLY COW , HERE HE COMES. He topped the hill and had three hens with him and a jake I thought. I got a good bead on him as he passed up my decoy. The hens stopped at the decoy, however, he was about ten or so yards passed it. I was for certain he was in shot gun range. I pulled the trigger and he went backwards, did a flip and landed on hes back as he flopped vigourously. I got up to go get him and to my amazement, he got up and ran to my left. THE CHASE WAS ON. I chased him back into the woods and as he came to a clearing, I fired again. He continued into an area so thick, I couldn't follow. I aimed for the base of his neck, where it meets the top of the breast feathers. He was side ways to me and I fired as he extended his neck to eat a bug. I don't understand what went wrong. I left and went to an area to check the pattern of my gun ( Mossberg 835 Ulti Mag) At 40 yards, I had pleny of pellets in the kill zone. I looked for the bird later on for two hours, hoping he just dropped somewhere, but I found nothing. Please tell me this has happened to others. Any one that has any theory on what my mistake was good or bad, I'd love to hear it.

Those darn birds are just hard to kill!!! I think they have on a bullet proof vest ....no I think they have on a
suit of armor ....that includes neck coverage.....blast them! I haven't gotten one yet! But I keep hunting them
over and over....some day, I will get that tough old Tom turkey..... =-)

Thanks KSP. That makes me feel better.lol. I made up for it Friday morning at 0740. 20lbs, 10 inch beard, and 1 inch spurs. He DID NOT GET BACK UP. He is in the freezer. I was in the field doing the end zone dance. I'll post pics later

killed this on this past season.10 inch beard ,7/8 spurs on one and 3/4 on the other weighed 21lbs  

Great bird, me and the boys are heading out in April for the youth weekend hunt here in NH.  We are all very excited hope we get to see at least half the bird you got.