Jason Daniel of Mocksville was born and raised in Davie County, and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. Then in 2011 he decided to put his 21 years of outdoors experience to work, and he and his father Jack started J Daniel Outdoors, a videography service.
The assignment on April 9 was to harvest a good turkey on video for friend Casey Foster, but fate took over and Daniel harvested a jake as well to make it a double on Davie County gobblers.
“We hunt on leased property, and we roosted some birds on Friday night and four of us slipped down a woods road before light,” Daniel said. “We had a general idea about where to set out our hen decoy, and sure enough a boss gobbler sounded off on a tree nearby.
“At 6:50 a.m., he was on the ground and in full strut but about 70-yards from us.”
Jack Daniel did the calling using an H.S. Strut box call and a Primos mouth call.
The big tom broke out of full strut after 10 minutes of showing off, and Casey Foster opened fire where the bird stood about 15 yards away.
“This was a huge bird, and we got the whole hunt on film,” said Jason Daniel, who goes by J Daniel Outdoors on the NorthCarolinaSportsman.com forum.
When they broke out their scales and weighed the tom, it went an amazing 24 pounds, which easily qualifies as the heaviest gobbler Foster ever harvested. The tom’s beard was 8 ¾ inches long and the spurs taped out at 1 ¾ inches.
With the first hunt over in quick fashion, the plan was to move the hunting party to another area they had hunted with success the year before. When they got out of the truck, they began down a trail alongside a big field surrounded by hardwoods.
Jack Daniel’s calls were met with silence at first, and them one lone gobble came in answer from the field.
The hunters closed the distance towards the field in their bottom area, but when the bird gobbled again they realized he was already coming in.
“We set up very quickly, basically just sat down, and we did not get this bird on film,” Jason Daniel said. “He gobbled like a big bird, so when he came into range I shot him at 8:42.”
Unbelievably the second turkey came to the gun even faster than the first gobbler.
“It was a real accomplishment to get two Davie County toms because they are not as thick in this county as some others.”
The jake weighed 16 pounds and sported a 5 inch beard.
Check out all of J Daniels Outdoors posts on his NorthCarolinaSportsman.com profile.
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