A Hunt I Will Never Forget

Lora Akin, of Columbus, with a hard-earned WMA buck she killed after work.

My name is Lora Akin, born and raised in Columbus, Ga. I don’t have any private land to turkey hunt, so I normally drive about 45 minutes to an hour just to hunt some public land.

On April 17, 2025 around 7 p.m. that evening, I was blessed with a beautiful turkey. I was out on a solo hunt on public land.

After two full days of scouting and talking back and forth with a bunch of gobblers, I finally was able to cut him off one evening. The day prior, I left work and headed out and it was a little too late to get to my spot, but I told myself that it was just a matter of timing, and I must be patient with myself.

On April 17, after leaving straight from work, I was able to get into my spot with no problem. I sat there for 45 minutes or so before I finally tried to call. Not even 15 minutes later, I had two hens, a jake and a tom heading my direction out in the field. He was strutting and putting on a nice show for the hens. The jake and hens got within 15 yards of me. The tom on the other hand stood behind them strutting his stuff about 40 yards away.

I had my phone on a tripod trying to get a video of it when the next thing I know it fell over randomly. The hens and jake started being cautious due to the noise my phone made when it fell over. They went to go head in a cut-through beside me, kind of back the way they came but along the woodline, and when they did, the tom turned around to follow but kept strutting his stuff. Mind you I’m sitting there in the woodline with thick stuff all to my left. I got a tiny lane to shoot from, and he wasn’t quite to it yet. I leaned over to my right as far as I could. The tom went to turn around to follow the hens and jake, and soon as he went into a walk and put his feathers down, he was almost out of sight, but I was able to pull the trigger on him and drop him in his tracks at about 40 yards.

While I was taking a video showing him off, I had another tom come walking up on me, and I managed to get a video of him darting off into the woods. It was an absolute insane hunt for me to pull up and have him down in an hour, on public land at that. I couldn’t be more thankful.

I used the call my dad passed down to me to call them in, and I couldn’t be more excited to finally add that fourth notch to the ol call! To see them come running in and to see that tom strut like that prior. It’s a feeling that is indescribable. This was a memorable hunt that I will never forget.

The bird weighed 19 pounds, had an 11-inch beard and 1-inch spurs.