Well the �Good Lord� has blessed me with another awesome Bama season!! It�s sad for my season to be over again so quickly. However, I had an awesome 10 days of hunting. Considering the cold and rain I can�t complain one bit about my successful hunts. Everyone of the birds I killed strutted and gobbled just like it�s suppose to happen. Truly blessed I am!!!
So here goes the story of #4. I missed this turkey on Thursday of last week, I had a grudge I wanted to settle after that. So I go back after him Friday and he�s gobbling but not near as good as the day before. He doesn�t want to play and I don�t push the issue. I leave him that morning and come back later that afternoon to attempt to roost him. I manage to get on two hens but he�s a no show. I have a strong feeling he�s in the area so I�m back Saturday morning. As it starts to break day he hammers but sounds a long ways off. I listen to him gobble several more times and finally figure out where he is. He�s roosted on the back side of a big hill in some beautiful hardwoods. I know roughly where the two hens had roosted so I made a small circle an got set up between him and his hens.
By the time I get in position and set up they were already on the ground. I never heard him gobble again but got his hens to answer me a few times. I could also hear them scratching in the leaves just out of sight. I just kept calling every few minutes and I finally started hearing pftttttttdooooom up on the hill. This continued for at least 10 minutes until I spotted a lone hen coming down off the hill headed to the other turkeys. A few minutes later I see him coming down the hill in tow. As soon as he gets even with me I hit him with a couple excited clucks followed up with a short excited yelp. I did this a couple times while scratching in the leaves pretty aggressively. It must have been what he liked because he turned an started the 100 yard march in full strut right to me. I look behind him an all his hens are running behind him, like yeah where the heck you going. I let him come as close as he would which was in my pocket before he realized something against that big white oak wasn�t quite right. As he started to turn to leave I unleashed the �TSS Pain Train� He was a nice bird with 1� spurs, 10 5/16� beard and 21 LB 7 Oz.
Here goes the story of #5. I knew of an area I left a gobbling last year so I decided to go check this area for sign yesterday afternoon. I found some good fresh sign but did not see or hear anything. I start out in the same area before daylight with high expectations. I hear nothing not a single peep. I decide to go sit near the sign an call for an hour, this produces nothing nor do I hear anything. My patience wear thin so I decide to ease around to do a little blind calling. This produces nothing so I head back to where I started. There is a food plot near by so I decided to go check it. As I near the plot a crow calls out and a gobbler hammers. He�s only a couple hundred yards away so I find a pretty place to set up. He gobbles a couple more times on his on before I get ready.
Once in position I start off giving him some light calling that he does not respond to. I thought he would jump all over this calling since he was gobbling on his own. I get a little more aggressive with an yelp which he answers. I tone it back down and nothing. So I hit him with an excited cackle which he jumped all over. I give him a few minutes and hit him with some excited cutting and he hammers that. I shut up at this point an never make another call. Around 10 minutes later he enters the plot 80 yards away. He�s looking hard and I�m tempted to call to him but I wanted him to come look for me. I knew if I called to him he would pin point my exact location and game over. He slowly started easing my way. He would go in half strut but nothing more. I could tell he was getting aggitated because the hen that had talked so nasty to him was no where to be seen nor would she come to him. A few minutes pass and he�s getting desparate so he gobbles. He ease closer while blowing up in half strut. He hammers again at 50 yards and eases a little closer. He starts feeding a little so I took that opportunity to scratch in the leaves when he wasn�t looking so hard for the hen. That was all he needed as he responded with a gobble an committed those last 15 yards. It was like he locked in on the area and the scratching gave him the reassurance there was a hen near by. As he craned his head for his last look I unleashed the �TSS Pain Train�. He was also a nice bird with 1 3/8� & 1 1/8� spurs, 11.25� beard and 21 LB 13 Oz.
Here are the quick stories of my Louisiana buddies birds that he killed while up hunting with me. I picked up a new property recently and while looking the place over I saw a strutter with some hens that afternoon. I made the decision we would head to this property after he struck out on the another property we were hunting. We get settled in on a big power line food plot that is surround by a fresh clear cut. One of the fresh logging roads where full of gobbler and hen tracks. I�m pretty confident in the afternoon hunt. However, that quickly diminishes as we have sat there for two hours and have heard or saw nothing. I�m about ready to get up an move when all of a sudden a bird gobbles up on hill in the clear cut. I spot him standing up there so I start calling to him. He answers me every time I call and he starts our way. We both watched this bird cover 300 yards through a fresh clear cut. He would stop long enough to strut and gobble. It took him about 15 minutes to work his way to us. I was talking to Mr. Ward to as he got close to let him come a little further. Mr Ward finally told me was as close as he was going to get. He unleaded the �Nitro Pain Train� on him. Mr Ward had #1 in the books and was a happy cajun.
Mr Ward bird #2 was also another afternoon hunt. I had found some more gobbler sign on the other section of the ned property. I tell him about that spot and we decide he�s going there by his self. I wasn�t feeling very motivated due the nasty weather that had come through earlier that morning. I wanted to catch up on my rest so I just sat around camp until later that afternoon. Mr Ward takes off and arrives at the food plot. He puts his DSD jake, submissive hen and feeding hen out. He starts making some blind calls every 15 minutes like I had done the afternoon before. He said an hour had passed and he had heard nothing. He was sitting there totally not prepared when all of a sudden a gobbler comes charging out of the hardwood bottom in full strut headed for the jake deke. Mr Ward said his gun was in his lap and he freaked out due to that. However, the gobbler was so intent on beating up the jake he was able to slowly ease his gun into position. He had killed a nice bird with 1 1/8� spurs, 10 1/2 bard and 20 lbs.
