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And So It Begins...

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megalomaniac

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Details to follow... Fun Hunt!
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Made it back to work, have time to post now...

Cleaned up all my work around 6am, decided to head to the lease since it's only 10 min from work and see if there was anything going on. Had to stay close to the truck, so I just parked it and headed down a logging road on a finger ridge headed towards a hardwood bottom I suspected birds may be roosting on. Listened for about 20 minutes, and finally heard a faint gobble in the distance, prolly 4-500 yds away well before I expected. Moved in the dark to about half the distance and set up on the logging road. He popped off on his own at what sounded like about 250yds down in the drain and to my right. Gave it till about 6:50 and threw out a few quiet tree yelps. Never answered, so raised the volume a bit, and he responded.

We spent the next 30 minutes with him hammering back at me from the limb, must have gobbled at least 50 times on the roost. I never heard any hens, and started to get more than hopeful. It even got to the point that I was hoping he would shut up, and expected to hear him get shot off the roost at any second, since the drain is the property line. He finally pitched down and stomped 100 yds toward me gobbling the whole time, but then hung up on the opposite side of a dense thicket between us. He went back and forth trying to figure out how or whether he wanted to go through the thicket, then started gobbling headed away. I was running out of time and needed to get back to work, so I moved down the finger another 100 yds to where it starts to drop off into the drain. He was silent, and I thought I had probably bumped him while repositioning. I gave it another 5 minutes, then purred lightly with Halloran's Metal Mouth. Boom, thundering gobble 30 yds away. He popped up over the rise coming out of the drain and got absolutely swarmed with the 20g youth using the new Federal TSS #9. I hit him a tad high, darn near took off the top of his head, but no pellets in the breast :)

Crazy aggressive 2y/o bird with a 10.5" beard, 1/2 in spurs.... but it was a great hunt. Most vocal bird I've ever been on in south MS... I'm used to them gobbling once on the roost, then sneaking in an hour later. This dude put on quite the show! Made it back to work to put out the fires. Gonna try slow smoking one of the breasts after wrapping it in bacon tomorrow when I get off :)
 
Congrats! Pretty bird. I went out this morning and had one gobbling close by. I can't wait


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Man that sounds like a great way to get the season rolling! There aren't many things in life better than having a bird sound off inside 50 yards...congratulation Mega!


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thanks!

hard to believe this is spring #30 for me in the turkey woods. Been a while since I used to ride around in my 72GMC pickup trying to learn how to call listening to the old Quaker Boy cassette tapes on the radio. I think it was 2 years before I even had a live bird answer me ;) But I wore that cassette out!

still hasn't gotten old, in fact, I think I enjoy it even more every year.
 

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