Had a big helping this morning. I was able to get out for a morning hunt where there are tons of virtually in-hunted gobblers. Same place I missed one two weeks ago. Been keeping an eye on the birds periodically since, and still had them "pegged". Got set up and waited for them to jump onto the end of my gun barrel like last time...except they never came to the field! One gobbled good on another property, and then I thought I heard one on the other end of this field a long ways off. Head that way and peek occasionally but never see anything in the field. As I am about to give up and go home and work around the house one gobbles on the ridge directly above me. I figure for sure he's going to come down so I set up and call and he hammers back. I wait and wait for him, call again and he's further down the ridge. Get up and get on the ridge set up and call again, and he hammers me again...a little further away! I wait and wait, no gobbles for like 10 minutes. Call again and he hammers me again lower down the ridge on my level so figure he's coming. I go quiet. Nothing for 5 minutes so I call, he hits me again all the way back up on top of the ridge! I move just a bit trying to think what I should do. Call again and he's hammers again about the same place. I figure my best bet is to try and circle him and get to where he was last. I get to a good looking spot and call...he's now barely audible down one holler and on the next ridge! I quit. Too much work to do and it's already almost 830.
This is pretty much the same scenario I dealt with two years ago with several birds on several hunts. I could get them to respond readily but just couldn't get them to come in. I oddly have just the opposite luck when I hunt fields. I have had way better success calling birds into range on a field than in the woods for the last two seasons...and no, I don't use decoys. Just able to read them better or something when I can lay eyes on them. I think over the last three years, 8 out the 10 birds I've killed have been field birds, before that I hardly ever could kill one in a field. Now that I think about it, this was the first hunt this year I ended up in the woods with a gobbling bird, and even though I ended up on the short end, I loved every minute of it!
This is pretty much the same scenario I dealt with two years ago with several birds on several hunts. I could get them to respond readily but just couldn't get them to come in. I oddly have just the opposite luck when I hunt fields. I have had way better success calling birds into range on a field than in the woods for the last two seasons...and no, I don't use decoys. Just able to read them better or something when I can lay eyes on them. I think over the last three years, 8 out the 10 birds I've killed have been field birds, before that I hardly ever could kill one in a field. Now that I think about it, this was the first hunt this year I ended up in the woods with a gobbling bird, and even though I ended up on the short end, I loved every minute of it!
