CAW
Well-Known Member
This morning my plan was to go to the top of a ridge on my farm where I thought some birds would be roosting, and I would just work my way back down. After parking my truck and getting all my stuff together I took off for the ridge. I am walking a road that winds through the edge of a cedar thicket next to some big hardwoods. I am no more than 150 yards into my 1/2 mile walk and I hear a gobble just ahead of me up on a small knob. As I am sitting down next to a big maple, I hear a bird above me. I moved my head real slow and see a big gobbler roosted. He's already seen me and a couple seconds later he takes off and gobbles as he flies out of sight. His gobble triggers gobbles from all around me. There must have been 15 birds, some in front, some to my right and some behind me. I sit there a little longer and as it starts to get light I can see gobblers roosted about 100 yards in front of me. These birds, along with the others that I can not see are gobbling like crazy now and eventually they start to fly down. Once I can't see any more birds I call very lightly on my slate and they are all responding. Again, I've got birds in front of me, to my right and behind me. The ground has a little rise to it and I am almost on top of the knob. I wait a few minutes and can see two gobblers in front of me going left to right about 75 yards. As they go behind some brush, I moved a little to be ready and I hear birds behind me sound the alarm. I turned slowly behind me and catch movement as they disappear behind a fallen cedar tree. Somehow, I get turned all the way around and get my gun ready hoping they would calm down. Things get quiet and I hit my slate very softly. The gobblers hammer and decide to come my way. I can now see there red heads bobbing back and forth looking for the hen that they thought was there. They still seem a little spooked, but decide to come on in to my left. They walk behind a tree and I get my gun ready. The bigger one was in the back, so I waited for the first one to clear and hope the second one follows him. A couple seconds later the bigger bird comes out from behind a tree at about 35 yards. I took off my safety and squeezed the trigger. He flopped over dead. I looked at my watch and it was 6:28. How I was able to get away with that much movement is beyond me. He's not a monster, but I was glad to take him. Just another awesome day in the turkey woods...
