Tried a pretty radical set up this morning.
Went in well before daylight, put up my new Rhino blind right smack in the middle of a pasture close to where I thought they were roosting.
It started getting a little lighter and all of a sudden they all woke up.
Cuttin, yelping, purrin, they did it all.
Then a hoot owl sounded off and man about jumped out of his chair.
6 or 7 gobblers and a couple jakes all fired off.
Then every time a donkey would holler they would all gobble.
This went on for about 20 minutes.
We could peek out of the blind and see 5 different longbeards in the trees, all within 75 yards of us.
There was one roosted not more than 40 yards from us. We could see his beard with our naked eyes as he sat there waiting to fly down.
He was behind us and to the right of where we wanted him though.
Finally man whispered and said, "He just flew down behind us."
I leaned back in my chair and used one finger to slide the flap up where I could see.
Sure enough he had hit the ground 40 yards behind us, just over the crest of the hill.
I told man to get up, turn around and get on one knee.
He did and stuck the gun out the window.
I told him if he didn't have a perfect shot to hold off because it was still very early and we had lots of birds around us.
23 pounds
10" and 6" beards
1 1/4" and 7/8" spurs (one was broke off)
Dickson County
He has killed jakes before but never a longbeard.
I think he started out right on them.
Put a great shot on him at 35 yards as he walked towards the top of the hill and put his head straight up to look around.
He got a face full of number 5's for his trouble.
Shot him at 6:40 and while we were standing there with my foot on his head they were still gobbling on the roost and another longbeard flew down 150 yards away, swelled up and started gobbling.
Good morning.