bowhunterfanatic
Well-Known Member
Finally got on the board this morning. These birds have given me a fit since opening day. Today marked the fourth time I had gotten one of them in range. Today was the first time I got to pull the trigger.
We set up in the field well before daylight with decoys. The birds were roosted in the same area as they were yesterday. They didn't gobble much at all on the limb, and we didn't touch a call until they flew down in the field. 3 gobblers and a handful of hens came down first. The 2 older, dominant birds stayed with hens, while the younger bird slowly eased our way. It took him a few minutes to commit, but he made his way into the decoys at about 15 yards and put on an absolute show. He drummed and strutted around the decoys for a couple minutes before he finally got uneasy and started to head the other way. I fed him a load of TSS and that ended his day. While this was occurring, the two big birds and hens had eased off into the timber across the field. We started to get up and move on them, but decided to hammer on a mouth call before moving. One of the birds fired off, so we just sat back down. A few minutes later they eased back out without the hens. I started softly clucking and purring on my crystal and they headed our way. They came to about 60 yards and decided something wasn't right, so they eased back off. Maybe a minute after they disappeared, their hens, who had apparently flown back up without us knowing it, pitched down within 10 yards of our decoys. They fed around for a couple minutes, then noticed that the gobblers had once again reappeared and headed straight to them. We figured that meant our morning was over, but as luck would have it a group of jakes eased out into the field and started heading our way. The hens followed the jakes, and the two big birds slowly started easing back to us. They got to about 70 yards again and one of the gobblers decided to try and run the jakes off, who were now in range. He was at 42 steps when he quit running at the jake, and that was plenty close enough. A load of LB 6s ended his day. This was literally probably the 10-12th opportunity my cousin and I had to double, and the first one we successfully pulled off. Definitely one of if the not best hunts I've ever been a part of. My bird was just an average 2 year old, but his bird was a triple bearded 3 year old we think. 1 inch spurs, an 11 1/8 beard, followed by 2 6 inch beards.
