Shanman
Well-Known Member
....but a good day. Have been keeping my eye on the weather the last few days hoping it wouldn't rain me out for this morning's Oak Ridge quota hunt, it held off just long enough to have a quick and successful hunt. On last Saturday's scout day I found a vocal bird that was with hens and knew that ridgeline was the place to be, couple nice knobs and saddles that they were using. Snuck in this morning and set down to listen, wasn't long after daybreak and one gobbled off the back side of the ridge. Grabbed my stuff and moved about 75yds toward the saddle and a different bird hammered 125yds from me. Quickly picked out a large oak and set down facing the saddle, gave a few tree yelps and he hammered back, used the wing and he went nuts! Called softly while scratching and he eat it up, even saw him switch trees for a better view. Never heard him hit the ground or any hens but he was gobbling headed away from me, in the direction of another bird gobbling farther out the ridge. So I started cutting and threw in some more clucks with a tad bit more volume. His next gobble was obviously facing me so I had hopes he might be alone, the next 15mins he just strutted back and forth gobbling his head off. I backed way off my calling until I would only answer him every 5th or 6th gobble, could tell he was try hard to get me to come to him. When I thought it was time I threw a few yelps behind me and scratched several times then went silent and didn't answer him any more. He gobbled about 20 more times and then went silent, in about 1min I could see him sneaking in, at 25yds I found a gap and clucked when he stepped into it, he stopped stuck his head up and the new little Franchi claimed its first victim. As I walked back to the truck the rain started picking up and the other bird was still gobbling. Really enjoyed that hunt! Shot him at 7:36 and was the 4th bird checked in when I left.
1 1/16"
9.5
20.75
1 1/16"
9.5
20.75
