bowhunterfanatic
Well-Known Member
My first spot didn't pan out this morning so on the way to my backup spot I stopped and glassed a field I had seen a gobbler in earlier this year. As luck would have it I actually watched a hen fly down out of the pines into the field and noticed 3 others out there with her feeding. After watching them for a few minutes and not seeing a male bird join them I scanned the field and noticed a red head about 150 yards up the field from the hens. I hopped back into my truck and headed up the road to park in a different field and make a huge circle around the birds. 15-20 minutes later I was standing in the edge of the pines and I quickly realized the undergrowth in them had gotten entirely too thick to try and call a turkey through. My only option was to crawl out to the field edge and try to coax the gobbler back towards me. I got dead even with him and soft called just a little bit. He liked what he heard but wasn't willing to leave the little spot he was strutting in to come check me out. His hens were 100 or so yards up the field to my right and they didn't seem interested either. I soft called a few more times to no avail and decided that at 7:00 I'd go for broke. I grabbed a cheap rubber decoy out of my vest (I know, I know, this is against the rules) and waited until he strutted facing away from me and eased it out into the opening to my left. When he spun back around he noticed it but wasn't a fan so he eased off away from the decoy and the hens. I thought it was really odd because he didn't really run off, he just went 80-90 yards and started feeding again, but wouldn't strut anymore. Anyway, I took the decoy back down and was getting ready to circle him again one last time before I had to leave for work when I noticed two more gobblers coming through the field from my right. I have no idea where they had come from as I had not heard them gobble or seen them in the field from the road, but I digress. I grabbed my call again and just clucked and purred real soft and they stopped out in front of me about 60 yards. I was hiding behind a huge pine and stuck my head around the right side of the tree to try and get a clearer look at them so I could better judge the distance and I noticed the the 4 hens had come right to me and weren't 10-15 yards away. I figured there was no better decoy than a live one so I called one last time real soft and that seemed to do the trick. The non strutting bird started slowly walking right to me. I let him get close enough that I knew he was in range and when the last hen moved out of the way I pulled the trigger. I stepped it off right at 40 yards. This is number 4 for me and my pregnant wife is tired of me disrupting her sleep when I get up to hunt so I guess this finishes me up. This is by far the best season I've ever had, even though I've tagged out one other time in my life.
