Hunted a farm yesterday. A bird gobbled 6-8 times on the roost, but nothing after fly down.
He was just across an old road that runs along the field edge that I was hunting. I was in the field in a good setup, using a tractor with a bucket as a ground blind
!
He came to just the other side of the road and strutted and drummed before drifting back off with his two hens. They never entered the field.
This morning, I saw that I had a short window before the heavy rain moved in, and decided to give it a shot.
There were no gobbles, but two hens entered the field and proceeded to walk and pick within 20 yards of me. The gobbler was not with them (good for his sake).
I had planned to stay a while, but when the hens walked off to about 50 yards, and put their wings half way down and just froze for at least five minutes, I figured they had shut it down to ride out the rain as it was picking up. I honestly think they went to sleep. I figured that wherever the gobbler was, he was likely doing the same thing, so I loaded up and came out. It still took a few seconds for the hens to realize that I was there after walking toward them a bit.
It was pretty neat to see!
He was just across an old road that runs along the field edge that I was hunting. I was in the field in a good setup, using a tractor with a bucket as a ground blind
! He came to just the other side of the road and strutted and drummed before drifting back off with his two hens. They never entered the field.
This morning, I saw that I had a short window before the heavy rain moved in, and decided to give it a shot.
There were no gobbles, but two hens entered the field and proceeded to walk and pick within 20 yards of me. The gobbler was not with them (good for his sake).
I had planned to stay a while, but when the hens walked off to about 50 yards, and put their wings half way down and just froze for at least five minutes, I figured they had shut it down to ride out the rain as it was picking up. I honestly think they went to sleep. I figured that wherever the gobbler was, he was likely doing the same thing, so I loaded up and came out. It still took a few seconds for the hens to realize that I was there after walking toward them a bit.
It was pretty neat to see!
