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What did you do wrong today?

A little different situation for yall... i finally called in a bird I've been after since opening day and had two hens with him. He NEVER broke strut and I'm still old school in that I won't shoot one strutting. I normally would hit a hard cluck or two with a mouth call and seal the deal. I had a dip in and didn't have a chance to spit for 15 minutes and can't even open my mouth at this point. And obviously didnt have my mouth call in. I attempt to make a cluck with just my mouth which sounded more like a gargle than anything. He slips behind three big oaks and quitely drops off the back side of the steep ridge I'm on.


I'll never dip again when I'm set up calling. Maybe I'll use that as my excuse to quit all together.
I don't think I could run a mouth call WITHOUT a dip in. Been doing it for decades.

Don't worry about shooting one in strut. I killed one a few days ago that I moved in on with 5 hens and wouldn't break strut at 25yds even though I cackled at him. I just waited 5 minutes until he turned broadside, put the dot 1in in front of his head, and ate his lunch. Didn't get a single pellet in the meat. Was a bit intense having him that close for that long, but made for a memorable hunt.
 
No! Was he still on your side of property?

Probably but he didn't come back around to the flat after I bumped him. They typically roost a bit more North West down the ridge from where I was setting up but this morning he was closer to the top than what I anticipated. It was a slow morning all together. I know there are several birds in the area but none were talking this morning. I heard one gobbler way off to the South West early on and then nothing for the rest of the morning. Last Wednesday, they were going off pretty much nonstop all morning. Some mornings are just better than others.
 
Did it again! Picked wrong side of farm and gobblers MIA.. Took my son and he got soaked by the dew on the tall weeds and we had to take a 7am breakfast break... Man getting my butt whipped this TN season..
 
Hour or so after birds were off roost we had two gobbling 400+ yards away...so we thought...got too aggressive and pushed forward trying to get to the back plot....they were closer than we thought and both toms were already in the plot when we arrived to get set up....bumped them.... turkey hunt then turned into a mushroom hunt.
 
Set up a jake decoy, but a tom refused to come on in to it !

That was my mistake

Odd, since the forum general advice was to use a solo jake decoy!
 
Picked the wrong area. Turkeys were MIA, and no sign to be found for nearly 2 miles. Heard gobbling in the far distance but no way to get to them. But like Edison, I found another place not to kill a turkey. 🙃

Learned to pay attention to what immature timber looks like on satellite photos while e-scouting. The ridge tops with decent inclines were overwhelmingly worthless because of excessively thick young trees.
 
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