So Close......

[P. Beyer]

After a mis-hap Sat AM (blown motor in truck) Me and Austin made it for a uneventfull PM hunt. Sunday morning we woke to thunder, but headed out. After arrival it wasn't hard to find the birds, the thunder made for awesome shock gobbles up and down the ridge.

We set up on at least 4 birds. They hammered from the roost and then I heard the first one pitch down, soft called and he came on a string, but a little too far out. The next group of 3 mature birds were down by this time and headed in. I called, They gobbled, then gobbled some more. Man did we get a show.

As they closed into 25 yards I told Austin to take the last Bird, He was the Strutter. He took his time, the gun went off, and the Bird fell. Much to my suprise when I went to get the bird he did that half run/fly escape. Still don't know what happened. That bird went head down first, flopped on what appeared to be a broken neck.....

Anyway, Austin took it much better than I did. Thanked me and told me that we'd win a few and lose a few. What a show we got to see, had in total 5 Gobblers in range, and one drumming at about 15 steps.

We still got the 15th.

[ryan hickey]

After a mis-hap Sat AM (blown motor in truck) Me and Austin made it for a uneventfull PM hunt. Sunday morning we woke to thunder, but headed out. After arrival it wasn't hard to find the birds, the thunder made for awesome shock gobbles up and down the ridge.

We set up on at least 4 birds. They hammered from the roost and then I heard the first one pitch down, soft called and he came on a string, but a little too far out. The next group of 3 mature birds were down by this time and headed in. I called, They gobbled, then gobbled some more. Man did we get a show.

As they closed into 25 yards I told Austin to take the last Bird, He was the Strutter. He took his time, the gun went off, and the Bird fell. Much to my suprise when I went to get the bird he did that half run/fly escape. Still don't know what happened. That bird went head down first, flopped on what appeared to be a broken neck.....

Anyway, Austin took it much better than I did. Thanked me and told me that we'd win a few and lose a few. What a show we got to see, had in total 5 Gobblers in range, and one drumming at about 15 steps.

We still got the 15th.

wild story man - sorry ya'll lost him. good luck to ya on the 15th!!

[Bowcrazy]

Me and Jared got up early Saturday. He's usually hard to get up, but not this time. His first hunt carrying a gun and he was all excited about it. What a beautiful morning. I used an elk bugle for a shock call and instantly had three choices. We picked one and worked in to about 100 yards but a little later on our hen calls hadn't gotten any results and we decided to go for one of the others.

We moved about a quarter mile, set up and started calling a little and pretty soon had hens running all around us with a gobbler answering about a hundred yards away every once and a while. My new hearing aids really made a difference, it was unbelievable to realize all the "hen music" I've been missing for a decade or more. Pretty soon all Jareds twisting this way and that way and pointing at this hen and that hen and loud whispering despite my best advice to the contrary had managed to run most of the hens away. So, we got up and moved out into a field to see if the gobbler had henned up leaving our mini blind, decoys, assortment of calls and such. We had walked about 200 yards across the field when all of a sudden the gobbler opened up again. We hurried to he edge of the field and set up and then I realized all I had was a diaphram and I am admittedly far from the best with the mouth call. Anyway, I gave it my best shot, got the tom all stirred up and here he came, stopped about 50 yards out, strutted a little, promptly made us, and retreated quietly back the way he came. Jared fussed at me for not letting him turn loose on the bird insisting he could have taken him with the 20 gauge at 50 yards. Dad won that argument. We quietly eased out and left the big long beard for another day.

Next morning found us back in the same place to get in a couple of hours before church. We soon had a gobbler going but an hour and 50 gobbles later the bird obviously wasn't coming in. We walked about 100 yards to discover that the bird was down over a steep bluff and a hen was calling to him from around this bench. We climbed over the bluff and set up between the gobbler and the hen and called. Pretty soon the gobbler was answering every call and all of a sudden, (there is a difference of opinion what happened next) I think the bird sailed around the corner real low, Jared says he was running. I saw the red head and beard and said shoot him, Jared blasts away and the bird went sailing off into the wild blue yonder with no signs of being any worse for the encounter. We picked up everything and headed out, Jared reckoned maybe he'd winged him a bit and wished he didn't have to go to church so we could "stalk him out" which started a 5 minute lecture on the advisabilty of trying to "stalk out" a jake that you have just unloaded a number four at and watched sail into the next county. Jared reckoned we wouldn't be having this conversation if I had only let him kill the longbeard at 50 yards yesterday morning.

He is hopelessly hooked.

[ryan hickey]

good stuff bowcrazy - he's got it bad as i do from the sound of it ;)

[ril7572]

Perry, I hope you and Austin have some luck during the regular season.

p.s. Don't be such a stranger around here;)

[turk2di]

Man, tuff luck. Tell him to keep his chin up;)