Back to back success!!
I had another long weekend with kids' sports. Lucky for me, I had the green light for a Monday morning hunt. I checked the weather to see that Monday was going to be beautiful. I picked a spot and did some homework.
The next morning, I was in the parking lot at 4:15 with some birds already tweeting thanks to the full moon. Like always, I get to a high spot to listen because I'm always going in blind. It's about 5:30, and I hear my first gobble, and luckily it's below me, less than 200 yards. I loop around and set up under 100 yards from the bird.
The bird has a short, but full gobble, but being that it's the only bird close to me I'm setting up on him. The bird's gobbling enough that I pinpoint him in the tree, and I try my best to see what he is. The only thing I could see was this 4-5 inch real thick, stubby beard, but again, he had a full gobble. With him not going into full strut in the tree, I was assuming he was a Jake. The bird ends up flying down onto a bench below, and for the next hour, I was trying to slowly sneak down to his level. Thanks to a big male coyote, the tom shuts up; the coyote walks by me at 50 yards, and I was hoping that he would walk my way, but he ends up walking away. This helps me sneak closer to the bird, though. The bird gobbles again, shuts up, and the next thing he's 300 yards away, gobbling on another bench. Rather than chasing him, I decide to back out and circle on him with the vehicle.
I drive around on the perimeter of the state land and start calling to find the bird's location, and I do. I end up parking about 500 yards away from where I heard the bird sneak into about 300 yards and start working the bird that's probably 250 yards on private land. This bird is gobbling so much that it brings in two other birds, one that sounds like a Tom.
I end up working these birds for two hours, with all three of them not budging, just moving back and forth on their level, about 50 yards.
It's about 10 o'clock, and I'm about to head out. I pull out my onX again to make one last move. I had my onX in 3D and didn't realize that there was a marsh between me and the birds, and I actually had an extra 200 yards to work with, parallel to the birds. I end up getting on their level, about 200 yards away and start calling again, and all three hit me up, and this time they're all together.
I end up slowly pulling them across the road into public land. They shut up for about five minutes, and here they are, under 50 yards, looking for me. My whole left side was open, while my right side had a tree and a bunch of thick bushes, hoping that the birds would go to my left, but of course, that never happened.
For the next 30 minutes, I had two Jakes and a Tom under 20 yards with no shots. With the sun beaming straight down, it was hard to pinpoint which bird was the Jake and which was the Tom. Finally, the Tom moved to my left to a spot where I had a hole big enough to shoot my pattern through. I put the bead on his head and dropped him at 15 yards.
Persistence paid off with another beautiful long beard, and a long-spurred mature bird to boot!!
