Well here we are… the last day of turkey season here in the lowcountry of South Carolina. And unbelievably, I still have not killed a big gobbler.

To say that it has been a tough season would be an understatement: quite a bit of rotten weather to make the hunting tough, lots of wedding work to keep me out of the woods and of course the Gobblinator. I guess that I could whine about it, but instead I think I will take comfort in the fact that I have been in this situation before and managed to shoot one with time running out.

I killed the thunderbird four years ago, and it was truly one of my greatest hunts ever. I can only say that every once in a great while, the stars align and everything in the hunt somehow goes perfectly. It so rarely happens that you can’t ever count on it, you just have to spend enough time in the woods for something like this to happen occasionally.

My wife stopped our Toyota corolla at the head of the dirt road leading to our 180 acre lease. Ahead lay two miles of muddy, torn up trail full of giant potholes that sometimes came close to claiming my Jeep Cherokee 4×4.
It was already 4:30pm, and the last day of turkey season was quickly coming to an end… without me having killed a turkey. I needed to get to my hunting area quickly, but the four wheel drive was out in the truck, so even attempting the drive in was out of the question. The only option left was to have my understanding wife drive me the mile and a half from our home to the road’s entrance and put me out with my Cannondale mountain bike. From there I would ride when I could, hike around the muddy craters when I couldn’t.

I unloaded my ultralight racing bike that I had converted into a hunting machine by adding an atv gun rack, and quickly assembled my gear. The sweat poured off of me in the South Carolina lowcountry’s May heat, but I was determined not to let my tag go to waste - No matter what it took!
I had already blown a chance with two big gobblers right at daylight near the back of the property by taking one too many steps towards them before deciding to set up. After that it was pretty quiet (if you discount the swarms of mosquitoes circling your head with their incessant buzzing) until 10am when I rode out, again on my bike, to shower and attend a small family reunion for a few hours.

Now I was back. I peddled to the far front corner and called loudly a couple of times. I figured that I needed a hot bird looking for some late season love to pull off this miracle, so why not give it all I had.
Nothing.
I didn’t even hesitate, I had already made up my mind that if one didn’t respond immediately, I was headed to the very back of the property. To the exact spot that I had squandered a sure thing this morning.
The mud was flying off of my knobby tires all over my back as I tore down the old logging road the split the property; I had to hurry since, not only was time running out, but the sky turning black with impending rain and the lightning was getting closer along with its booming thunder.
At the far end, about two hundred yards from the line, I ditched my bright yellow two-wheeler and grabbed my gun. While walking towards the corner, I pulled out my MAD high-frequency diaphragm, said a small turkey hunters prayer (you know the one, where you promise anything, just to hear that gobble), threw it into my mouth and prepared to call once I got into position.
My plan was to stalk up near the line so that I could glass the neighbors fallow fields for a strutting bird before calling. I always like to be able to see a bird I am calling to if at all possible; that way you can watch his reaction and adjust your tone or cadence accordingly as well as move to intercept them if they don’t come right in. I also hoped to possibly hear one sound off to the now startlingly loud claps of thunder.
I eased up to about 50 yards from the line, glassed the grown over field ahead of me and strained my ears after each burst.

There it was! A gobble… about 350 yards away, just off to my right but far enough down the road and out into the tall weeds so that I couldn’t see him.
My heart almost leaped out of my chest. It was all coming together perfectly. I had located a bird without even calling and that eliminated the possibly of getting busted while trying to set up closer. I was mapping out the rest of my plan when another, closer burst of thunder made him gobble again. Then again! I knew he must be fired up already, so I gave him what he wanted. I sent a string of moderately loud yelps his way followed by a quick cut.
Grrrobbb-grrrooobbble he fired back. I called again, this time with even more passion. Another double gobble. If this bird was any hotter, he would burn up I told myself as I dashed forward towards the other line that lay about 100 yards ahead. A little over half way there I called again. Grrroooble. This time he was definitely moving closer.
I unhooked my Bucklick creek vest and plopped down against a small pine 35 yards from the line, where I could see out into this grown up field and hopefully watch my bird’s progress. And what I really needed him to do was take a few extra steps beyond the field on to our side, and into the range of my old Winchester 1400 12 gauge.
And it sounded like he just might do that since he was really coming now. I knew because he was gobbling almost incessantly at the cracking thunder, giving his exact path away and keeping me from getting impatient and over-calling.
I just sat there in total amazement, drunk off of the sounds of this gobbling gift, waiting to unwrap him with some #4 heavy shot while he closed the distance. Finally I could see his tail feathers over the weeds. He was strutting down the road about 125 yards out. He was coming, but not as fast as the rain drops were starting to fall.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something if he was going to make it to me before the bottom fell out and ruined my hunt. I called one last time, pleading with him and surely making all kinds of dirty promises in turkey lingo.
He hammered back, but continued his crawl my way. I just knew the rain wasn’t going to hold off long enough. But then, there he was, 40 yards out into the field, but still technically 75 yards from the barrel. I tightened my grip, eased the safety off and waited while he just basically stood there, strutting back and forth.
There was nothing I could do. So I waited, and waited. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but in reality was probably only another 10 minutes, he started to slowly strut my way. A step here, another step there. I was getting nauseous just watching him.
He eased up to the edge of the field and peered deep into the woods for his lover. I was afraid to even blink. My red-headed savior was now just feet from the line and a mere 8 yards out of range.
Gooobbblle, he hollered into my face, still burning holes into the brush with those beady eyes. I held fast, knowing one small mistake would cost me everything.
He dropped out of strut, took a few more steps while cautiously scanning his surroundings, then caught a face full of tungstonalloy, knocking him right down.
I was up instantly, gliding over the humps in the planted pine rows towards my trophy. I was in total disbelief as I snatched him up and tried to admire his 11 inch beard and 1 inch spurs. But I couldn’t. The heat and excitement had gotten to me, and I crumpled to the ground on the verge of a heat stoke. I just sat there in a total daze while memories of so many hunts on the tract flashed through my mind. One of the most important ones was just to listen to the turkeys with my dad.

Just then the rain started coming down heavy and that helped me cool off enough that I regained my thoughts, packed up my bird and started peddling back to the highway. Once there I rode right down 321 with my bird bird sticking out of my vest and my gun on my handlebars. I just couldn’t wait to show my wife. She was as happy as I was and couldn’t believe that I had managed to kill a turkey on the last afternoon of the season. She grabbed the camera and we took some pictures before the sun disappeared. One of the shots was of me walking my bike down the old oak avenue by our hose. It is one of my alltime favorites and it now hangs in our den. On the opposite end of the house hangs the Thunderbird.

What an incredible hunt. Let’s see if I can do it again!

Jeff

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Just when I thought my season couldn’t get any worse, the Gobblinator shows up to prove me wrong.

It was last Thursday, and I had decided to sleep in after working late on some pictures and then hit the woods midday. I had run into a couple of big gobblers right near the gate, but usually later in the day, so that was my plan. I got to my spot at noon and quietly set up on the edge of a burn right by the property line. This was also the same spot that I passed on a jake a week earlier while trying to get a loudmouth older one to come in, so I knew if I just sat tight, a bird would show up eventually.

I did a series of soft yelps every twenty minutes or so, and waited. And waited. I had been there about 2 hours and was just about to run through another set of calls when I noticed a red head bobbing along about 70 yards out in the burn to my left. I eased my Winchester 1400 up and tried to figure out what my bird was going to do. I could see that he was looking for me, however he was going to pass on by since he couldn’t see my decoys in the fire break due to a row of brush. I quickly picked out two openings through the row of brush as well as through the planted pines out in the burn and got ready. He was at 30 yards when I let off a load of #6 heavyshot as he hit the second opening.

He immediately went down, but I knew better than to count on it. And sure enough, we both got up to run about the same time. I could see that he was going to try and sprint by me, so I took a few steps, jerked the gun up just as he took off and tried to get my barrel out in front of him. However I only managed to find his back as I pulled the trigger on my 35 year old gun. The shot knocked him out of the sky, but he was up and running again as soon as he hit the ground. He was now heading towards the corner of the burn right where it gets thick, so I started running parallel to him in an effort to head him off. When I was about 30 yards from the corner I slammed on the breaks, shouldered my gun and got ready for my last chance to remove the gobblinator from the flock.

As soon as he hit the road, he turned and tried to take off again, however my third and last shot knocked him back out of the air. The big gobbler rolled and flopped around for 2 seconds, just long enough for me to make it within 5 yards, when the old bird regained his composure and started up the road at a good but wobbly trot. I threw my empty gun down in one last ditch effort to catch him, turned on the afterburners (at least that is what I needed in my Rocky snake boots), and stayed close for about 100 yards. But then I started to lose ground as he continued to pick up speed. However since I just knew he was going to run out of gas at any moment and drop dead, I kept running so that I didn’t lose sight of him before he did.

However he never ran out of gas. I did! I finally pulled up at about the 200 yards mark and just stood in complete disbelief as the toughest longbeard I had ever seen did his best Carl Lewis impersenation. He never left the logging road, and I could still see him hauling ass at about the 400 yard mark when he finally rounded a curve to disappear!

Still in complete disbelief about what just happened, I backtracked to my gun, then retrieved my vest that had two more shells in it and followed up my turkey’s trail. I looked and looked, but to no avail… My season-saving limbhanger, the Gobblinator, was gone.

I hate to even tell this story since, while entertaining, is so at my and the turkey’s expense. I hate looking like a kook, and I hate even more that I lost an injured bird. However both things occasionally happen in life. Fortunately, looking like a kook happens much more than losing a turkey. As a matter of fact, until this one, I had never lost one that I hit. Sure, I have missed one or two, but I had never knocked one down and not been able to get another shot or my hands on him before he escaped. In retrospect, I should have clucked hard one time as he hit the opening to make him pick his head up more. Then I would have had more pellets hit him in the kill zone. Instead, with him walking with his head kind of tucked in, he took a lot of it in the upper shoulder/wing. I also may have to break down and buy one of those 3.5 inch mags along with a scope since I believe more power and a better aiming device could have helped even with his head tucked in. And a gun that holds FIVE shells would have allowed me to hit him one more time as he flopped around that last time. As usual, there are always lessons to be learned in the outdoors.

So, where does that leave me? At the second to last day of the season without a turkey! I am finishing this post and then I hitting the woods for the day to try and remedy that. I was hoping to give it hell yesterday, but bad weather and work projects put an end to that. I also had to stay close to my rat terrier who became deathly ill on Saturday and required an emergency room visit on Sunday as well as an overnight stay for observation. It turned out to be a intestinal virus that mimicked parvo symptoms. But $200 later he is doing much better.

However while my dog had made it, my toyota’s AC didn’t. I was on the way to pick him up from the vet Monday afternoon when smoke started pouring from under the hood - it had seized up. The mechanic down the street from the vet said that it would be $800! And since I had to replace it a few years ago and it was exactly $800, I definitely believe him.

So my bad luck just keeps on coming. First I was having a tough time finding time to hunt with our busy spring workload, then I hit the neighbor’s cat, followed by the deer. Next my wife and kids left me home alone for a month to care for the dog, who immediately got deathly ill and cost me $200 dollars. Now the AC goes out too! I just can’t seem to catch a break.

But what can I do? Sit here and ramble on, or suck it up and hit the woods in an effort to salvage my season and my credibility. Luckily I know from past experiences that I can sometimes do amazing things when I have to, like kill a turkey on the last day of the season. And since I started turkey hunting 10 years ago, I have only gotten to the end of a season twice without my bird.

One of those two times I managed to come through at the very last moment. That is my next post!

Jeff

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I wanted to congratulate my friend David on the killing of his great gobbler this past Friday morning. It was only his third bird ever and to say that he was thrilled would probably be an understatement. And what made the giant limbhanger even more memorable is the fact that we heard him most mornings and David had even come close to killing him once before… however I will let his words tell the short story.

got a limb hanger today in South Carolina..0650am, had two others gobbling with him..Thank You Lord..
This is my 3rd bird and first in SC..
11.5 beard
1 3/8 spurs. this is my biggest bird
whew I have been chasing this one for three weeks, had a disinct triple gooble. Had him at 70 yds last weekend and a hen flew down and stole him away..

I borrowed the picture and his blurb from his post on the GON forum that the Georgia Outdoor Network magazine hosts. David is in one of their gobbler hunting team contests, and that was his entry.

I love the GON magazine, and can’t believe SC doesn’t have one like it (YET!), and the forum is one of the best local ones that I have seen. If you hunt anywhere in the South, you should really check it out. You can find lots of hunting talk, available leases, club openings, custom turkey calls, etc. Again, a great place for southern hunters to gather.

Please note that I also had a run in with a big bird, however mine didn’t turn out so well. You will have to let me finish the big project that I have to deliver today, then I will tell the WHOLE story… See you soon.

Jeff

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If you get a chance, drop by Mike Hanback’s Big Deer blog and thank him for featuring the South Carolina lowcountry. He was nice enough to showcase the Webb/Cubbedge Hill Monster that Cody Whittle took in October as well the huge 6 point I killed in November.

And I know I have posted the trailcam shots of our two deer before, but I wanted to make sure that any of his readers that are stopping by for the first time see them. I also wanted to include the trailcam shot of Cody’s deer from when he was 3.5 years old to show everyone what a difference 2 years makes!

In addition, I wanted his readers to be able to see the other buck I was talking about in Mike’s post. That is Daniel and his son Derek posing with his great 130 inch buck that he killed in December. And that is his deer in the trailcam shot next to them from October.

You can find tons more big buck photos under my trailcam category, so please feel free to look around. Thanks to all of Mike’s readers for stopping by my site, and a huge Thank You to Mike himself for featuring big bucks from our neck of the woods!

Please note that while I will not be managing Cubbedge Hill Plantation any longer, I still plan on promoting them and their great deer. And as everyone should know by now, I truly love promoting the hunting in the Lowcountry, period!

Jeff

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I must apologize to TheHuntersWife, since I am really borrowing her idea about highlighting how certain google searches send people to her site. She calls them “goofy googlers“, and it is always funny what unanticipated search terms will direct readers to her. For instance, if you type in “bikini bowhunter”, her site will come up #4 on Google. However she doesn’t bow hunt, and to my knowledge has never shown the net a picture of herself in a bikini. So you get the idea…

Well lately, I noticed that I had started receiving a few hits from readers looking for “the hunt club of Melbourne, FL”. I just thought they were looking for one of the Mormon tracts down there, and since I am from there and write about their hunting occasionally, I figured it was great to be getting search traffic for hunting in Melbourne. However I was wrong, very wrong. I see that in  yesterday’s Florida Today, the paper that covers Melbourne, that it is a swingers club! I guess the neighbors are tired of their parties and/or the the things that go on there and want them out. You can check out their website here to see if its something you would be interested in; It sounds like the craziest hunt club you can imagine!

The other interesting google searcher was looking for “turkey hunting didn’t see or hear anything”. What the hell? I haven’t had a bad enough season already, but now Google has decided that I am the most relevant site to searchers looking for fellow hunters that “haven’t seen or heard anything” while turkey hunting… Now I know life is kicking my ass! I gotta go kill a bird.

And that is where I am at this morning, so check back later for some more updates on my “turkey hunting didn’t see or hear anything”.

Jeff

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I hate to say it but my Toyota Corolla is a better hunter than I am… It racked up two kills this weekend while I am still turkeyless.

Please don’t take this humorous post the wrong way, because I am truly horrified at what happened. However there was nothing I could do about either, so I am left to deal with my guilt by writing about it. But I guess I have to tell the whole story for you to understand.

As everyone knows, I have been VERY busy lately with work, and I haven’t had much time to hunt. And on top of that, the few times I have gone, the weather has not cooperated. And the turkeys sure have not cooperated either. So when I hopped out of bed Saturday morning at 5:15am, I was jacked up and ready to go.

I slapped on my camo and was out of the door by 5:45. The weather was warm and there was no wind as I got in to my Toyota, so I was thinking I may finally kill something. And just seconds later as I turned on to the main road, I did… The neighbor’s cat!

It all happened so fast that I did not even have time to tap the breaks. The cat was in some bushes right off the road, and it shot right under my front tire. BUMP!

I couldn’t believe it. I hate killing anything that I am not going to eat, and I sure don’t like killing someone’s pet, even as an accident. However there was nothing I could do for the poor thing, so I continued on down the road. And as I got back up to speed, all I could think about was how lucky I was, and have been, that it wasn’t a deer.

I have been very lucky over the last few years and have managed to swerve, break or stop to keep from hitting them. And when you live in the middle of deer central, work at all hours and drive on country two lane roads, that is saying something. And it was this thought that was running through my head as I caught movement just one mile further down the road… It was a whole herd of does coming across!

And even though I was not going but 50mph, I had to slam on my breaks to keep from whacking one of the late crossers. Again, my thoughts turned to how lucky I have been not to tear up my car on one of these things, and how I better slow down further and pay even MORE attention. But that chunk of electrical stimulus had not even made it across a couple of synapses when WHAM!

A huge doe tried to make a last second leap from one side of the road to the other and caught the front bumper and hood of my car against her hip. I wasn’t going that fast, so luckily she did not come up and through my windshield, but instead was thrown off in to the ditch. She did a complete flip but was back up and running in a flash.

I don’t know for sure that the impact killed her since I couldn’t find her when I came back by later that morning. However I am sure that she had to go and bed up to deal with the shock, and she either made it or she didn’t. But that still doesn’t make me feel any better about it, nor does it fix my buckled hood. It also does nothing for the mental trauma that I suffered!

I finally made it to the woods about 6am and met up with a friend to hunt. However as daylight came, we could see a huge front moving in. And it must have messed with the birds since we only heard a few gobblers way off. Therefore we walked and called until the wind picked up and the rain started to fall around 10am.

I then headed home and “helped” my wife and kids get ready for their big trip out West. They are headed to California for 3 weeks to visit her grandparents, and I am left here to work, feed the dogs and try to kill a turkey before the season runs out on May 1st. However it looks like I may have to put down my Winchester and just drive through the woods like Mad Max to get one!

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Carolyn Mansfield of the Sierra Club recently emailed me about a new website, SierraSportsmen.org, that her organization is launching to reach out to sportsmen in their conservation efforts. The question I have it, should we support them in this effort?

While I am not going to tell my readers what to think, I will tell you what I have found in my research of the Sierra Club so that you may make up your own mind. I also will direct you to the Hog Blog where Phillip has written a great article on this as well as how hunters should use this opportunity if they choose to.

As for the Sierra Club itself, it seems that there is currently a huge battle going on inside and outside of the organization over the use of hunting as a conservation tool. The groups official policy currently supports it.

Sport Hunting and Fishing — Within both modified and natural ecosystems, the Sierra Club believes that acceptable management approaches include regulated periodic hunting and fishing when based on sufficient scientifically valid biological information and when consistent with all other management purposes and when necessary total protection of particular species or populations. Because national parks are set aside for the preservation of natural landscapes and wildlife, the Sierra Club is opposed to sport hunting in national parks and national monuments.

This support for hunting is creating quite a bit of conflict among some of the old supporters as well as within the management. For instance, renowned eco terrorist, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder and Sierra Club board member Paul Watson quit two years ago over the group’s acceptance of hunting as a conservation tool, and particularly over their use of a writing contest “Why I Hunt” where the grand prize was an big game hunt.

On one hand, getting rid of a eco terrorist and anti-hunting activist like Watson seems to be a huge step in the right direction for the Sierra Club if it truly wishes to represent hunters. And when you consider that the powerful conservation group has over 1 million members, it is definitely a huge gain for all sportsmen. However one has to ask why he had to quit when he should have never been in such a position to begin with.

You can also see the battle over hunting as a conservation tool going on right now in the Sierra Club’s Florida chapter where the entire board was just terminated and the entire chapter suspended. The club says that this was to end the infighting amongst the state group over the state chapter’s refusal to go along with the Sierra Club’s partnership with Clorox. But I have found other articles that refer to the state chapter advocating and adopting a vegan lifestyle while completely refusing to support hunting as a conservation tool which created a huge rift between the state board, its members and the national board even before this deal with Clorox.

Again, this looks like a positive step in the right direction for sportsmen. However you can still find plenty of current instances where the Sierra Club, and even more often its state chapters, still has a knee-jerk reaction to prohibiting hunting to control animal populations. And this is definitely the case with cougar hunting out West; You can find plenty of info on this here at the Oregon state chapter as well as here at the California state chapter.

And while the Sierra Club claims to be for hunting as a conservation tool, it says that it takes no position on the 2nd Amendment and the individual right to bear arms. This stance seems to ignore the fact that if that right is removed, hunters will NOT be able to provide their very necessary conservation efforts. You can also find a list of the candidates that they currently support here, and I doubt that many sportsmen will find it to their liking.

There is a ton of information on all of this if any concerned sportsman is willing to just follow the links, and I encourage everyone to do so. For instance you can also read all about the current group of candidates that are running for the Sierra Club’s board of directors here as well as their positions on many important environmental issue. It is in these details that many hunters will find their answers to the question of whether to support the Sierra Club’s outreach to them.

And while I will not be signing up as a member just yet, I do think that I will at least enroll in their newsletters so that I can follow these issues at the Sierra Club as well as at Sierra Sportsmen Network so that I can make an educated decision about whether to support them in the future.

I will also be submitting some images to the photo contest that they are running that, as their new Sierra Sportsmen Network site says, “captures your passion and respect for the people, places, and critters we love to share our outdoor experiences with”. This contest will be judged by some very important and influential members of our outdoor community who are obviously looking to help build a bridge between sportsmen and “conservationists”.

Like I said, check out the Hog Blog for more perspective on this very important issue. In addition, I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this, so feel free to leave detailed comments.

Jeff

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QDMA hit a major milestone the other day when it’s 50,000th member signed up. This great accomplishment is due to all of the hard work and time its members have contributed to promote the organization and quality deer management.

As a member and a founding board member of a local branch, I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone that has joined the organization, donated to its cause or implemented its practices. And to give everyone some perspective on the group’s growth, there were just 10,000 members in 2000, and local branches have grown from 30 to 275 in the last four years alone.

QDM is the “management philosophy/practice that unites landowners, hunters, and managers in a common goal of producing biologically and socially balanced deer herds within existing environmental, social, and legal constraints. This approach typically involves the protection of young bucks (yearlings and some 2.5 year-olds) combined with an adequate harvest of female deer to maintain a healthy population in balance with existing habitat conditions and landowner desires. This level of deer management involves the production of quality deer (bucks, does, and fawns), quality habitat, quality hunting experiences, and, most importantly, quality hunters.

You can read the full press release as well as learn all about the organization and its recommended practices on the QDMA website.

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Twenty five mobility-impaired turkey hunters will have a unique opportunity to hunt the 198,000 acre SRS site on April 19th through the NWTF’s Wheelin’ Sportsmen organization. Hunters will be paired up with Savannah River Site employees that are familiar with the giant tract to try their hand at harvesting a trophy lowcountry longbeard. There will be a registration on April 18th along with a safety briefing and time to scout the property; an appreciation dinner will follow that night.

For more information on the SRS Turkey Hunt or about the Wheelin’ Sportsmen program, contact Illana Burkhart, Wheelin’ Sportsmen NWTF assistant national coordinator at (803) 637-3106.

You can also check out the full press release on the NWTF’s website for more information on this great hunting opportunity.

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I managed to hunt several times this weekend, however I am still birdless. I went with two friends Saturday morning (team approach), and we were able to get VERY close to a roosted gobbler. Unfortunately we pushed a little too much and bumped him. We then moved a few times trying to get another one fired up, but without any luck. By 9am the wind had picked up to 30mph, so we left the woods pretty early.

The big storm that was being pushed by the high winds then rolled in around midday and dropped a couple of inches of rain, so I thought the weekend was going to be a bust. But it passed on by pretty quickly and the wind died, so with my wife’s encouragement, I hit the woods again about 4pm. We both agreed that the birds would be hitting the fields to dry off…

It was perfect conditions for an afternoon hunt, so I was pretty excited as I pulled through the gate at Jericho. Unfortunately, I immediately realized that I should have gotten in the woods as soon as the rain stopped, and not an hour later, because the birds were already out! There were two gobblers standing right past the gate, and they ran off as soon as the spotted the car.

I decided against trying to get around them, and instead just went further in to the property to set up for a couple of hours. However nothing came in, EXCEPT the mosquitoes! My thermocell would not stay lit (heavy use and abuse had taken its toll), so the bugs just had a field day with me. I toughed it out until near dark, but then went right to my friends store for some gas and a new thermocell.

I was then back up and running by 6am on Sunday morning so that I could meet a friend at Jericho by 6:45. We hiked around for a while as the sun came up, waiting and listening for any birds sounding off on the roost. It took a while for some reason for the gobblers to get cranked up, but sure enough they did about 7:30.

Out of the couple of birds we could hear, one was within striking range. So we kicked it in to gear and headed towards him. He gobbled every couple of minutes without any calling or locating, so we just kept moving in. We managed to take a road around him that brought us within about 100 yards or so of his tree, and that is where we set up. Unfortunately, I believe we got a little too close, and bumped him as well. However we had decided to give it an hour just to make sure he didn’t sneak in quietly, so we just called lightly and listened to the woods to see what the other birds were doing. Sure enough we could hear a couple of other birds about 300 yards away going nuts. One bird must have gobbled 50 times or more, often firing back a triple gobble when the bird near him did his half gobble!

Maybe we should have picked up and moved on them, but we didn’t. For one, we were in a good spot for the first bird who may have been coming in silently. And two, the loudmouth birds answered my calling several times, so I thought them may jog on over to see what was going on where we were. But no such thing happened….

We finally gathered our decoys up around 9:30 and headed off to another good burn for a mid morning set up. There we spent about an hour calling lightly, hoping for a lonely bird to wander over, but again no such luck. And by noon the wind had picked back up to around 25mph, so we called it a day. I then headed home for an afternoon with the kids in the yard.

I am taking today off to finish some more of the work I have stockpiled, however I will be hitting the woods bright and early tomorrow morning again. So check back - One of these days a bird is going to be modeling for my camera and this sight!!!

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