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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