Post by dhextremecb on Apr 17, 2007 20:26:30 GMT -5
Okay.....so it's taken me a while to decide to post this, but here goes:
So Huntin' Fever and I strolled on down to VA early Friday evening, try to hear some birds on the roost, nothing. Saturday morning, hear about 5 or 6. So we head to the closest one. After several, should we set up here? Or there? We finally set up on the other side of a big gully and a stream from him up on a fairly open flat area. We had a hen and a jake decoy out. Fever was behind the decoys and I was between the dekes and where we thought the bird would come from in a ground blind (since I'm doing it the hard way for my first bird.....by bow).
So Fever's did a fly down cackle, and some clucks and stuff.....he gobbles. Few more series of yelps, he gobbles a few more times. Then to our surprise, we hear a hen with him....she's yelping her ass off. He responds as well.....Fever's got the magic idea, he'll make it seem as if there's another gobbler around, so he starts yelping and then gobbling....the tom gobbles back....then we don't hear him for a while. Six or seven minutes which to me, seemed like eternity. Finally i hear something off to my right, start to unzip the little window I left closed and there he is, as soon as i started to unzip it, he drummed, he's strutting right to us!
I have my bow on the ground, release in my pocket and he's just moving right along, i pick up my bow, have about a four foot window in front of me to shoot through, and as soon as i'm drawn back, he see's the jake decoy and was doing his, I'm gonna F you up walk quickly toward him, he stepped in the opening (11 yards away), I released....He flew up like 10 feet in the air....then landing on the ground and trotted away.....as soon as he started trotting, i knew i hadn't nailed him.
So he ran about 30 yards and stopped and just disappeared, then hen hung out about 40 yards from us then just disappeared as well. So being rather frustrated, we got up to look about a half hour later. I found a tail feather and we walked to where we saw the hen chillin' and found a few drops of blood and that's it.
So.....after that book, I knicked his ass and all I have to show for it, is a single feather. So.....He def was a big ass Tom like a 10" or 11" beard.
Maybe we'll have better luck with some MD birds this weekend..........
So Huntin' Fever and I strolled on down to VA early Friday evening, try to hear some birds on the roost, nothing. Saturday morning, hear about 5 or 6. So we head to the closest one. After several, should we set up here? Or there? We finally set up on the other side of a big gully and a stream from him up on a fairly open flat area. We had a hen and a jake decoy out. Fever was behind the decoys and I was between the dekes and where we thought the bird would come from in a ground blind (since I'm doing it the hard way for my first bird.....by bow).
So Fever's did a fly down cackle, and some clucks and stuff.....he gobbles. Few more series of yelps, he gobbles a few more times. Then to our surprise, we hear a hen with him....she's yelping her ass off. He responds as well.....Fever's got the magic idea, he'll make it seem as if there's another gobbler around, so he starts yelping and then gobbling....the tom gobbles back....then we don't hear him for a while. Six or seven minutes which to me, seemed like eternity. Finally i hear something off to my right, start to unzip the little window I left closed and there he is, as soon as i started to unzip it, he drummed, he's strutting right to us!
I have my bow on the ground, release in my pocket and he's just moving right along, i pick up my bow, have about a four foot window in front of me to shoot through, and as soon as i'm drawn back, he see's the jake decoy and was doing his, I'm gonna F you up walk quickly toward him, he stepped in the opening (11 yards away), I released....He flew up like 10 feet in the air....then landing on the ground and trotted away.....as soon as he started trotting, i knew i hadn't nailed him.
So he ran about 30 yards and stopped and just disappeared, then hen hung out about 40 yards from us then just disappeared as well. So being rather frustrated, we got up to look about a half hour later. I found a tail feather and we walked to where we saw the hen chillin' and found a few drops of blood and that's it.
So.....after that book, I knicked his ass and all I have to show for it, is a single feather. So.....He def was a big ass Tom like a 10" or 11" beard.
Maybe we'll have better luck with some MD birds this weekend..........