My son and I were hunting this past Saturday in an area we haven't hunted before. He wants to hunt from a blind and I am okay with that since rain is a possibility. We set up in an area we had heard birds were seen. Daybreak comes and nothing, not a single gobble from anywhere. Been that way a lot this year. So I start calling every 15 minutes or so and around 8 a bird gobbles from behind us, probably about 100 yards out. I call and he gobbles. I call again and he double gobbles. He works his way across behind us and is gobbling like crazy. I tell my son to get ready because he is coming. Finally I see him about 60 yards out scoping our decoys, jake and hen. I expect him to come in but he just stands there for 15 minutes gobbling and gobbling. I bump it up a bit and he is gobbling so hard he is starting to choke but he won't come closer. For the next 2 hours he hangs between 60 and 120 yards. I try to just shut up for a while hoping he will walk off since I struck another bird, no dice. I call and Gobble, gobble, gobble. Finally he starts to work away from us and the other bird isn't responding anymore. So we pop out of the blind and move towards the Gobbler. I must of underestimated his distance from us because I get my son set up and back up around 40 yards. I start to call, nothing. Must of bumped him.

So we decide to go see if we can find the other bird and move a few hundred yards towards them. I call and get a response. I call again, nothing. We walk for about an hour calling and no dice there either. I think he was with hens and just curtesy gobbled to let other girls know where he was.

All in all it was a fun morning even without shooting a bird. I think if we weren't in the blind we may of had a better chance at killing that bird but he had us pretty well pinned down. Any day you hear 400 gobbles is a good day, even if the bird didn't read the script.

Hope you all have better luck.

Vic

A lot of similar things are happening this year with a jake and hen decoy setup. Me and my dad were set up on a field about 2 weeks ago and had 2 longbeards come in gobbling, once they hit the edge of the field they both periscope up and see the decoys. Once that happened they tucked wings and left, not gobbling anymore. No doubt they didn’t want any part of possibly dealing with another gobbler. With the abundance of Jake’s this year I believe the jake decoy is keeping the gobblers from fully committing to the decoys, at least around here. Needless to say the jake decoy has stayed in the truck all year.

Working birds is a learning experience to killing them the next time.
Cool hunt

Great hunt and story. That is happening a lot this year. Thanks for sharing the experience.


Earl