For several years since graduating college, my closest friend and road trip roomate with the WVU baseball team, have been wanting to get together to hunt...well this year we finally made it happen. Tony came in last wed nite and we were able to hunt Th, F and Saturday. 2 of those 3 days were exciting to say the least. My other "old" friend is UNO...my gobbler decoy...the mount of the first turkey i ever killed, some 22 years ago.
Thursday morning greeted us as most of the recent mornings have...1-2 birds gobbling maybe 1-2x each if we're lucky...then no gobbling after fly down. Not sure of the primary cause for this, but know we had to adapt tactics...which we did. rather than thrash around through the timber hoping to find a gobbling bird and risking spooking more turkeys than not, we opted to use a patient set up and work an area loaded with sign. we set UNO in a corner of a small opening and waited and called softly occasionally. around 10a, 3 jakes came onto the scene. 2 of three jakes came in to investigate UNO. THey were pretty inquisitive and at times displayed some, not much, but some aggressive head coloration and body posture. Then about an hour and a half later, we called in an adult hen, she had an adult gobbler in tow. When he saw UNO, he broke into that aggressive low walk and sprinted 150 yards to him to obviously fight. He stopped about 10' away and broke into full strut and side stepped up to UNO getting ready to flog him no doubt. Tony killed him before he had a chance to attack the decoy. I have never in my life seen a gobbler's head so red...almost flourescent. White skull cap, white cheek pads and the rest a vibrant red. Amazing experience to say the least. It was a very interesting day to see all this different turkey behavior directed towards UNO. Tony's first SC gobbler and the first gobbler taken with UNO's help...18lbs, 10" beard, 7/8" ivory spurs.
Friday's hunt was cut short by some unaware fisherman coming into fish a little pond around 930a...while we had a bird gobbling well about 100 yards behind that pond. Can you say...GAME OVER.
Saturday and we were hunting another piece of dirt. We've been hunting some tough NON-GOBBLING field birds and it seems we may have figured out a tactic that's exhibiting some effectiveness. UNO struck again Saturday morning as the combination of soft period calling and his presence seems to be working. After another non-eventful gobbling morning of hearing perhaps 4 gobblers gobble a combined total of 4x...we decided to sit tight and not try trolling for a vocal bird. 2 hours later, again patience was rewarded as 3 longbeards and 2 jakes came in to inspect UNO. These guys exhibited some dominance displays, but not a lot. One was strutting. Tony killed the biggest one at 830a. He sure was pruod of it and even moreso when he saw that it had 6 beards with a combined length of 38.5". This 22 year old gobbler mount has made for some interesting mornings the 3 times he's been out.
He's helped bring in, 1 hen, 5 jakes and 4 longbeards.
Here's Tony's second SC longbeard:
Adapting to these new challenges has been effective, but I'd still love to get on a hot gobbling bird...maybe next week in WV.
