So i go back to a new spot I have this year and for starters, I dont think I can remember as quiet a morning in the woods ever. I got there at 4:50 and started a slow realtively good walk in. I was there the other morning and heard not a peep. nothing.
I get to the top of the loggin road, or just about, and dont you know I bump a bird off the roost. I got a decent look at it as it started banking left, and it was definitely small, but bigger than a crow, so I assume a hen.
She didnt PUTT so my hope remains high. only minutes later, a little further up and deeper in, I hear a gobble. I grab my gun and decoy and start walking. I hear two gobblers and I am definitely getting closer. I pause and wait and sure enough, I hear another gobbler in addition to these two off to my left. But these two are closer and hotter and I am almost within settin up distance.
I walk a few more yards and now it's like I have entered an auditorium full of gobblers.the original two I heard are now 3 gobblers, all still on the roost, just hollering all over each other. and yes, there is still the 4th one still off to my left, but further away now because of where I walked to these guys.
It's only 5:10 at this point and it's half dark, half light, and i dont want to get too close for fear of bumping them or if that hen I bumped, they knew was there and I was gonna sound too close?? At this point, I am well within 100 yards and there is slight knoll in front of me that i feel i must be on top of but it's gonna put me within 60-70 yards of them on the roost and i am running a big risk of bumping them off. But i think it's still dark enough and I plotted out my steps to get up there, stuck the the decoy in the ground and found a nice big tree to the left of her to sit down on.
I have my glass call out and my boss hen call in my mouth and the Toms are still firing off. ONe on top of another, doubling gobbling, just an absolute symphony. I wait 20 minutes and do nothing. It's the hardest thing in the world to do, but you just have to when you are that close that early in the morning. But at 5:30 I give some real soft yelps on the glass call and I am hoping that they think it's the honey that roosted a couple of hundred yards away that I bumped.
They answer my glass calls and I tell myself I am not making another peep until they get off the roost. Well they waited about 3 minutes and then all 3 (though I did not know it) hopped off the roost, I heard him/them fly down and I immediately hit the mouth call with some solid yelps...but NOTHING. no return gobble, not one. In this game, your attitude can change in milliseconds and i think for a minute i have gotten too close, they have a strut zone they use or feed in, and they are walking off to it...
BUT i was wrong, less than one minute later, they all gobble on top of one another again, and I return with some more hard boss hen yelps followed up by some clucks, they ALL gobble back at me and I can only believe that they are on the way...And they are. First one appears, then another, and then one more. My heart is pounding, it's hard to even take a deep breath for fear that they will see me. I am trying to gauge which one may be the biggest but they all look the same. One of them goes into full strut for a few seconds, signaling that he may indeed be the Boss Gobbler, so I keep my eye on him. YET, the first is walking a straight line right to me, and it is at this point, I see he has some real different/unique coloring in his breast and wing feathers. You hear all sorts of stories but I think for a second perhaps this guy isnt healthy so I turn my attention back to the strutter who had now takent the same path behind this first guy and is headed right to me. The first guy breaks right, and I have now the straightest, best angle looking slightly down on this gobbler and I squeeze the trigger...
All done at 5:35 am. Sunrise was 5:49. So yes from 5:30 to 5:35, roughly 5 minutes, they got off the roost and walked in to me. I have been humbled plenty by these Toms, as we all have, but after 2012, this was an especially rewarding 2 mornings, all in the first 5 days of the season.
OH bird 1 was 18 lbs, one nub spur, one spur completely gone, and 8 inch beard. Bird 2 was 17 lbs, half inch spurs and 8 inch beard.
Thanks for reading. Keep Hunting hard.
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