Ok guys and gals, here's a play by play of my hunt yesterday. I do have to say that the hunt was text book and one of the shortest hunts I have ever been on.
Saturday: I get to my spot on the hunting club right around 0530 hours. As I unloaded my gear I can already hear birds gobbling in the distance. I hump it out to my spot and wait to identify the roost tree. Right away a large group of crows go off like crazy, a bit early for crows to start their morning ruckus. As text book, the crows caw and the toms gobble allowing me to get to about a 100 yards from the roost tree. I get the dekes out and get a blind set up and I hear the dreaded yelps of about 6 hens all around me. As fly down comes around I say what the heck and start concentrating my raspy yelps and cuts towards the boss hen. She immediately cuts me off with angry cuts, yelps, and purrs. The gobblers cant stand all this and goes nuts. After a few minutes everything goes quiet and I figure all the hens pulled the gobblers off the club property on to warner ranch. As I bust out the box call and give a four note yelp, I can hear a hen behind the brush about 60 yards in front of me. I put the box call down and match the hens call with my mouth call. Not even a minute goes by and I start to see hens after hens walking towards my dekes. I give a couple keekee's with a yelp and the entire flock comes running towards with two full fanned gobbler following behind.
The flock stops around the 50 yards mark and starts to walk to my right away from me. I bead down on the lead gobbler but to my surprise he didn't have a beard! I scope out the second strutter and see a visible long beard. I get rested into the stock and put the bead on his neck and BOOOOM! The 3.5inch Winchesters put him down like a sack of rocks. As I sit there and wait for the other birds to walk off, two hens run over to the flopping gobbler and start kicking his butt! Now I have seen this with toms but never seen this with hens. Weird.
I go and check out my trophy gobbler and get him cleaned up a little for photos. I check out his beard and notice that not only does he have a nice thick 9inch beard, he also has a second 4 inch beard above his main beard, double beard! Absolutely super stocked and bagged a big bird by 0630. Easiest hunt ever!
Saturday: I get to my spot on the hunting club right around 0530 hours. As I unloaded my gear I can already hear birds gobbling in the distance. I hump it out to my spot and wait to identify the roost tree. Right away a large group of crows go off like crazy, a bit early for crows to start their morning ruckus. As text book, the crows caw and the toms gobble allowing me to get to about a 100 yards from the roost tree. I get the dekes out and get a blind set up and I hear the dreaded yelps of about 6 hens all around me. As fly down comes around I say what the heck and start concentrating my raspy yelps and cuts towards the boss hen. She immediately cuts me off with angry cuts, yelps, and purrs. The gobblers cant stand all this and goes nuts. After a few minutes everything goes quiet and I figure all the hens pulled the gobblers off the club property on to warner ranch. As I bust out the box call and give a four note yelp, I can hear a hen behind the brush about 60 yards in front of me. I put the box call down and match the hens call with my mouth call. Not even a minute goes by and I start to see hens after hens walking towards my dekes. I give a couple keekee's with a yelp and the entire flock comes running towards with two full fanned gobbler following behind.
The flock stops around the 50 yards mark and starts to walk to my right away from me. I bead down on the lead gobbler but to my surprise he didn't have a beard! I scope out the second strutter and see a visible long beard. I get rested into the stock and put the bead on his neck and BOOOOM! The 3.5inch Winchesters put him down like a sack of rocks. As I sit there and wait for the other birds to walk off, two hens run over to the flopping gobbler and start kicking his butt! Now I have seen this with toms but never seen this with hens. Weird.
I go and check out my trophy gobbler and get him cleaned up a little for photos. I check out his beard and notice that not only does he have a nice thick 9inch beard, he also has a second 4 inch beard above his main beard, double beard! Absolutely super stocked and bagged a big bird by 0630. Easiest hunt ever!
