Hiked out Friday morning to set up camp, do some last minute scouting, and hopefully locate some birds. There was no shortage of gobbles but many of them were fairly inaccessible. Eventually we came up with a plan for the next morning and hiked back to camp.
Opening morning as we were hiking to our spots in the dark a random gobbler goes off on the roost so my buddy decides to set up on that bird while I continued on. I heard some faint gobbles but nothing like I was expecting based on our recon the night before...pretty slow start for me and it was starting to look like a nap day. Around 8:30 I hear a gunshot from my friend’s direction and sure enough I soon get a message that he shot one but couldn’t find it. I began slowly working my way up towards him in the creek to help him find it when I stumbled across a bird of my own that I think got spooked from the shot. Took the 25 yard shot and dropped him. Picked him up and went to go help my friend find his bird but was too late as he had already found it piled up in a bush. Kind of a weird start to the season but never bad to be done by 9. The plan was to hunt Sunday also so we hiked our birds out to put them on ice in the truck and went back in to hopefully locate some more birds. Saturday evening the gobbles had slowed down somewhat but we were able to find one we thought we could make a play on.
Sunday morning we get into our spots and at 6:10 a gobbler erupts in a tree about 80 yards in front of me. By 6:20 there are 2 gobblers going, and by 6:30 we’re essentially surrounded by 3 gobblers. I had a spot ranged at 40 yards where I thought they would fly down and kept my gun pointed that direction. I saw a hen fly down in front of me and as soon she hit the ground I did some soft calling. A bird immediately swooped down from the tree landing in the exact spot I had guessed he would and went straight into a quick strut. Killed him before he took 3 steps and just like that my day was over at 6:40. Definitely a memorable weekend!
Opening morning as we were hiking to our spots in the dark a random gobbler goes off on the roost so my buddy decides to set up on that bird while I continued on. I heard some faint gobbles but nothing like I was expecting based on our recon the night before...pretty slow start for me and it was starting to look like a nap day. Around 8:30 I hear a gunshot from my friend’s direction and sure enough I soon get a message that he shot one but couldn’t find it. I began slowly working my way up towards him in the creek to help him find it when I stumbled across a bird of my own that I think got spooked from the shot. Took the 25 yard shot and dropped him. Picked him up and went to go help my friend find his bird but was too late as he had already found it piled up in a bush. Kind of a weird start to the season but never bad to be done by 9. The plan was to hunt Sunday also so we hiked our birds out to put them on ice in the truck and went back in to hopefully locate some more birds. Saturday evening the gobbles had slowed down somewhat but we were able to find one we thought we could make a play on.
Sunday morning we get into our spots and at 6:10 a gobbler erupts in a tree about 80 yards in front of me. By 6:20 there are 2 gobblers going, and by 6:30 we’re essentially surrounded by 3 gobblers. I had a spot ranged at 40 yards where I thought they would fly down and kept my gun pointed that direction. I saw a hen fly down in front of me and as soon she hit the ground I did some soft calling. A bird immediately swooped down from the tree landing in the exact spot I had guessed he would and went straight into a quick strut. Killed him before he took 3 steps and just like that my day was over at 6:40. Definitely a memorable weekend!
