chrislibby88
Senior Member
Weds 4/10/19. Got another early start on this foggy dripping wet morning and was at my listening post at 6:15, the same spot I always check first. Started my owl hooting routine, lots of owls, but no gobbles. I decided this time not to waste an hour walking into the bottom, so I jumped back in the truck after 15 minutes of hooting and started spot checking other spots, mainly working my way to an area that I bumped birds off the road driving by last week. My first few stop yielded a faint gobble that was hard to pinpoint, then nothing else. I tried to drive around and get some more angles on the direction that I perceived it, but I didn’t hear anything else.
I drove further down and eventually made it to a bench where the land drops off into riparian flood plains, palmetto thickets, and open oak and cedar flats. I heard a gobble within a minute of stepping out of the truck, he sounded close enough to work towards, and I knew the area he was in. I dropped down the steep bank from the bench and started picking my way through the palmettos stopping often to listen, but he was pretty conservative on the gobbling, and I wasn’t close enough for my owl hoots yo shock him, either that or he moved on. I got about 100 yards in and decided to set up and see if I could locate him with some yelps. I did, for about 15 minutes, and heard nothing so I decided to pull and push a little deeper to where the palmettos break into open oak/cedar mud flats. I hit my owl call on the way, and this time I was close enough. Got a gobble back from what seemed like 150ish yards, and he was definantly in the open flats. As soon as I hit the transition I put my henmput in a fairly visible spot, picked a wide tree, and settled into the mud.
I started with my slate call and some very quiet clucks and yelps, but they yielded no response, so I got on the mouth call and started getting incremtally louder. Still nothing. After about 10 minutes and a final loud yelp with a few cuts he gobbled, so I hushed and waited for another. Stubborn ******* wasn’t playing into it though. Another few minutes pass and I hit another yelp and cut sequence, and a hen starts firing back, and now I realize this bird is hen’d up, but I’ve called in more hens than toms, so I put on my sassy hen dress and start giving it to her. We cut back and forth, back and forth, steadily hammering away, and as she moved closer the gobbler was getting fired up. He would hammer every few cuts, but his locatation want changing with he hen. Eventually I see her making a bee line straight to me, so I shut up and start watching trying to keep from shaking and breathing too hard.
She comes into about 10 yards and I’m afraid she is gonna walk right into me, but she spots my hen decoy and starts moving to my left to check it out.
At this point I’m just hanging tight, still as a statue, while she starts to feed around my decoy.
About 10 minutes into this hen feeding 15 yards to my left there is still no gobbler to be seen, and he has been quiet since we stopped the cutting, by I stay hopefully and keep scanning with my eyes until they start to cramp from looking as far as possible to each side without moving my head. I am not brushed in at all, just leaned against a wide gnurled oak in a pretty open mud bed.
The hen eventually starts making little clucks and soft yelps, and I repeat her every time her head is down feeding or behind a tree, and after another 5-10 minutes I catch some movement at my 12 o’clock, and see a white head slowly bobbing my way at 100 yards between trees and sparse palmettos.
He creeps his way closer, no gobbles, just strutting, and he has another hen with him.
I adjust slowly and incrementally every time all the birds are behind trees, or pecking with their heads down as I wait for what seems like forever for this bird to slowly zig sag into range, which I’m not even sure at this point if he will come all the way. I almost take a bad shot at 60ish yards, but I hold out and remind myself to stay patient. His hens start moving back towards my decoy so I keep waiting. At this point I can hear him spitting, and he is pretty much locked into a constraint strut. His hens break to my right, and as soon as they clear I take a 30-40 yard shot, and drop him where he stands in the mud. This was at 9 am. About an hour and a half since I first heard him from the bench.
This was my most rewarding hunt so far.
20 lbs bird, sharp spurs, and a long scraggly beard.
I drove further down and eventually made it to a bench where the land drops off into riparian flood plains, palmetto thickets, and open oak and cedar flats. I heard a gobble within a minute of stepping out of the truck, he sounded close enough to work towards, and I knew the area he was in. I dropped down the steep bank from the bench and started picking my way through the palmettos stopping often to listen, but he was pretty conservative on the gobbling, and I wasn’t close enough for my owl hoots yo shock him, either that or he moved on. I got about 100 yards in and decided to set up and see if I could locate him with some yelps. I did, for about 15 minutes, and heard nothing so I decided to pull and push a little deeper to where the palmettos break into open oak/cedar mud flats. I hit my owl call on the way, and this time I was close enough. Got a gobble back from what seemed like 150ish yards, and he was definantly in the open flats. As soon as I hit the transition I put my henmput in a fairly visible spot, picked a wide tree, and settled into the mud.
I started with my slate call and some very quiet clucks and yelps, but they yielded no response, so I got on the mouth call and started getting incremtally louder. Still nothing. After about 10 minutes and a final loud yelp with a few cuts he gobbled, so I hushed and waited for another. Stubborn ******* wasn’t playing into it though. Another few minutes pass and I hit another yelp and cut sequence, and a hen starts firing back, and now I realize this bird is hen’d up, but I’ve called in more hens than toms, so I put on my sassy hen dress and start giving it to her. We cut back and forth, back and forth, steadily hammering away, and as she moved closer the gobbler was getting fired up. He would hammer every few cuts, but his locatation want changing with he hen. Eventually I see her making a bee line straight to me, so I shut up and start watching trying to keep from shaking and breathing too hard.
She comes into about 10 yards and I’m afraid she is gonna walk right into me, but she spots my hen decoy and starts moving to my left to check it out.
At this point I’m just hanging tight, still as a statue, while she starts to feed around my decoy.
About 10 minutes into this hen feeding 15 yards to my left there is still no gobbler to be seen, and he has been quiet since we stopped the cutting, by I stay hopefully and keep scanning with my eyes until they start to cramp from looking as far as possible to each side without moving my head. I am not brushed in at all, just leaned against a wide gnurled oak in a pretty open mud bed.
The hen eventually starts making little clucks and soft yelps, and I repeat her every time her head is down feeding or behind a tree, and after another 5-10 minutes I catch some movement at my 12 o’clock, and see a white head slowly bobbing my way at 100 yards between trees and sparse palmettos.
He creeps his way closer, no gobbles, just strutting, and he has another hen with him.
I adjust slowly and incrementally every time all the birds are behind trees, or pecking with their heads down as I wait for what seems like forever for this bird to slowly zig sag into range, which I’m not even sure at this point if he will come all the way. I almost take a bad shot at 60ish yards, but I hold out and remind myself to stay patient. His hens start moving back towards my decoy so I keep waiting. At this point I can hear him spitting, and he is pretty much locked into a constraint strut. His hens break to my right, and as soon as they clear I take a 30-40 yard shot, and drop him where he stands in the mud. This was at 9 am. About an hour and a half since I first heard him from the bench.
This was my most rewarding hunt so far.
20 lbs bird, sharp spurs, and a long scraggly beard.
