I feel I have hunted hard this year. Harder than the last 4 years combined, yet I continue to get my arse handed to me day in and day out. Today I was IN the bedroom. A long, fairly wide bench between two creeks, one a lake tributary to my left and a small feeder stream but with fairly steep banks to my right. Both ran together at the point of the bench forming 3 separate ridges and flats. Today was a no calling day until I heard the hens talking and even then I kept it minimal. The woods were silent until 0530 when I heard a single, faint gobble 250 yards across the ravine that runs the length of the property. The gobblers were not home and were roosted all along the opposite side of the creek ravine and within 50 yards of the highway. Idk how they could sleep with all that noise but that's another story. My heart sank. There was no way they were coming across THAT. Then I heard tentative cluck. There was a hen roosted not 40 yards from me. I must have walked right underneath her on my way in. That's when all heck broke loose. It seemed every gobbler and jake in the woods was roosted across long that ravine. I could discern no less than 8 dif birds and figured there were almost twice that as they were stepping all over each other every time they gobbled on the limb. They sounded off for 45 minutes before finally flying down at almost exactly 0615. I knew I'd have to move but figured maybe-just maybe this hen would pull up a gobbler to the bench we were on. At 0630 I heard gobbles, but they sounded CLOSER! Sure enough, theyd flown down to my side and worked their way up to the point of the bench and could now be seeing strutting and feeding 125 yards away. They worked their way along my side of the ravine until they were only 60 yards out. I could see multiple fans and white heads angling towards me. That's when the nasty, horrible, biatch hen sitting in the tree 40 yards to my right started cutting and clucking and finally flew down and beelined it straight for the gobbler. They continued gobbling every couple minutes and at every one of my calls but the hen...THAT HEN... she would yelp and cut at me every time id call, but kept heading away, along the ravine ridge. Its like I'm battling the hens more than wary gobblers this year. They hear Any call and they simply swap ends and feed away, tsking their boyfriend (s) with them. Loooooots of walking trying to strike birds. My knees need iced daily..
Target rich environment. Go back. Or deer hunt them in the afternoon. Ya still have 2 weeks. Good luck.
Could you have spooked that hen out of there?
Quote from: xarcher on May 16, 2018, 03:35:27 PM
Target rich environment. Go back. Or deer hunt them in the afternoon. Ya still have 2 weeks. Good luck.
I workm7am-3pm tomorrow and I'd normally be out there tomorrow afternoon, but idk which of probably 4 routes they're going to take back to roost. Figure ill be out there at 0445 friday though...
Quote from: outdoorsmen on May 16, 2018, 05:01:28 PM
Could you have spooked that hen out of there?
Oh, believe me, I thought abiut it! By the time I realized the toms were on their way it was too late.
Agree on a weird year. I didn't get to hunt much due to selling, buying, and moving homes during the middle of season. Yeah, I know. Bad planning on my part. I did hunt the last two weekends of season which here in TX normally means they are either done or running over each other to find another hen. Not this year. We still had dominate birds with 10+ hens. I've never seen so many hens in my life in one season. Guess we will have plenty of stock for the next several years.