This afternoon did! My son and I went to this area this morning but the birds didn’t cooperate…saw a few hens but the gobblers were absent. I was upset because these birds had been here everyday for the last week and this morning they no-showed. He had to head back home around 2 so once he left I headed back to this area. My dad did have some luck on another property I scouted and he was able to take a nice 2 year old double beard.
The timber on this property had been thinned in October and I noticed some strut marks on the logging road going in a few days ago. I set up where I could see all the way down, which was about 250 yards, found a tree and settled in. I waited about 30 mins and let out a series of yelps. About 5 minutes later a hen walks out into the road about 60 yards away and begins fussing. We battled back and forth for a couple minutes before she lost interest and moved on. For the next hour I called off and on with no response.
At 5:15 at was thinking about where these birds could be when the two gobblers walked out into the road at about 100 yards. They appeared to be heading away from me so I let out a couple quick yelps. They both perked up, turned and started heading my way. I noticed one of the birds had a bad limp so I decided that I would try to take him if he gave me an opportunity. They’d walk a few yards, the boss bird would strut, and the limper would be a few steps behind him. It took them about 10 minutes but when they got to around 30 yards I cut twice. Both stuck their heads up and I folded the limper. The boss bird preceded to jump on mine for about 30 seconds and walked back into the timber.
When I got to my bird and picked him up I noticed he was really light. As I was cleaning him I found a few pieces of what looked to be #6 shot(I shoot 9’s) in his breast. I also found a couple in one of his legs so I imagine that was causing his limp. The bird weighed only 14 lbs. I’m glad I was able to take this bird and hopefully the dominant one will go on to breed.
It’s supposed to be really cold these next few days so I think I’ll skip it and wait until next week and try to find some more.
The road I shot him on
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