First of all I want to thank the Lord for keeping my family and I safe during the season. What a tough season. I only heard roost gobbles and can count the number of gobbles on two hands I heard throughout the season. I was only semi able to work one bird and that was on opening day. He gobbled to my neighbors yelp who was sitting on the property line, then I yelped he gobbled I gave him a bit yelped again he gobble then went quiet when he hit the ground until he showed up and worked over the decoy until I shot him. Other than the first day this season was way to close to deer hunting for me. Making sets and cold calling every 15 to 30 minutes staring off into the distance is rough. Called in 7 or 8 hens this season and some with in 5 or 6 feet but no gobblers or even jakes after the first day. Not quite sure what happened to the gobblers once they hit the ground this year. I know there where gobblers around because I heard a least two gobble on Thursday morning. Over all I hunted 11 or 12 days and heard probably 8 or 9 gobbles the whole time. My dad hunted 15 to 16 days and only heard 4 gobbles and that was not until last Thursday and no bird on the ground but also called in multiple hens.
I assume the kill numbers will be down this year and a ton of gobblers got to sit and watch us walk around like fools and learn all of our tricks. So next year could be interesting to say the least. Some records should fall next year with the amount of birds that got the pass this year. Good luck to any of you guys still hunting. Now on to look for some land or a hunt club to join because we are not renewing our current leases due to price increases($1350 a year to $2500 a year) and they are clear cutting the other tract we leased. Let me know if you know of any good hunt clubs in the Central VA(Powhatan/Cumberland) area or land that you guys know of for lease.
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