SC 2018 was just as good as 2017 maybe better. Wasn’t there 10 minutes and shot a great Tom, but must not have gotten enough pattern on him. He went down and was flopping in the field just like they all do, but he all of a sudden picked his head up and the little Scooby Doo voice in my head said ruh roh. I then took off after him as he ran in the woods, but he evaded me. Donald and I spent awhile looking, plenty of blood and feathers, but ended up not recovering him. That was the first one I’ve lost since I was 17 or 18. We hunted the rest of the day and saw a pile of Jakes that stuck around us for an hour.
Day two/morning one finds us in the Cilling field, and even though we heard some gobbling we didn’t see much early on. It was like 30 degrees that morning. We had been calling on and off, around 09:00 we decided to make a big ruckus and as soon as we finished two longbeards sprinted in the field about 250 -300 yards out. Coming in on a string we had decided that Donald would shoot the bigger bird 1st. Then I would attempt to kill the other one. As they approached our set, Donald looking down the barrel asks “are they in range?” as soon as I said yes, BANG. Bird down and the other one breaks camp and runs to the edge of the woods before stopping. He is about 60 yards away and wanders off. The double doesn’t work out. No problem, birds are all over. We call in another 4 Jakes then break for lunch. We had a bird skirt us that afternoon, but no shots fired.
Morning two, we make a set with no luck, but hear birds hammering away so we move. By the time we make our way there, the birds have moved off to some state land. They kept gobbling and had our hopes up. We move around and had a close encounter on a big bird, just wasn’t in the cards. Keep in mind we are seeing longbeards as we move around. Some are not on ground we can hunt, others are in spots we can’t move on them in. We are in birds most of the time. On my last afternoon there we set up back on the Cilling field. Fast forward till almost dark, 3 big Toms walk the back of the field heading to a small dogleg on the edge of woods. We had seen a few birds do that, so we can up with a plan for the next morning. We sneak in to the field after dark and put up a tent and break out the DSD Strutter.
The last morning, it’s cold and rainy. Birds start gobbling a little after sun up and they are about where we thought they would be. We call a bit and a few minutes later I see 3 birds pop out about 100 yards to our right. They lock in on the DSD strutter and waste no time getting into range. I pick what I thought was the best bird and fire away, two birds drop. The other runs off into the woods and flies away. I wasn’t trying to kill two, but I also wasn’t trying not to. I knew I couldn’t hit all three as the one that got away was out in the lead a bit. Long story short, both are trophy birds, one has 4 beards, the other 2, both with nice hooks. Definitely studs. I’m sure I left things out that Donald will remember. Many thanks to my host as his place is as good as any place I’ve been. Already planning next year.
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