Well, we got back from our KY/IN hunt yesterday afternoon...
The birds in KY were very tight-lipped, guess that's what happens during the second week of season on public ground. Hunting big-woods mountain turkeys sucks!!!
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/WNYBowhunter/Turkey%20Hunting/IMG_0243.jpg)
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/WNYBowhunter/Turkey%20Hunting/IMG_0204.jpg)
After getting our butts kicked in KY, it was nice to get back to hunting the rolling farmland of Indiana. Opening morning was a wash-out and we spent 7 hours camped out in a groundblind. Despite the crappy weather, we saw a bunch of birds but couldn't get them to come in. There were 3 longbeards on the farm and two of them acted very aggressively towards the third one (he was a monster) and kept chasing him around the field. We decided that it would be a good situation to try my stutter decoy. On the second morning, all three toms were hammering on the roost and came strutting out in the pasture with 12 hens and a couple of jakes. Unfortunately, they came out on the opposite end of the field from where they were hanging out the previous day and just like before the two bullies proceeded to chase the big guy off again. After milling around the field for an hour or so they finally noticed my deke and came in running from 300 yds leaving thier girlfriends behind!!! They hung up @ 60 yds for a minute sizing up the competition when a small gust of wind caused the deke to spin around and face them. That's all it took and the lead gobbler came in to kick some butt while his timid buddy was content to stay back and watch just out of gun range which saved his life. Gobbler number one wasn't so lucky...he walked up to B-mobile, fanned out and stood next to the decoy just staring it down. I told dad not to worry about the double and he had better kill the one that was in range. A load of hevi-7's from dad's 11-87 ended the fight in a hurry. In hindsight, maybe we should have let things play out a little longer to see if gobbler #2 would have come in too, but I've seen too many hunts end up in disaster at the last second. To make it even better, the guy that was guiding us got some awesome video of the hunt!!!
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/WNYBowhunter/Turkey%20Hunting/IMG_0217uu.jpg)
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/WNYBowhunter/Turkey%20Hunting/IMG_0224gg.jpg)
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b284/WNYBowhunter/Turkey%20Hunting/IMG_0241hg.jpg)
Our season here in NY opens on weds. Hopefully, my luck at home will be better...
Congrats!!
Congrats!!
sounds like an awesome experience! Congrats