After a frustrating last 2 days finally sealed the deal this morning. Birds seem to be in groups still with gobblers being led by hens all morning.. hens seem to be acting very aggressive with keeping birds away from other hens, literally running away and getting the boys to follow. I thought maybe a strutter decoy would help trigger one of the dominate birds into a fight. I slip in tight in the dark and a hen starts putting at me, then I catch a silhouette of another hen. I sit down anyways and hope they forget about me. When gobble time comes its already light, soon one of those hens starts putting again. The gobblers were down the field a ways, so I turned around and waved and got the two hens to flush. One cackled and the gobblers fired back.. cool, two less hens to deal with. A few more hens fly out the back following them. I tree yelp and a bird gobbles 60 yards down the field from me, but its a short gobble. The birds farther away had much longer gobbles. Soon the birds just down from me start flying out, its a gaggle of jakes with a few hens. I cut and the far birds have cut the distance.. soon I see them puffed up running into the jakes.. two longbeards. They see the strutter decoy and here they come running full speed. They stop for a split second to look things over and of course both heads are lined up, they take off again. I'm following them along with the gun and they stop again, 35 yards I pick the lead bird and roll him at 6:13. I would have liked to have let em get to the decoy to see what'd happen, but I had about 90degrees left to move my gun if they made it that far and given the last few days, wasn't about to get cute with them.
(http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc18/drmnhipster/DSCN0228_zps7674ddf7.jpg) (http://s214.photobucket.com/user/drmnhipster/media/DSCN0228_zps7674ddf7.jpg.html)
I bought that pretty boy a couple years ago when Wing supply put them on sale post season for 25 bucks.. haven't used it until today as it really doesn't fit into how I hunt, but needed to play a different card today.. glad it worked as planned!
There you go killer. Good job.
Good job on having the insight to flush those hens Derek.
Nice work!
Now where is that whitelightning double beard I saw on your tailgate shot????
Quote from: MDbowman on April 24, 2014, 07:14:07 AM
Nice work!
Now where is that whitelightning double beard I saw on your tailgate shot????
^^this^^
Nice bird, congrats
Quote from: DMP on April 24, 2014, 09:26:02 AM
Quote from: MDbowman on April 24, 2014, 07:14:07 AM
Nice work!
Now where is that whitelightning double beard I saw on your tailgate shot????
^^this^^
Looks like a good one........
nice...have had excellent luck with strutters with full fans or jake fans here in MO...last 5 years had at least one bird do the headstand flopdance because of my King Strut decoy
Congrats on the hunt and bird!