After a slow and frustrating start to the season the last 2 days were good to me going back to back killing #'s 2 and 3.
This morning I started off in a field where I saw a longbeard and a hen in at 7:30 yesterday morning after I got #2. With the rain I was hoping he was gonna head to the field again this morning. My dad tagged along with me and we set up on the edge of the field waiting for day light. I didn't dare call any due to having history with these birds and the hens will quickly change directions when they are called to here and go away from you. We sat right and just after 7 my dad whispered he could see a white head standing in the tree line about 70 yards out. Soon I saw a hen in the field and finally saw what my dad saw. The longbeard was frozen right on the tree line just staring out into the field. After a few minutes he eased out into the field. Knowing this bird was the man of this area I decided to put out a DSD jake with a hen layed down in front of him to hopefully get the territorial factor working. Well for some reason the bird could care less about the decoys and stayed between 60-80 making a semi circle out into the field around our setup for the next 2.5 hours. Where lever his hen went he stayed about 49 yards behind her just eating and looking. While watching these birds I happened to glance back in the direction where they had originally stepped out and another hen was coming out into the field at about 20 yards. She quickly made her way to the other hen which was now only 30 yards from us. The longbeard was still out about 60 yards when I guess he realized there was now another hen in the party so after 2.5 hours of here he comes to he's walking away, he finally started closing the distance and go to about 40 yards. After watching him all that time I was more than ready to shoot and end his reign as the man on this farm. Well when the gun went boom he backflipped and was stone dead with out a flop. I had brought my Remington 20 guage that I killed my first bird ever with when I was 11, and the same gun my nephew killed his bird with on youth day this year. The yardage was a little more than I estimated, probably due to watching this bird so long. I have to say when we stepped it off in was 50 steps, so a little over 40 yards the federal heavyweight #7's put a hurt on him.
This was him the day prior when I saw him strutting in the field. He died in the same field.
(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160506/863b0068e59edc1bcbb5cdaf962974e1.jpg)
He was 23 1/2lbs, 10in beard, 1 1/4 spurs
(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160506/75ca5838d58b96a9f928965f39f0888a.jpg)(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160506/f48c557cd5488cb933704893f2180c97.jpg)
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Great hooks!
Nice bird, man!
Good looking bird even with the wet look... Lol. Congrats
Nice gob! Congrats
I'd say that's a Limbhanger. Congrats
Boom!! :icon_thumright:
That's a dandy!
Nice!
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Congrats on a good one!!
Impressive hooks for sure!!! WTG!! :drool:
Tagged out? Feel free to lend me a hand lol. I'm getting destroyed. 0-12 so far here in King George and Caroline county
Quote from: 357MAGNOLE on May 07, 2016, 09:23:35 AM
Tagged out? Feel free to lend me a hand lol. I'm getting destroyed. 0-12 so far here in King George and Caroline county
That SSX on the end of that 870 is BAD!!!!
:icon_thumright:
Glad it worked out for you brother.
well done
That's a hammer of a bird
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