got a long, interesting story i am about to tell:
so this weekend was the last weekend for Kentucky season. and it was probably the best overall weekend. it had its ups and downs but a very exciting one! all started off saturday bright and early, me and my buddy was at his farm that is close to a major creek that runs off the mississippi river and the water had receeded to almost its normal banks. which was kind of a good thing. assuming all the hens nest throughout the bottoms had been washed away they were gonna re-breed. and thats exactly what they did. saturday morning we set up on a gobbler and several jakes. they flew down in the field at about 545. with about 15 hens! let the games begin. between the gobbler and (we assumed a jake or gobbler with beard rot) starting breeding all these hens. needless to say they were busy for about 2 and half hours at about 100 yards from us. all we managed to get to come to the decoy spread was a ballyz jake. so the next day (today) my buddy couldn't go and offered me and my dad the preveledge to hunt on his property! and at 515-ish BAM! same gobbling in the same little section of woods. except today me and my dad had a more knowledgeable plan on how to outsmart him. got setup between the birds and the field line, spread out about 50 yards. gobbler probably gobbled 50 times or more before he hit the ground. i had 3 or 4 jakes 15 yards in front of me while dad had the longbeard dead at roughly 25 yards (if that!) and BOOOOMMM at 6:22 am he misses! none of the birds scatter. so we are still in the clearing. (for now) as i asm watching these jakes i catch to my left, and my dad was to my right, here comes the unharmed longbeard. and heading towards the property next door about 15 feet directly behind me. i took the shot before he made it to the property line and missed also !!!!then i fired a sceond shot, knocked him over! yes! i got him! but nope he gets up and just walks off. with my thrid and final shot i ended the season with another double bearded jake! him and his other jake buddies stayed after two shots so one had it coming for them! wow what a weekend.
Congrates on the bird. It's weird to see birds breeding in may in KY, but I watched a gobbler breed 3 hens at the farm on Tuesday morning. Between all the flooding and below normal temps I hope this years hatch is at least decent.
i know. the kills state wide (that have been honestly checked through telecheck) are way down from last years high. and I, as well as others are afraid some of this flood water won't lower in time and some hens posssibily not re-breed. it'll be interesting to see next years numbers. jake number was high this year. so good crop of two year olds next season, but i dont know how some of the next years one year old birds are gonna look. hope for mother nature to do her works!
Congrats!
Congrats!!
Congrats!! :you_rock:
Congrats on a great bird!!! :z-guntootsmiley:
congrats!
Congrats. Hope the second nesting comes through. A couple of years ago we had flooding in late spring and I watched a hen being bred the first week of June.
Great story congrats!
Congrats on your gobbler & tagging out !! Good Job !! :newmascot: