Broke the ice (pics)

[cahaba]

 Thursday morning the alarm woke me at 4:30 a.m. As customery I opened the door to check the weather. It was quiet cool. I had not had any luck with the birds at flydown. They were kicking my butt! I decided to get a little more sleep and let the temperature warm a bit. I knew where some birds were located so I figured I would go about 10 a.m and see if I could change the game.
I walked out my backdoor at 9:30. The walk was only around 3/4 of a mile. The area I chose to set up was between the roost and an area the birds were hanging out during the day. I found me a nice big ole white oak and raked the leaves back and got comfortable., took my water bottle and calls out and set them in order.
I made a few quiet calls on a Fatal Attraxion slate about every 20 minutes. This went on for about an hour with no results. I pulled my wingbone from under my vest and hit it and two birds sounded off. They seemed to be a little far off but due to the terrain and lack of greenery I decided to stay put. I went back to the slate call and would purr and cluck ver quietly and naturally about every 20 minutes with some whines in between.. I never heard a peep out of the gobblers. This went on for two hours. At 12:30 I heard a bird walking toward me. It wasnt one not  but three of em.They were closing in fast and had their heads telescoping in natural fashion. I had my eye on the strutter since he was the biggest bird. At thirty five yards I had to make it count. The big strutter went behind a big water oak and I slowly moved my gun but the jib was up and out of my perifial vision I could see one of the other birds had me pegged. The strutter had frozen behind the big oak. One of the other two birds putted so I fluidly put the  ole SX3 on him. He fell like a sack of potatoes. Not a trophy but I sure am glad to break the ice for this year. 17.5 lbs., 8 3/4 inch beard. One 7/8" spur and one 3/4. Shelby County birds are hunted very hard and dont come to the gun very easy most of the time so I was happy and I did get to christen my new SX. Note: A friend of mine invited me to hunt with him Saturday and we had a quick hunt (rare). He killed a bird about like mine.

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[marshboy]

Congrats...good story!
Greg

[OLE RASPY]

 

[cahaba]

Thanks.

[hookedspur]

Congrats...good story!
Greg

[bowhunter84]

 

[Struttin Spurs]

Sounds like you had a nice hunt! Congrats on the bird. Now get back out there and get number two!

[harvester]

 

[ncturkey]

Great story.

[Basser69]

 

[archery1]

 
great story an pics

[furtracker]

Nice Bird.  Now that #1 is outta the way you can start piling them up .

[Ol'Mossy]

Nice bird and story, congrats