This past weekend we had our annual wounded warrior hunt at Quantico Marine Corps Base here in VA. We had great hunts on back to back days.
First hunt I knew of a bird using the same area daily so we went after him to start. At 5:50 he gave us the first gobble and didn't stop gobbling til he died at 6:30. This bird gobbled at everything that made a sound while in the tree. Once it was light enough for them to be on the ground I gave a a couple soft calls and he immediately gobbled. I put the calls down and waited for him to hit he ground. After a few minutes of no gobbles I thought he should had flown down so I called and he gobbled closer and to our left. At the time I could see him standing at the top of the ridge in full strut. The bird read the script perfect and strutted straight to us.
The next morning we went to a different area and when we arrived we found that about 100+ marines were camped out in the field close to where we were gonna go. We still hunted the area but heard nothing. Around 9:00 we switch to a different area and set up in a know spot that birds like to use. After about 15 minutes of waiting and calling every couple minutes i got one to gobble at me, but he was a ways off. After the cutting the distance on the bird we set and this bird started gobbling at everything. He cut the distance and hung up around 100 yards for what seemed like forever. Between him double and triple gobbling at me, cars, near by ranges shooting this bird had to of gobbled over 200 times in the hour of working him. Finally I went silent and he gobbled 2-3 times on his own. His final gobble I could tell he was just out of sight. Finally I see him at about 50 yards out in full strut. This bird was alone but took him time and strutted then would peck around. Everytime he would peck the ground I called soft over my should and he couldn't take it, he finally broke and walked to 30 yards.
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