Take Me Home, Country Road

[xarcher]

Made it to WV the last 3 days for my annual father son turkey hunt.  We doubled up on Monday (I shot a full fan jake).  Tuesday, we hunted in 4 inches of snow and got nothing.  Wednesday I shot a longbeard that is in the 55 neighborhood.  Will post story in the next couple of days.  And the best part is I got to hang out with my 2 year old grandson.  Icing on the cake. 

[zelmo1]

Congrats, nice week bro

[Tom007]

Nice job, congrats

[Kygobblergetter]

Awesome. Congrats!


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[3seasons]

Sounds like a great few days with family!  Congrats!


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[xarcher]

Sorry all, but every time I sit down to tell the story, something comes up.  So it is Sunday and raining outside and I have glued myself to the computer to catch up on a bunch of things. 

So this was my annual trip to WV to hunt with my son.  I roosted 2 birds Sunday night so we had high hopes for the opener on Monday 4/18.
This is on a 23,000 WMA that has steep ridges and finger ridges presenting lots of roosting spots but at the same time challenges for setting up and fooling mountain birds.  We set up Monday morning about 150 yards to the north of one of the birds on a bench.  This has been a popular roosting spot over the years and most often the gobblers come off the roost and take off to the north on this bench.  And when I roosted him the night before, he approached the roost from the north so I figured he would leave the same way he came in.  Our plan was to not make any calls as these birds because they have been know to just go off in the opposite direction of a call.  He gobbled maybe 50 times on the roost, flew down and wouldn't ya know he headed SOUTH!!!  So we get up and sneak to where he had roosted, yelping frequently the whole way to make him think a hen was trailing him.  By this time, we could hear multiple birds gobbling below a finger ridge to our south, not more than 120 yards away.  We sat down about 70 yards back from the edge and i started purring and scratching.  Had the whole bunch of em hammering.  Wasn't more than 2 minutes after sitting down, I see a strutter thru the trees.  A little more scratching and here he comes marching down our gun barrels with the others still gobbling just off of the ridge out of sight.  He's strolling our way and the next thing I know, my son drops the hammer, misses and the longbeard flies off.  I immediately hit some aggressive yelps and jake yelps to keep the others interested, and sure enough, I get multiple gobbles back.  They are still there.  So I go quiet for a few minutes and they continue to gobble on their own.  I'm still purring and scratching so eventually here comes a couple of hens, then a couple of jakes, then another strutter with a full fan and bright white head.  I shoot him and in the commotion my son shoots one of the jakes (his wife is expecting their second any day now so he wasn't being picky).  We walk up on the birds and it turns out we shot double jakes.  The full fan strutter was a jake.  Drats.  The one on the right is was the "strutter" I shot.  The one on the left is my son's.   


Tuesday we go back to the same general area, except 4 inches of snow were on the ground.  No action and only cut one set of tracks. 


Wednesday my son had things to attend to, so I went to a piece of private that we have permission to hunt.  This farm has always had a large population of birds that don't get hunted, so I was only going to do what we call a slam hunt - try to kill one right off the bat than be back in time for breakfast.  Well it lived up to it's reputation.  I had gobbling on 3 different roosts from our usual listening spot, and decided to set up on the closest one which was only about 150 yards away.  I was able to get to within 75 yards of him, but he was roosted right on the property line where if he flies down to the south, he's off the reservation.  I am sitting to the east.  He gobbles maybe 50 times on the roost and flies down to the south and is joined by another 8 or 10 birds that I couldn't make out as they left the trees.  The flock starts travelling east, parallel to the property line but not more than 75 yards across it.  So I back out and use the terrain and trees to keep up with them on my side of the line, hoping he/they can be lured across the line.  After about 15 minutes of this game, I hear gobbling to the north and it's getting closer.  And closer.  I spin around to the back side of a tree where I had set up to try and kill plan A bird, and I'm looking at a jungle.  Not enough time to find a better killing spot, so I gotta play the cards I am dealt.  Maybe 5 minutes later I see another black strutter, but this time I make sure it has a long beard.  Find a tiny hole to shoot thru and click bang.  Slam hunt.  First picture is the gobbler reflecting the sunrise (notice the vegetation difference between it and the mountain picture up above).  Second picture is looking back thru the hole I had to shoot thru.  It's the blue circle. 



And I got to hang out with my grandson. 

[paintbrush]

Very nice! Congrats!