Yesterday was a great morning for us, minus me missing. The night before we saw 2 toms and a couple hens, but the toms went and roosted in adjacent fields about 250 yards apart. We decided to split up and cover both fields. I heard some gobbles over towards where my dad was but nothing really close to me. At about 5:55, I see 2 hens off to my left working my way. They made it into the field I was watching about 60 yards from me and I hear a gobble that sounds like it is trailing them. About the same time, I heard my dad shoot. He had 4 gobbling around him. One flew right to the field and one landed in the woods. He heard a clucking to his left. Assuming it was a hen, he eased around to look and was surprised to see a longbeard coming through. He let him get about 30 yards into the field and dropped him. He had a 9" beard and spurs just over an inch.
Meanwhile, the hens I was watching got a little spooky when he shot, but they continued towards my calls and started feeding again. I tried to swing the gun towards where they were heading in case the tom I heard was just over the rise but following them. Just as I started to swing the gun towards them, I see him, bigger than life in full strut on top of the rise. He caught my movement and folded up and turned to leave. I put the bead on him and shot and they all flew away. It was a little further shot than I thought it was and maybe I wasn't on him as well as I should of been when he turned to leave. Just got caught up in the moment a little bit I guess. It's been quite a few years since I've missed a bird and it was kind of hard to take at the time but it gives me some more time this year to chase after them.
We went out again this morning to try and till my last tag but didn't have much luck. We had 2 gobbling right behind us and 2 or 3 others off at a distance, but we never saw any of them. We got too close and busted one out of the tree as we were setting up too. They went in the woods early last night so I figured they were going to be deeper in than they were. Oh well, we'll be back after them this weekend.
