Hi, I'm FullChoke and I missed.
I hunted my favorite Honey Hole last Saturday. I was at my setup spot before dawn and was there when "T-Diddy" broke the silence about 120 yards away. He gobbled about 60 times Saturday morning, I got him moving in my general direction once but he is an old wary public land Mississippi gobbler that knows better than to go to the yelping hen that he can't see, no matter how sweet she sounds. He eventually stops gobbling. About an hour later, I get up to check on a road out in the woods and hear a gobble @ about 9:30 about 300 yards away. That must be him. I decide to head back to the vehicle and start walking quietly down this road. I look up ahead and see something dark behind some vines down the road. The dark steps to the right 100 yards off in full strut with the same blue head and white caruncles that I had seen on him 2 weeks ago. Unmistakable. He spin around and I melt into the road, crawl over to the side and prop up in the prone position. My view down the road is obstructed slightly by grass that is now eye level. I lay there for 5 minutes and then slowly raise my head up to get a better look down the road. There is a longbeard gobbler running right me! I get my cheek back down on the stock just in time for him to pull up at full alert at 20 yards. I swing the sight onto his head and shoot. At that moment, he squatted to jump into flight and the Federals filled that spot where his lucky head had just been. The woods exploded in all directions with birds including "T-Diddy" flying away down the road...
I went directly to the closest WalMart, bought a box of dove shot, grabbed some cardboard and went out to check the gun. It was still dead on, so to speak. Quasi-operator error.
That afternoon, I was back in the woods where I had heard him gobbling in the afternoon where he likes to stage before flying up to roost. He decided that he would prefer to roost over here, thank you, and not where I was. He gobbled about 20 times behind me at 75 yards and simply would not come to the horny clucking hen at Roost B. OK.
I have studied hard on this bird since our last meeting and believe that I now know how to call him up and kill his over arrogant snood. I have a trick or two up my camouflaged sleeve that I am sure that he has never had thrown on him.
FullChoke
