Put a tag on number 4 this morning. Ive been after this one bird for about a week now and have had him at 50 yds twice but just can't get the job done. Bird never does the same thing two days in a row. Ive tried all kinds of things. Calling, no calling, decoy and no decoy. Got in this morning and heard one gobbling but stayed patient knowing this bird was in the area. Heard another in a different direction but still we held tight. Starting doing some soft yelps and bam one cut me off behind us. Now ive got a coworker with me who wanted to film so when we got in we built this great blind with some cedars but with the bird behind us we left the blind and jumped to the other side of the dirt road we were sitting on to see him coming. We sit back down and I give a few soft yelps and bam he cuts me off again. I give one last string of yelps and have a hen cut me off that sounded like it was sitting in my front pocket. Now this dirt road is on the spine of a ridge so when you sit down on either side you can't see whats coming up the other side but I get my gun ready and the hen walks out dead in front of me at 10 yds. By now im thinking man this is awsome and my partner sould be getting some great footage. Well im stuck and waiting for big boy so step on to the road behind her when my partner tells me that big boy is standing to my left. I finally see a big black ball to my left its very close and coming fast. When he finally gets to where I can see him he has his fan to me and is at 10 yds and is side stepping he way to the hen. Finally he gets to 8 yds and turns and without hesitation I shot and missed.
Then the bird hunting instincts kicked in and I nailed him in the air and dropped him. Well as soon as he hits the ground I see that I screwed up and shot a dang jake. Bird had a full fan and when he came in like he did with his but to me, the fan is all I saw and with him being at 8 yds I wasn't going to take chances with them spooking so I took the first shot I got. I have no idea where this bird came from. My partner said he came from behind me at 20 ft and that he never even looked at his beard when he was coming by me. He just knew that a bird was strutting by and told me their he was. Even worse is the whole time I thought we were getting some great fottage but he had hit the wrong button on the camera and we got nothing.
Oh well, he will eat good this weekend.
