So yesterday morning was our opener and as usual i slept in. I work 4am to 3:30pm 5 days a week so youd think getting up that early one more day would be easy but my body says otherwise on saturdays. I took my 13 y.o. nephew out last week for the youth opener and we didnt hear or see anything so i told him that he could go with me on the main opening day. He wanted to hunt the woods by my house so i agreed to take him there. Well like i said we slept in....We always do. Woke up and it was super foggy. Drove up the mountain and the fog was breaking. Got to the lower parking spot and saw two vehicles so i drove to the upper parking spot where i normally go anyway. Got there and there was a truck parked there. I decided to hunt anway since theres four different logging roads to walk down. We walked down the road i always hunt and i stopped at one spot and made a call and didnt hear anything so we kept walking. We got to a spot where ive heard gobbling before so i made a call. Didnt hear anything. Made a second call and got a gobble from about 100 yards out. He must have ran in because before we could even get to a tree my nephew says here they come! So we sat down in the middle of the road. Over the hill came two longbeards and two hens. The dominate bird gobbled, strutted, spitted and drummed for about ten minutes while the sub and hens just walked around. They stayed just out of range of my nephews 20 gauge. When they finally walked out of sight we snuck off the side of the road and got set up. I tried calling again but they walked away. I waited aout 10 minutes and made another call and they gobbled again, this time on the other side of the road. So we got up and moved to the other side. Both gobblers came in but they came through the only thick area where we couldnt get a shot and walked away from us. We tried to circle around them from below the hill but came up to close and spooked them. We walked to a different spot and sat down for a half hour but didnt ear or see anything. After that we walked about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile and stopped at a spot where ive heard birds gobble before so i let out a couple yelps and nothing. I turned around and made a few more yelps and had a couple birds gobble from about 300 yards out. We walked towards them but i didnt want to get too close because the woods were so open. So we setup about 150-200 yards out. Sat down at what i thought was a good spot and made a call and they gobbled. We went back and forth for awhile and it seemed that if i stopped calling they would lose interest quick so i kept pouring it to them. Finally they came in to about 25 yards but they stayed in a little depression in the hill and my nephew couldnt see them to get a shot. They walked off and went back up the hill. We tried to adjust our setup and get on them again but they wouldnt come off that hill again. They were only about 100 to 150 yards out but just out of sight. They stayed in the same area and gobbled for a half hour but wouldnt budge. Finally time ran out and we had to give up so we snuck out of the area and headed home. Meanwhile they just kept on gobbling. All in all it was an amazing day. We didnt get to pull the trigger or take any hero pics but it was still my best day in the turkey woods. I usually hunt alone so it was a blessing to be able to share a day like that with my nephew. It was definitely a day we will never forget.
