Virginia
5/4/21
Was blessed to have made a new friend in Virginia through Bradley.
We arrived at midnight on the morning of 5/4/21 after having worked a small outage at our plant on night shift so to say we were tired was an understatement.
After a couple hours of sleep we woke up and headed or separate ways, Bradley to WV my self and our new friend to a farm in VA. The weather called for storms but we were greeted with a bright moon an a star lit sky. Things were looking up. As day broke it was silent. We just looked at each other and I laughed and said, see this is what I've been hearing all year; Nothing! A few minutes later we hear a faint gobble waaaayyy in the distance. We decided he was worth going after so we took off. Down one big, hill up the next and then I hear a gobble behind us. We stop and he gobbled again, this bird is way closer so we backtracked and maneuvered our way around towards where we thought he was.
We get close to the spot and call and nothing . Call again nothing. Just my luck. Then the first bird we heard starts hammering. So we decided to slip down and old 4 wheeler trail and make a move on him. As we reach the trail head as it falls
Off a hill in thick timber my buddy drops to the ground and says dang it there he is strutting. I fall to the ground and inch my way to a tree and start scanning. He's just under the hill. We're stuck in a bad spot but luckily there was a deer that was waking beside him when my buddy spotted him. He made one soft call and the bird gobbles and now you can hear him drumming. A few seconds later I can see the tips of his fan coming up the 4wheeler trail. When he hits 35yds I can see him good and I check VA off the list with the squeeze of my little 20ga trigger.
It's was a really neat hunt and was nice to get that dang monkey off my back that been latched in since the second week of the MS season. The good Lord blessed me with a nice one. Gonna try it agin in the morning then head to Maryland.
18lbs
8 9/16" beard
1 1/16" Spurs.
