Well all the birds I THOUGHT I had locked down prior to the opener May 1st played the ole "Houdini" and moved off the property i have permission to hunt. My thought is hunter pressure from the kid the owner gave permission to last fall. Pretty sure he was bumping and educating birds while scouting and pushed them out. The bane of experienced hunter is a noob that won't listen. Well this morning we took a little walk onto a friend's property a half mile south after I got off work 3rd shift this morning. Picked up my stepson and booked out to the woods. At 0830 we got to a hardwood plot next to a power line and it was torn up with fresh scratching. I gave a couple clucks and then a series of yelps and BAM. Gobbles from our left to right about 125 yards out. Set up and 3 sets of calls later we could see bodies headed our way. Birds were EVERYWHERE. From 90° to our left, to 45° to our right and everywhere in between. Had no fewer than a half dozen BIG long beards in pairs and probably eight or ten jakes come in in a wad to our right front. They stopped at 35ish yards and would come no further. Instead, strutting and gobbling just on the other side of a thicket of saplings.
They strutted and gobbled for 40 minutes when finally the one hen they were following around screwed us up and took them away from us. At the same time the hen was walking our birds away from us, the jakes all got in a big fight, sounding like people beating each other with waffle ball bats. Lol. We sat there about 45 minutes in silence debating on making a move, but choosing to sit tight. After a few more minutes I gave a series of clucks, cuts and cackles to see if I could shock one into gobbling and giving up their position and BAM they hammered again, only 100 yards out and came right back in...to the exact same darn spot as the first time. It was a great hunt and at least now I know where these darn birds went.
