Unfortunately this will probably be my last story of the year, as our season here in VA goes out on Saturday, and the weather tomorrow and Saturday is calling for thunderstorms, clouds, rain, etc. and I'm not sitting in that, last day or not.
Just got back from 3 days in PA with ZSully and A_Jabbo. As usual, the hospitality, friendship, and hunting were all first class. I absolutely love this PA trip every year, and look forward to it all year long.
Day 1 - I got in town Sunday afternoon, and we cruised around looking for birds that evening, and spotted a nice bird in full strut, late in the evening and decided this was the bird we wanted to go after. Devised a plan, and were set up early the next morning. First light comes and we hear NOTHING except a bird way back behind us. After a little while, a hen comes out, then another, and then here comes a full fan over the rise. To make a long story short, he proceeds to stand there and walk back an forth at about 75 yards in full strut, gobbling at everything we threw at him, he just would not come. He stayed with those hens until he finally went back over the hilltop and we decided to bail and go try to find a bird that wanted to play. Setup #2, A_Jab has to go to work so Zach and I set up on another spot and decide to just blind call and see what happens as the morning passes. We hear a bird gobble a few times, but he seems way off, so we eventually move, and then get him and another bird pretty fired up. One bird gets really fired up, and loops around the whole block and ends up planting his feet at the first spot we were at of course, and never comes and closer, nor does the other bird, and we run out of time at noon. Fun day, had birds around, but none that wanted to cooperate.
Day 2, we set up up on a hill facing a power line nice and early. First light comes and a hen starts talking. A_Jab gets on the hen, and she starts talking back quite a bit. Then it starts to seem like she's going to come up through the woods from way below us, and as he's sweet talking to her, a gobbler fires off. Ok, now we're in the game. It sounds like she's going to come up through the woods behind me though, and Adam and Zach are behind me, so at this point I'm convinced Zach is about to shoot this bird when he comes up through the woods. Well he doesn't come up through the woods. I catch a glimpse of a hen coming up the power line, then another, and then I see a white head appear, full strut, following the 2 hens slowly up the hill and towards the decoys, which are about 15 yards from me. The hens make their way in, and when the gobbler gets into my clearing, I shoot. He hits the dirt and goes into a violent flop, feathers fly everywhere. As I stand up, he gets up and starts to run back down the power line. OH NO! I shoot 2 more times at him, missing both times as I watch him run out of sight, which actually isn't far, I just can't see down the hill. As I stand there about to puke and cry, Adam and Zach walk down the hill about 50 yards, and fortunately he's dead right on the side of the power line. Whew, what a relief and a roller coasters of emotions all packed into about 1 minute. Excitement, adrenaline, oh no!, dejected, depressed, embarrassed, shocked, disbelief, back to excited, adrenaline, and high fives, all in about 1 minute. I don't know what happened other than I think the excitement just got the best of me and I didn't make the greatest shot, but I ended up with a beautiful bird, at one of the prettiest places I've seen. 10" beard, around 17lbs, and 7/8" spurs I believe.
Day 3 - Zach and I saw a great bird in a field Tuesday evening at the same place we had walked away form those 2 birds gobbling Monday late morning, so we made a plan to try it first thing Wednesday. We get set up nice and early, and a bird across the street is gobbling his brains out, a bird sorta behind us is gobbling, and right at first light a bird gobbles about 30 yards from us in a tree and scared the crap out of both of us, and we watch him pitch out behind us and disappear. 2 Jakes and a couple hens pitch out from all around us, and this is looking great. Once all the birds hit the ground, everything goes silent, and we see nothing. All the birds have gone different directions, and now we see nothing in the field in front of us. The sun starts coming up right in our face, so we re-position a little bit and now are looking longways down the field. As the morning starts to pass, we hear some very distant gobbles, but it just doesn't seem like we're in the game at all, but we decide to wait because there has been a gobbler in this field regularly the past few days around 9-9:30. Well, around 9ish we see a hen come out into the field, and shortly after here comes a gobbler, across the hard surface road and into the field, and starts following the hen around. We'd call a little, she'd start coming towards us and he'd follow, then they'd go back away from us, and then repeat this over and over. We threw everything and the kitchen sink at them, and they would come from about 200 yards to about 100 yards, then turn back around and go away, over and over and over. A couple times we lost sight of them in the dip in the field just ahead of us and I thought for sure he was about to pop up over the rise, but no such luck. No matter what we tried, they just wouldn't come, so we watched him follow her, going in and out of strut until finally around 11:30 I had enough and needed to get back and packed up to hit the road back to VA.
We definitely spend 3 days in the action, gobbling, strutting, there was no real down time on any day and we had a blast. As always, a heck of a fun trip, and these guys are just first class hunters and friends. I'm already looking forward to next year.
This year was very good to me, and by far my favorite of any season I've experienced in my turkey hunting life. My daughter killed her first bird, I got to watch Zach kill 2 when he came here, and I killed 2 here in VA and 1 in PA. Watching Zach and my daughter be successful on some great hunts far outweighed any bird I could possibly kill. I couldn't ask for much more.
I look forward to reading some more stories from guys that are still hunting, and look forward to this team again next year - and we may just win this thing. Here's my PA bird
