Pa season 2022
Rain, windy and cold conditions along with lack of gobbling made the first several days a little slow.
Wed. 5/4– Around 8:00 a gobbler opened up across the valley on the opposite ridge top. He was a long way off, but after listening to him gobble for a few minutes, I decided to head in his direction. It took me awhile to get there, but he was gobbling now and then, so I was able to keep track of his location. This property is mature, open timber and I knew that along with the early season lack of foliage, it was going to be difficult to get set up where he wouldn't hang up out of gun range.
It took almost 3 hours, 3 different set ups with tons of gobbling, but I was finally able to get him to 25 yards. Unfortunately when he came into sight...he was behind a blow down and all I could see was his head and neck. Not knowing what he had for a beard, I chose not to shoot. He stood there for a minute looking around for a hen and eventually he walked away. It was noon and I was done for the day.
Thurs. 5/5- I got set up on a roosted gobbler, 4 hens and 2 jakes. After fly down I had 2 of the hens and both jakes within gun range, but the gobbler stayed out of range with the other 2 hens. After an hour they drifted away from me and off of the property.
Friday & Saturday- more rain showers
Mon 5/9- It was a beautiful day and after not hearing much roost gobbling, I decided to go back after the gobbler that had given me the slip last Thursday. I moved into the area and set up a little farther from him, but where I could better use the terrain/cover to my advantage. My plan was to call sparingly and let him look for me. The first time that I called a gobbler cut me off with a double gobble. I was sure that it was him and he was on the bench below me, but several hundred yards away, in nearly the same spot that I had him in range last week. He gobbled 2-3 times per minute for the next 15-20 minutes, but never really moved much and I never called.
Finally he started slowly moving in my direction, but he stayed on the bench below me. His gobbling had tapered off, but he was still gobbling every few minutes, so I knew where he was at. When he was straight down over the edge from me he gobbled and was probably about 150 yards away. I immediately got up, moved back about 75 yards, gave a couple soft yelps and he went NUTS....gobbling non-stop for the next minute or so.
As he was gobbling, I moved back past my original set up and up to about 30 yards from the edge. After a couple minutes he stopped gobbling, so I got ready. Soon I could hear him walking in the leaves as he came up onto the bench that I was on. I had the red dot on him when he stopped at 25 yards, gobbled once and stretched his head up looking for the hen...that was the end of my hunt.
His beard was just over 9" and he wasn't the long spurred gobbler that I thought he would be, but he certainly provided me with several hours of some good/challenging hunting. I really like to call, so I was pleased at being able to stick with plan and only calling 2x's over the course of almost an hour. Plus, the best part of turkey hunting is hearing them gobble and over the 2 days of hunting the number of times that he gobbled was in the hundreds. Definitely a gobbler that I won't forget.
