This morning I went on a hunt with my cousin on his place. We see each other all the time but we haven't hunted together in over 35 years. We went to a spot where he has a stubborn old call shy bird. We got to where the bird likes to roost and sat down waiting for the woods to wake up. As it got closer to daylight a hen started tree yelping...40 YARDS AWAY! The gobbler sounded off so I just clicked the safety off and waited.
As daylight came we noticed we had inadvertently set up with 5 hens within 50 yards of us...we couldn't move or call. Every now and then the gobbler would sound off and the hens would limb hop from time to time. After about 20 minutes one by one the hens flew down away from us. Now I'm just about deaf and I was wearing ear muffs but I can't course where a bird is a lot of times. I thought he was about 75 yards in front of me. Turns out he was 75 yards to my 8 o'clock. My cousin was 20 yards behind me and could hear him drumming but couldn't see him. He finally eased off to the west.
We slowly moved towards his direction moving in a creek bottom with a ridge to our right; stopping every now and then to listen. He'd gobble once in awhile but was steady moving away from us. Finally he gobbled one more time and seemed to be only 150 yards out so we sat down. Scott lightly purred and yelped and after about 10 minutes I get a glimpse of a gobbler 75 yards directly in front of me. I see his beard is sticking straight out and I know this isn't the big one we were chasing. But it gave me hope that this one would come in. We went silent on him as he looked intently for the hen he knew was supposed to be there.
This went on for about 10 minutes..he'd take a few steps walking back and forth and stare in our direction but wasn't too keen on getting closer. When he turned and appeared to be walking away from us Scott ever so slightly purred and the bird started walking up the ridge. He disappeared behind a tree and I figured he was just going to keep walking over the ridge and out of range. Well all of a sudden he comes out the other side and he's 40 yards halfway up the ridge trying to parallel us. Every time he gets behind a tree I'm inching my gun over trying to get on him. I'm almost to the point to where if he keeps walking I'm going to be completely out of position. He gets almost to that point and stops to look again, and at 25 yards I pull the trigger. The bird hits the ground and never flops.
We all know life gets in the way of things. 35 years is a long time but today we made the most of it. Getting to carry a bird home is irrelevant compared to us two just hanging out in God's creation...but it was the icing on the cake. This bird wasn't the biggest...he didn't have any spurs and weighed only 14 lbs but he sure was pretty coming across that ridge. It was one of the more enjoyable times I've had in the woods and that's all that matters to me.
The bird calculator wouldn't let me score without a spur measurement and I stink at math so feel free to recalculate my score.
