After walking for several miles yesterday without hearing any gobbles me and my buddy got after it this morning. As the tweety birds woke up and the sun begin to break the mid Georgia sky line we heard one faint gobble which sounded as if it were 800 yards away. Before a second thought crossed our minds we were off and running. Up a gravel road, past a 2 acre food plot, through the young planted pines surrounding the food plot and into larger and more open woods we enter.
The whole time we were running we could here it was more than one bird because of the multiple gobbles. As we cautiously picked our way through the woods the birds continued to gobble, allowing us to step ever so closer to their roost. I was uneasy trying to get closer so we set up. I was on a pine and my buddy on a small hardwood roughly 20 feet away. The birds gobbled at everything and often 5 or 6 times in a row each.
After I was able to catch my breath post the 300 or so yard run, I let out a couple clucks on my Tominator 2.5 from Tom Teaser, and yep they gobbled at that. We were probably 75 yards from them. I shut up.....until a hen 80 yards to my left started tree yelping. I immediately matched her note for note and got nasty with it with some cuts. This got the birds gobbling hard and to not be out done by one another they gobbled at their own gobbles. I looked over at my buddy and he whispered, "That's cool!" I couldn't have agreed more.
It was shortly after this that I heard the hen fly down and I again clucked a few times and let out a series of cuts to reassure the boys that this "hen" was staying put and ready for lovin. The gobblers hit the ground and immediately gobbled but sounded like they were going away so I got aggressive once again and they turned, gobbling.
Now our setup wasn't ideal a we had a bunch of small trees and a few blow downs making things difficult for any shots past 30, but it is what he had so we were going to make it work.
As I catch movement through the trees I shoulder my gun, turn the safety off and wait for a clear shot. At this point we have 2 birds within 30 yards gobbling every few seconds only I can't see the closest bird due to a blown down pine tree top but I can feel him drumming. The second bird had made his way into my shooting lane and as I settled the red dot of the Burris FastFire III on the bird I notice that I could only see the top of his head and his body. His neck was completely blocked by a limb from the same blown down pine that was blocking my view of the closer bird.
All I needed was two more steps. As seconds ticked off to what seemed to be an eternity and the watching him gobble on his own 5 or 6 times he turns and walks back the way he came. I tried to purr but my mouth and throat were too dry.
By the grace of God the bird walked back through my opening this time a few yards further. As soon as I had a clear shot my natural instincts took over and squeezed the trigger. All I saw was a cloud of smoke and a bird flopping. Dead bird at 7:35. Being mindful of my buddy I immediately start cutting in hopes the other bird would stop and present him a shot but no dice.
After thanking the Lord for an outstanding morning I got over to my bird and learned my buddy could not see the show I was watching but like any good friend he was just happy I was able to seal the deal.
The walk back to his golf cart didn't seem as bad as the walk in, maybe because I was on cloud nine. The bird weighed 20 pounds, 10" beard, 1 spur is 1" the other 1-1/8". Following the NWTF scoring equation he scores a 60 and some change.
Sorry for the long winded post as I'm still excited and wanted to share with others that appreciate a good hunting story.
Oh and the 3", 2-1/4 oz. load of Nitro 4,5,7 did a number on his neck and head at 33 yards.
