The End...

[DeWayne Knight]

On the last Friday of our Ohio season, I had tagged out with my second bird at 6:55 AM.  We spent the rest of the day running and gunning, (I only "ran" and called, since I didn't have to lug my gun around anymore since I was done ) at several different locations.  When we got to our last spot for the day at about 4:00 PM, we got out of the truck and I heard a gobble.  I looked at my buddy Kent and asked if he heard it.  He had not, and neither did Mike.  The bird fired off agained and Kent definitely heard him that time.  I knew where the bird was, so we looped way around to come in from the quietest approach.  The woods are so dry and crunchy it was impossible to move without making noise.

The bird continued to gobble for about 15 minutes as we made our loop, then he got quiet.  I figured he'd called up some hens.  We got to the area where I knew he'd been gobbling, and got set up to do some blind calling.  Kent and I were 20-30 yards behind Mike, our shooter, and about 20 yards apart.  We proceeded to run some call series with no response.  After about a half hour, I belly crawled to the edge of the field and saw our strutter out in the field with three hens.

I crawled back into the woods and motioned Kent to come over to where Mike and I were sitting.  I figured these birds would come into an opening we were close to and head down into the woods to fly up.  We discussed a plan, and got Mike on a tree overlooking the field edge and the opening and Kent and I set up close to him to call.  The birds in the field messed around feeding for an hour and a half, basically ignoring our calls.  Finally, they started to work our way.  Then, for some reason, at about 75 yards the gobbler and one hen turned and walked back to the far end of the field and turned into the woods.  The other two hens headed our way, and Mike got a clinic in hen talk as one hen came within 6 feet of me laying on my stomach at the field edge, clucking and purring and just doing what hens do.  They drifted into the woods about 15 yards down from us, and we gave them a minute to ease towards the roost.  At that point we decided to back out.  Mike had a long drive ahead of him and we'd been at it for 15 hours.

Mike had to work the next morning, but Kent still had a tag to fill.  We made plans to come back and try to get on the gobbler then next morning.  We met at 5:00 AM and eased down into the woods to listen for him to gobble.  At 6:10 with nary a gobble heard, we decided we needed to take action.  Kent took up station on the field edge where he could watch the opening they usually came through from the roost heading to the field.  I went back a good 50-60 yards to see if we couldn't get something to happen.  A half hour later, Kent saw hens working up the field toward him.  They apparently had gone back out to the field the same way they had gone in the night before.  Kent began talking to then hens with his mouth diaphragm, and they slowly worked their way towards him.  At this point Kent saw the strutter bring up the rear of the procession.  He continued talking contented hen talk to them and they kept coming.  Kent got his gun ready, and when the strutter got to 35 paces Kent let the Nova eat.  He was done at 6:50 AM.







Nicely hooked 1 3/8" spurs and a 10 1/2" beard.

I had an awesome season and was in on 5 mature gobbler kills, 2 of my own and 3 between 2 youth and this one with my friend.  I'm already looking forward to next season...

[tomstopper]

Very nice. Congrats..

[beagler]

Congrats!

[WiLL B]

Congrats!!

[GSLAM95]

Nicely done, thanks for sharing the story and pics...

[albrubacker]

Very nice!!

[surehuntsalot]

nothing wrong with that...congrats

[vaturkey]

Awesome ! Congrats !




   vaturkey   

[captin_hook]

 

[mikejd]

Way to go. Talk about bottom of the 9th hugh.