.................sometimes you are the bug! Seems like I've been the bug too much lately.
A little back story on me. All my friends think I have a lucky horse shoe that I carry around with me as they say I always seem to fall into crap and come out smelling like a rose. However, when I hit a run of bad luck it comes in 10's for me rather than 3's. Seems I'm on a run of bad luck since Thursday, April 4th when I had to put my 14 year old yellow lab to sleep. It almost killed me, and I won't bore you with those details or all the crap that's happened inbetween until this weekend.
So fast forward to this past weekend. I had my annual trip to KS planned. I normally like to wait until May to go, but the other three guys I hunt with insisted we go hunt the opener. So, with reports of cold and snow last Wednesday to say I wasn't very optimistic was an understatement.
Friday morning found us greeting 28F weather with a wind chill of 19F. I almost stayed in bed. To say this Texan and two Tennessee boys were cold was also and understatement. Heck, even the Kansas boy was complaining.
By far the coldest I've ever been on a turkey hunt. Much to my surprise the turkeys were FIRED up on the roost. Before I could get to the spot I had traditionally done well in the past, the birds were gobbling. I was North of the roost and the birds went South. It was still good to hear them gobble. I did have a bird to the North of where I was hunting cutting me about about every time I called. He was by far the most fired up of any of the birds. He never did get closer, but I tried to cut the distance and he stopped gobbling before I could get on him.
I'll try to be brief, but I tried to get back where the bird was gobbling that afternoon and had a TON of deer between me and where I wanted to be. So, I stopped short of my intended destination and set up in the edge of a corn field. There was a bird gobbling when I was walking in, but I couldn't course him. That coupled with all the deer around me I was trying not to spook had me set up without putting out a decoy. MISTAKE!
I called off and on for about an hour before I decided to nap after not hearing a gobble. About 5:15 or 5:30 I get woken up by a hen yelping. I slowly start scanning and see 3 hens and a very larger strutter on the hill side to my West working South to North at about 500+ yards. They was on the other side of the cornfield in a pasture. I figured I had ZERO chance as I"ve played this game before and could tell the birds were headed North of me. I'd call and the hens would call back. I finally broke one hen off from the group and she slowly made her way towards me. Finally I can tell she's decided to come check this other hen out. About that time the other two decide to join her, and I know what's about to happen. At this point, this game of back and forth talking has went on for 30 minutes plus when they head my way. At about 80 yards, the hens come in a pretty fast walk right at me. The tom has been in a full strut this entire time and lagging behind them. When they come on the run towards me, he's 100-120 yards behind them. When they finally get to 5 yards from me, he's still 100-120 yards behind them. If he had been step for step, I'd be posting pictures of him rather than this story.
Anyway, when the hens get that close they finally pick me out. They don't get spooked, but they can just tell something isn't quite right about me. They start doing the purr, cluck head bob thing. The tom still isn't in range. Finally the hens ease off to left out of my periphal view and the tom is still coming to them in full strut. When the hens were out in the middle of the field, I had switched my red dot on, but I left my gun on my knee as I had no idea how long it would take them to get to me. When the tom gets just about in range, I start slowly easing the gun up where I can put my head down and red dot on him to let him walk as close as he was going to get. When I do this, I don't know if he saw me or one of the hens alearted him, but he came out of full strut with the head held high doing the alarm cluck. I knew at that point the gig was up and rushed my shot. I flat out missed him. Been a long time since I've missed a bird and don't know I've missed one that large before, so it was a tough pill to swallow. I watched him fly about 200-300 yards out into a clump of trees and watched him walked off with binos, so I know he wasn't hurt.
To add insult to injury, I stayed put hoping I could roost another bird. I finally stand up,take all my gear off, lean my gun against the tree, and go to call my wife thinking the birds are in the woods going to roost. About the time my wife answers, I see two long beards walk over the hill headed my way. I tell her I have to go. I ease my phone back into my pocket trying to move as little as possible as these birds have a direct line of sight to me. About that time 8 hens and 5 strutters come over the hill as well. So, I've got 8 hens and 7 longbeards headed at me in the tree line. I'm praying to the good Lord at this point that these birds go South of me and roost where I don't spooke them. All the birds end up doing this but one. As the Lord as my witness, this one long beard walks straight to me and within 2 foot of the tree I'm leaning against headed to roost. I couldn't do nothing, but watch him walk by as my gun was sitting on the ground, leaned against the tree with the red dot turned off. It was the first day, so I didn't want to risk busting any of these birds trying some Rambo manuver to get a shot off. In all my years of hunting, I've had hens that close but never a longbeard that I didn't kill. UNREAL!!!!!!!
I played cat and mouse with these birds the next two days and never did get one killed. I sat up on them again the very next morning about as close as one could get without bumping them on the roost to have them pitch out into the middle of the corn field and walk up and over the hill they came from that AM. The gobbling on the roost was pretty incredible that AM. We all got out of the truck about an hour to 1.5 before fly down as well had birds roosted and wanted to get set up in the pitch black since there were no leaves on trees. When we got out of the truck, the birds were already gobbling on the roost. It was very still and quiet on Saturday morning. It sounded like the birds were doing the wave with gobbles. The birds about a mile South would gobble and they'd gobble all the way up the creek to the North and back down. I bet I heard 600-700 gobbles.
All and all a good time and good hunting, but we were all the bug on this hunt!!!!!!! No longbeards were harmed.
