I've been hunting hard since Fri AM, and the birds have been absolutely silent. A buddy of mine in the club hunted this area yesterday and killed the boss, but he also heard a couple of other gobblers, so I knew birds were in there. I got in right at daylight, but as my luck would have it, the birds were silent. I setup in some thinned pines to just cold call for a little bit. This guy (I assume) sounded off around 7AM, but he was a ways off. He never sounded very interested, and only gobbled maybe 12 times all morning, but he came on in nonetheless. He popped up about 25yds away, but I was pointed in the wrong direction. I let him get behind a tree and moved, and then made a 40 yd shot and he backflipped and started flopping. I've never run a 40yd dash that fast! I didn't kill a bird last year and have passed a couple this year, so this was a great morning for me.
