The story with today's bird started yesterday, when my scheduled allowed me to make a spur of the moment trip back into New Mexico. I went back into the area where I had bagged my first bird. I got in around 4:00 PM, setup my tent, and went hunting. I was probing with my box call, covering ground, and trying to strike a bird, and about the forth place I stopped to call, I had what I thought were two jakes come in very quickly. I can't be positive as they were 50-60 yards away when I first saw them and really only got a look at their heads and before I could glass them, they were moving off, back down into a finger for cover. I got caught with my pants down so to speak. I had my gun and hen decoy propped up on a pinon pine behind me, and I was standing out in the relative open, not expecting have birds on top of me so quickly.
The rest of the evening was uneventful other than observing lots of fresh tracks from toms and hens and seeing a hen drinking from a cattle trough around sunset. No gobbles at all that afternoon/evening. I was a tad late getting going in the morning and hadn't even dropped back down into the canyon yet when I heard a bird fire off from the roost. He gobbled a few more times, and I took a conservative approach and stayed a couple hundred yards away as flydown was fast approaching, opting to setup in an area that the birds like to travel through on their way to water. No luck and not much gobbling after the bird came down. I hear one other bird in the distance, so I'm confident that there are at least two in the area. I make a couple other unsuccessful sets as I was unable to strike a bird walking and calling.
After going a couple of hours without hearing anything, the wind starting to pick up, and the temperature rising, I decide to drop back down into the canyon and call. At this point of the day, I was going to give it no more than another hour before breaking camp and getting back on the road. I drop down and work south for a little ways with no luck, then turn around and walk north. About where I dropped down from the west facing slope I was camped on, I strike a distant gobble. I couldn't even pinpoint the direction it came from. At first it sounded like it was further to the south from the area I just walked away from. I setup accordingly, give a few more calls, and then realize he is actually a little above me and on the west facing slope (not where I expected to find him, as the habitat is poorer) and to my north. I get turned around and setup appropriately, call again, and realize he has closed the distance substantially, likely within 100 yards. Then it gets quiet. I'm straining to make him out coming through the brush. A few minutes pass, and finally I can't help but call to him. A mourning dove takes flight and I think I catch a little movement dropping down the bottom of the west face, but I still can't make him. Another minute passes and then I finally catch a glimpse of a head and tail fan. The bird was in full strut at 20 yards, no doubt eyeing my hen decoy facing away from him, placed to my left and behind me a few yards. I couldn't believe how close he had gotten before I saw him. I ease my gun up slowly as he is partially obscured by brush. I can tell that he saw me, but couldn't quite make what I was. He breaks strut, clears into a good shooting window, and starts to walk away slowly when I put it on him at around 10 yards.
Two year old bird. Spurs are probably a 1/2-5/8 inch. Beard around 8 inches. Didn't weigh him yet, but would guess around 18 pounds.
