Tagged Out in NY

[njdevilsb]

Well, I got my 2nd bird this morning.  We saw a couple of birds last night before fly up time, but we didn't know if there was any toms.  We setup this morning for about 1.5 hours after daylight and didn't hear a peep out of any bird, and never saw one or heard any flydown.  We decided to pack it up and see what we could find.

Just down the road from our lease is some state land that is across the road from a big private owned field.  We drove down the old dirt in between the two properties and just as soon as we crested the hill, all we saw was fans out in the private field.  We backed out of there and luckily the birds didn't spook, as they were within 100 yards.  We parked and snuck down through the state land to where we could see the field and eventually spotted the birds out there.  We setup and started calling and 4 or 5 birds were gobbling like crazy, but they had 3 hens with them.  We battled for over 2.5 hours trying to get one to break off, but to no avail.  They would follow the hens over one hill, pop back out and tease us some more and go over another hill.  Once they disappeared for good, my dad went back to the truck to get a hen decoy and we were going to sit it out until noon, quitting time here in NY, to see if a gobbler got lonely.  About 10 minutes after setting the decoy within site of the field, we spot a gobbler in full strut with a hen about 200 yards out.  We called some and he would gobble, but he was following her all over the field.  Eventually they started working our way, feeding along and he would strut in between.  Must be our calling along with the decoy was too much for him to take because he eventually broke and made 150 yards in about 3 minutes.  He basically was strutting all the way in, and the hen was following him.  I lost sight of him for a minute, but then I see him hit the dirt road and start walking right down it, coming in to about 18 yards right off the side of the dirt road to our decoy, strutting and spitting and drumming all the way.  Once he got clear of the brush I let the 535 bark and the flopping started, at 9:50, almost 5 hours after hitting the woods this morning.

This was basically a picture perfect morning, the kind that makes getting up at 3:45 worth it even without pulling the trigger.  Nice and cool, dew on the ground, fog in the early morning air until the sun came out to warm us up.  We got to watch strutting and gobbling birds for almost 3 hours, and to top it all off it worked out and our persistence paid off.

He's a good bird.  He weighed about 18 lbs, 8 1/4" beard and just over 1" matching spurs.  Part of his beard was broke off at the top.  It's a great way to end my quick season.  My dad still has a tag left in his pocket though, so hopefully we get to do it one more time.

[a-j calls]

Well done, Lots of birds in Ny...

[strutnva]

good bird

[schuylkillspur]

that fires me up I'm headin to NY Sunday for the week.

[Hognutz]

Way to go. He is an nice gobbler..

[Basser69]

Congrats on a great bird! 

[M,Yingling]

Nice !

[Wrangler95]

 


Very nice gobbler,congrats!!!

[cannonball]

Congrats!

[Roost Wrecker]

Good bird! what a great way to end the season.

[sodfather]

Dude the season just opened on Sun, what do you sleep in the woods. Holy cow I only went out twice and havent heard a peep. Way to go turkey slayer.

[surehuntsalot]

congrats on a nice one....Teammate

[njdevilsb]

Dude the season just opened on Sun, what do you sleep in the woods. Holy cow I only went out twice and havent heard a peep. Way to go turkey slayer.

Haha, my dad and I took the whole week off from work.  Since Sunday, we've  missed 1 day because of bad rain for over 30 hours.

I'll get it posted over on the team thread tomorrow.  It beats my first bird by a few points.

[sodfather]

If it gets toward the middle of the month and no bird Im going to take a  week vacation to. Good Job man.

[turkey slayer]

Thats a stud congrats!