2020 Strut Stopper Story Thread

[bornagain64]

Great morning indeed, nice job guys.

[wvhoyt19]

Great job guys!! Congrats!

[aclawrence]

Well I finally had a little success yesterday.  The WMA I hunt has been slammed with pressure so I was able to go do a family hunt on one of my brothers farms yesterday for a change of scenery.  We split up into two man teams and went to 3 different farms.  I will describe this land as a square to make the details easier.  We started out in the dark in a low field in NW corner of the property.  At daylight a bird gobbled around ten times and flew down.  This bird was up on top of the hill in front of us and worked his way over the hill and down onto a neighboring private property.  The land line is the top of the hill.  Also these hills are more like small mountains!  Our next step is we climbed up the hill and began working North East towards the eastern corner.  As we get to the NE corner we are also dropping back down a long hill into a bowl type are in the bottom with a field.  I call here but get no responses.  We make a turn here and head South towards the South East corner.  About two hundred yards later we here a gobble way up on top of a hill straight to our side.  We climb half way up and set up in a field.  The birds were firing off but nothing was coming our way.  We climb our way up to the very top and again the property line is right at the top.  There are two birds gobbling their heads off just across the line in a pasture.  We get up close to the edge and the birds and start calling.  They get super excited and I can hear drumming.  Finally one works his way over the the edge and walks across.  All I can see is his head and neck and I let him have it.  At the point turkeys fly and start making all kinds of talk.  I start calling and it becomes evident there is a whole pile of birds in there.  There are multiple birds gobbling.  Eventually they come back in and down the hill towards the last bowl we were in where another bird has started gobbling.  As they are walking down the hill it becomes obvious they are all jakes and I have probably killed a Jake.  When I get up to the bird it was a Jake.  They completely fooled me.  These were some serious gobbling jakes.  Either way it was a really exciting hunt and I'm happy to have the meat. 

[birdman67]

Congrats! Sounds like an exciting hunt for sure

[turkey harvester]

Awesome sounding hunt. Congratulations on the gobbler

[dzsmith]

Congrats...Ive had some close calls where I had to let a bird walk full fan, full gobble, etc. Them super jakes will get ya lol. Nice bird man. way to break the ice.

[bornagain64]

Nice job. Exciting hunt, Jake or not.

[Turkeyman]

Aren't many guys out there that haven't killed a jake some time or other. Congratulations and good eating!

[bornagain64]

Things have been crazy and very busy here. I work at the post office and we are still working: and with a lot of people at home and stores closed, seems like everyone is shopping online.
I am gonna try and get out tomorrow for a morning hunt and I have a quota hunt coming up next week.



     John

[wvhoyt19]

Ok everyone here's my story. I've taken both of my son's during the 2 day WV youth season and both days we just couldn't get a bird to play the game. On Monday, WV opener, I took my youngest son hoping that I could call one in for him but we only heard 1 bird at 6:30 and had 2 hens at our decoys mid morning. Tuesday's weather was terrible so I went to work. This morning was only 28 degrees and both my boys said they would pass lol. So I started out in our ground blind which was setup at a common roost site. As I approached the blind well before daylight I could tell that the wind had taken a toll from the day before. I tried to fix it at no avail so I sat out the decoys and got in it anyways. I was frustrated to put it lightly. As I sat there and stewed, I began to think of all the things I am blessed with and asked God to forgive me. Then a few gobblers fired up on the limb. I called occasionally after I thought they were on the ground and had one to respond. He continued to get closer and closer. 1 hen came through rather fast then another appeared. He then showed himself at about 85 yds. We played the game for 45 min and he didn't get any closer than 50 yds. I don't like taking long shots but my patience ran out haha. I learned a lot today. More about perspective and a lil more about the turkey that we all love to chase!

God bless!
Chris


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[bornagain64]

Nice. Lol, We usually have a lot of time to think when turkey hunting.
I bet the boys wish that had gone? Lol, works out that way sometimes.

[wvhoyt19]

So true! Yes I always tell them we can't kill em from the couch haha


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[wvhoyt19]

My best friend from PA came in for 3 days to hunt with me. Friday was a fair amount of rain so we sat in a blind. Called 2 hens and 4 jakes in to our DSD breeding pair set. Those jakes stayed for 2 hours! Friday evening we drove a little over an hour to try and roost some birds and we did. We got home shortly by 10 to only get up at 4 to head back over to that property. The fog was heavy but  several gobblers sounded off on the limb. We couldn't do anything with them so we patiently waited for the fog to lift. We finally struck a bird at 10:30 and went after him. We setup on him only to hear him faintly gobble away. So we took off and walked a long way to get in front of him. 15 min later after a few soft calls and my buddy punched his tag in WV!! The good Lord blessed us with another sunrise and a memory!!


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[dzsmith]

Good bird man.

[wvhoyt19]

Thanks!


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