I grew up hunting private land. I'm fortunate enough that my family has some land, and that I have limited access to some other private tracts. However, I've been bit by the public land bug. Mostly because I enjoy the challenge and the physical and mental abuse that comes with hunting public land. Private land opens 2 weeks earlier than public land, but this year I spent those two weeks putting in hundreds of miles on the truck and over 200,000 steps (according to my Fitbit) scouting public land in the hopes of tagging a bird opening morning. I ended up locating a lot of different gobblers, but there were 3 of them in particular that I felt would give me the best opportunity, all within relatively close proximity to one another.
I was the first person onto the WMA, like is normally the case. I always make an honest attempt to be first in the woods. It was forecasted to be a great morning. Hardly any wind, sunny, 67 degrees, low humidity. The bird I was going to setup on was very vocal the past few days. I just knew I was going to kill him this morning. Well, I didn't. He gobbled like crazy on the roost, and went silent the second he got the ground. I didn't see or hear any hens in the area. And I could not locate him again. After about an hour, I decided to make a move on the other 2 birds. To my surprise, there were other hunters already working on them, so I need to back up and punt.
I went back to the house and took a nap, and headed to a neighboring WMA at 2pm. I walked to the first field and there was a gobbler with a lone hen in the field. I was able to work him to about 60 yards, but he froze up and regrouped with his hen in the middle of the field. I decided to get aggressive in hopes of either drawing the hen to me, and bring the gobbler with her. Every time the hen would cut and help, I would cut her off and and cutt louder and harder. This went back and forth for a few minutes, and she went quiet and began to make her way the opposite direction. Thankfully the gobbler stayed in the field, strutting and gobbling like crazy, waiting for me to come to him. I went quiet and for about an hour, he stayed in the same spot. He wasn't moving, but he wasn't leaving. I decided to make a risky move, and try to crawl to him in the open field. There was a lone oak between he and I, with a gradual slope in the terrain. The grass was just high enough that I could crawl my way within shooting range. When he would strut and turn away from me, I would crawl. I only made it about 40 of my 200 yards, when he finally couldn't take it any more, and he started slowly moving my way to find me. Now I'm stranded in the middle of the field! It took what seemed like an eternity of laying on my stomach, but he closed the gap to 20 yards, and I came home with opening day public land bird.
