Went out this morning and had an awesome hunt!! Saw 10 different birds, half of which were gobblers and heard 3 more gobblers that I didn't see.
Set up on a couple of roosted gobblers, but they skirted me and walked off. About 5 minutes later one of them gobbled at about 200 yards, heading away. I slowly followed, keeping track of them by crow calling to get shock gobbles.
Finally they went into a field for a while, and I stealthed towards them inside the woods. I stopped and crow called again, and the dominant bird gobbled to my call, and stepped out of the field into the woods in full strut at about 80 yards. I froze and leaned against a tree. Then several satellite gobblers, a couple of hens and a jake followed. The strutter wouldn't leave his group. I soft called and one of the satellites broke off. He came to about 40 yards. Popped into strut, looked around but saw no hen. Then he dropped back out of strut and turned to leave. I already had the green dot on his head, so I squeezed the trigger, and dropped him at 40 yards. I shot him off hand standing up. The first gobbler with my 20 gauge build!!
He weighed 17 pounds 2 ounces, with a 9-3/4" beard, and 7/8" & 15/16" spurs. Scores 54.75.
Unfortunately, the tornado that hit nearby on Easter night took down the local Verizon tower.
The service isn't good enough to upload pictures. I'll have to do it when I get home.
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