Spent the last 3 days of the season in the Allegheny National Forest and just wanted to confirm that the reason I did not post a kill is, well, you know. Half the time it rained but I did get to wrangle with a gobbler for over 4 hours on the last day.
I struck him at 5:15 with an owl call. Problem was he's on the opposite side of the valley about 500 yards straight away. So I embarked on a death march and bushwacked down my side of the valley across the creek and up his side. 300 vertical feet each side. He gobbled on his own the whole time. When I finally set up on him, I ended up in the middle of a small patch of pines on a hardwood point just above a creek bottom. (translation: turkey magnet). Spent over an hour creeping and crawling to keep up with him as he moved left/right/up/down but was easing slowly up the mountain. Still gobbling. I just couldn't get him to come take a look. Well eventually he got tired of waiting for me to come to him and just strolled on up the mountain gobbling away.
By now it is past 7:30 and I had made plans to meet up with my buddy at 8:00 back where I started. And my Onx showed a logging road about 250 yards above the turkey in the direction he was headed. Would have preferred to just keep on him but had no cell signal to tell my buddy not to worry if I don't show up. So I backed out with a plan to meet my buddy and then the 2 of us drive around the other side and try to find him from there. And backing out meant bushwacking down and back up.
So shortly after 8:00 i get back to the truck and we drive 5 miles or so to get to the other side. We get out of the truck, load up and while we are standing there checking Onx to figure out a plan, he gobbles maybe 75 yards right below us. We set up right on the road, and figuring he will continue at least another 75 yards up a mountain which he already climbed 400 yards, decided not to make any calls. Well he gobbles on his own another 30 or 40 times in the next 15 minutes. But never got any closer and eventually shut up. We hunted him for the next hour but never could strike him again. I'm sure he heard us pull up in the truck which explains why he hung up where he did.
Anyhow, that was the highlight of the trip. Mountain birds are without question tougher than farm birds. It seems for every one I kill, I'll kill 10 farm birds. Way more fun and rewarding of course. Also, didn't see another hunter or truck the entire 3 days. Typical late season turkey hunting in the ANF.
