I have had a strange season to say the least. I live for this time of year and normally spend 2-3 days/week at the base of oak listening and watching the world come alive. I ended up only spending a total of 5 days in the turkey woods at daylight. I killed a bird opening morning on my family farm which was a textbook hunt off the roost. I took some time off the following week as it was my son's Spring Break and he had week free of High School Baseball. We were on the hunt for his 1st Longbeard.
At daylight we worked some birds and ended up having 7 Jakes in our lap that he could have beat with the gun barrel. After that we were off to plan B to see if we could work some other birds we heard on the roost. We got on some birds an hour later and called in 2 more Jakes wanting to crawl in our pocket. It was fun and they put on a good show nonetheless. We walked and called for a couple hours to no avail. We finally made it back to the truck around 10 and changed clothes. As we were enjoying a quick snack and talking about the morning fun I heard a bird gobble on his own in the river bottom. He gobbled a few more times and I told my son let's gear back up and head his direction. He wasn't too convinced and said that's probably those same 2 Jakes we worked earlier in the AM. I know after all these years you never leave a bird gobbling late morning in the woods!
We suit back up with minimal excitement in his eyes. We walked down the road about 100 yards, I yelped and he cuts me off. We eased up pretty quickly on the road to try and drop down in river bottom. I wanted to get a good idea of where he was so I called again and was cutoff with another gobble and much much closer. We jumped off the side of road as the woods would not allow us to move any closer. It wasn't but a minute or two and he was putting on a show coming down the road to us. He connected on his 1st Longbeard and I think he will always go after a gobbling bird even after he's changed clothes. I even got it on film with my phone.
With the new regulations and not being able to hunt more while he was off school.and baseball it kinda put me in a funk not being able to go. Hopefully the funk will be short lived!
My bird (4-1-21)
Son's bird (4-6-21)
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