It has been a really unusual turkey season for me here in southern Indiana... We've had record rainfall... The area I killed my bird last year 200 yards from this setup has been under 10 feet of water due to the river being up... and many of those rainy days fell on days that I had to hunt... 4 inches on two days... so I'd come down to my last two days to hunt of the season, Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th...
I'm getting everything together ready to hunt early in the week and realize that my lovely wife has taken a personal day from teaching, so now I'm struggling... usually when she takes a personal day I take the kids to school so she can get a rare day to sleep in... back and forth I go in my mind finally deciding to stay home and take the kids to school and then slip out for a hunt...
I finally get where I need to be at 8:30 in the morning... and when I get to the back of the field I'm greeted by a gobble not 200 yards away up the hollow from the green field that I'm set up on... I set up the double bull blind, decoys and begin calling... within 20 minutes I can hear him coming... spitting and drumming the whole way...
He spends the next 40 minutes strutting, spitting and drumming back and forth back and forth...
This pic is a bit blurry as I had to zoom in as far as my little camera would allow me...
and finally works his way to about 35 yards where I could get these pictures...
He continues to work his way to the decoys taking his own sweet time... Here he's about 25 yards out... just a bit far for my comfort level...
and another just a bit closer...
He's just a shade over 20 yards in this last picture... the decoy is at 10 yards and just after taking this picture I put down the camera and picked up the bow... I'm getting situated in the blind when his head shoots up and turns and begin putting and slowly walking away.... I'm thinking the whole time what in the world did I do wrong...
When....
A gray blur flashes coming from my left to the front of the blind right in between my decoys... coyote... oh man... it was pretty funny when he got to woodline and turned and gave a "Wiley Coyote" look as if why didn't those birds (decoys) just fly off... quite comical although very frustrating...
Fast forward a 1/2 an hour and I still have gobbling in the area and I continue to call... I was sitting back in the "Rack Pack" and all the sudden I heard a bird spitting and drumming... I'm looking out every window, every which way trying to find this rascal knowing he's really close and wow... he pop's out in the field again... I think I may have been a different bird in that his beard looked a bit thicker... but he stayed out 35 yards or so and refused to come any closer...
Got this pic mid gobbling this time around...
He proceeded to leave the field and I still have other birds gobbling within 200 yards so I continue to call... and low and behold that rascal comes back out and proceeds to strut, spit, drum and gobble for another 20 minutes at 50 yards...
What a morning to be alive and enjoy God's beautiful creation, watching one of the neatest critters He created...
Saturday ended up being a bust... but how could you top Friday the 13th...
Sorry for the long post... just wanted to share a lesson I learned again... get out when you can... you just never know...
Jonathan
Topic: Close but no cigar... (Read 617 times)
