The plan was to hunt the "Three Amigos" if I could roost them last night. Well we had parent/teacher conf. that I had to be to by 7:30. So I head out a little earlier than usual to try to roost these birds. When I got close to where I thought they might be, I started working my way closer crow calling as I went.
It worked! Heard the boys, and figured they'd roost close. So I had the prettiest set-up you could ever imagine planned for the morning. They'd be above me up on a hill, and I'd be set-up in a peach orchard that was in full bloom with beautiful pink blossoms. A prettier set-up you couldn't imagine!
Rain holds off, and with the cover of darkness, I get the blind set in a perfect flat spot at the end of a row. Set my strutting jake, "Lil Floyd" about 8yds, and a hen even closer...pefect!
Well till birds started gobbling behind me and nothing gobbled up where I thought they'd be! I guess sometime between the time I left the woods early the evening before to get to the school, and darkness the boys had moved down the valley.
Now the agonizing decision, stay and hope, or pack everything up, and move closer to the gobbling birds and not get picked off. I rolled the dice, and packed everything up as quick a possible, and like a junk yard dog, with things hanging all over me and under my arms I sped as quick as I could over a stone wall and an out of breath a quarter mile later settled on a spot in another orchard and set up.
Birds still gobbling, and me sweating in the humidity, I made my first call and got an immediate answer...game on!
We go back and forth and I could hear several birds gobbling off in the distance besides the closer one's that answered me....this was shaping up pretty good....
After calling a few times in about a half hour, the birds went silent and didn't answer me. Usually this means they they are either coming, or they've moved away out of earshot. So I wait about 15 minutes and then call again and gobbles erupt behind me about 20yds away! Oh yeah!!
I peek out the back of the blind and see a red, white, and blue head with a full fan behind it, and he's coming! Then behind him come three jake's and a hen. I watched him come thru a brushy hedgerow at about 20yds and when he saw Lil Floyd and his girlfriend he immediately blew up and started to come.....I reached for "Cy"......
The hen came into view first with the strutter behind her, but he was passed by all three jake's as they all arrived at the deke's and the chaos ensued at 8yrds!
The were all shuckin' and jivin' and for about the longest twenty second I didn't think I was gonna get a clear shot at the gobbler! They were circling and jostling around so much I was starting to think something bad would happen before I'd get a clear shot! But after about 30 seconds at the deke's and with the hen getting ready to go, the jake's parted and there stood the gobbler,strutting, stone still right up against Lil Floyd, facing directly at me!
The plan was to hit dead center and between the beard and the waddles. As long as I hit dead center l/r, I'd break his neck and drive the big snuffer into his vitals......
With what is best described as a "crunching blow", the arrow took him dead center thru his neck, just below the red waddles! In what seemed like slow-mo, his head just flopped and he collapsed in a heap!
What the big snuffer did beyond his neck was all for naught,it had cut a giant hole,dead center, and he was dead instantly beside a little flopping......
I grabbed my camera and got this.....
Where he fell and flopped too....
The set-up.....
It doesn't get much better.....
Topic: Opening Day Gobbler! (Read 3192 times)
