I got up earlier this morning, so I could get to my buddy's place while it was still dark. I hadn't been there since the middle of last season, so it was as much of a scouting trip as it was a hunt.
I left my car and walked the edge of a hedgerow to the end of the field, and down a small hill through a strip of thornapple trees, and other brush that separates the field I walked , and another bigger field, that rises uphill from there to the hardwoods. I've noticed in years past that the birds really seem to like this second field, though they use them both. I found a good place to basically just listen, and where I could see what any birds that might be around this year were up to. As it lightened up some, a bird gobbled uphill across the field, and to my right. A while later, he gobbled again. Within a short time 6 hens flew down into the field from where the tom was roosting, with him gliding in next. He looked like a nice big bird, and when I got the glasses on him, I could see what appeared to be somewhere in the neighborhood of a 10" beard. I couldn't see his spurs at that distance, but he's a nice bird.
The hens fed back and forth across the crest of the hill with the gobbler in tow,from then until I left them at 11:00. That gobbler never made a another peep in all that time. I called, the hens called, sometimes we all called at once, but not a gobble. The only time I really seemed to get his attention, was when I gobbled at him, but even that only got about a 30 second stare in my direction.
I moved a few times, thinking I could head them off as they left the field, or get in front of them and call the hens to me, but no dice. They weren't leaving that field, and tom wasn't about to leave his hens.
My buddy's wife was outside when I got back to the car, so I talked to her for a few minutes. She said that big tom is out in that field all day, every day. According to her, he never leaves it, whether he has hens with him or not, and he hardly ever gobbles. I jokingly told her I may have to dig a pit blind out in the middle by a small rock pile in order to kill him, and she told me to go ahead and do it. I've got time to hunt, and I'd rather kill him some other way, if I can at all. Looks like I've got a challenge ahead of me, and a fun bird to hunt.
OK, so I've got a bird that roosts with the hens, won't leave the field, won't gobble, has probably had bad experiences going to hen calls, flies directly into the field in the morning, and doesn't seem to want to get close enough to the edge to ambush.
I'm going to play with him some more and see what I can do. I obviously can get close enough to flush and separate them in the field, so maybe some morning after a rain when It's quiet, if I can't do anything else with him, I may sneak into their roost site and scatter them before they fly down. Then I'll wait a little while, and give him just a few soft purrs. 'Ya never know. If that doesn't work, I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve. Man, I love turkey hunting. :D
Bob
Topic: New York Turkey Hunting Thread.... (Read 1831 times)
