reeltime

What a day! Got to camp last night in time to check on some birds. Woke up at 145 am couldnt get back to sleep so I said screw it and threw all my gear in the truck left a note on the table and off to west Virginia I went. Got to the WMA land at 420 am nobody there so off to the top of the mountain I trudge(them hills were not that steep 40 years ago) I get up on top by 520 and find thetree to set up on that I found 2 weeks prior. I was not set down 10 minutes when the first gobbler fired off 150 yards out but he sounded jakey. Soon a second bird started gobbling 50 yards to his right. Now both are gobbling and they both sound mature but the closer one now sounds throatier. Finally it's getting light enough a bird should feel comfortable flying down. I was sure these birds were the same ones from 2 weeks ago so i knew i needed to be the first bird on the ground. I did a hard flydown with the wing right into some soft clucks and yelps, both birds double gobbled and i catch sight of 1 bird flying down. I make another soft cluck series and when the second bird flew down it sounded like he took out 3 trees on the way down. A couple purrputts a scratch in the leaves brought another double double gobble. In under 3 minutes I could see 2 snow white heads coming through the dark woods. Both birds stepped out into an open area both full fans but the only one strutting was the lead bird. Finally he broke strut at 35 yards looking for the hen and I eased the safe off put the crosshairs on his eyeball and sent a load of tss 7 on it's way. Dropped him like a bag of potatoes and never even flopped. The other one stood around for a minute then walked back the way they came. Got him tagged and reported grabbed a quick pic. He is a lightweight at 16 lbs. 1.25" spurs and 10.5" beard. Headed back down the mountain thinking if I get a move on I can get back to camp early enough to have 3/4 hours to hunt pa. So needless to say I beat feet down the mountain and may or may not have ran with the flow of traffic on 79 and may or may not of been the lead vehicle in the draft lol. Was back at camp by 830 am and off I go. First spot trolled thru and nothing so I head to the second spot and see no fresh tire tracks anywhere. Gear up and I ease up to the top of the hill and set up against one of my favorite trees. First 3 series of calls are met with dead silence. Setting there contemplating my next move and figure 1 more series and if nothing I'm outa here like a herd a turtles. Soon after I yelped I get a reply from a hen and she gets vocal and consistant with yelps and clucks so I kept talking and it took her probably 45 minutes to get to a point I could see her on the bench below me. She was just content now to talk scratch and eat whatever she was scratching up. Every so often she would purr,cluck and I would answer and do a few leaf scratches. I was watching her when I hear wings dragging in the leaves way off to my left, I look as far left as I can with my eyes and can barely see a black ball strutting towards me 30 yards away. He walks behind a big wild cherry tree and I snap the gun to the left and the hens head flies up and she's looking like what's that.. leafy wear dont fail me now. He steps out from behind the tree right into the scope and I can see a good beard and full fan, ease the safety off and lights out on gobbler number 2 of the day in 2 separate states 5 hrs. Between shots. West Virginia bird. Pa bird ( the one with the small tree log) Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Busy day headed to wv. 2 am hiked up the mountain roost to roasted now headed back to pa to hunt the rest of the morning. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Fishing in the rain is cheating, everyone knows fish are easier to catch in the rain from a boat.....you just drop a line next to the boat cause all the fish are hiding under the boat so they dont get rained on. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Thanks Larry, no fishing time, started framing another house yesterday. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Passed on 3 Jake's Sunday morning, Monday passed 3 Jake's a bearded hen and a satellite 2yr old waiting on this bird that was 100 yards out until a guy in a truck stopped on the road and spooked him intentionally. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Well this was a short season. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

And that's a wrap. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Holy crap man ya need to trim that white beard Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Ka ching Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

A good day in the pa woods. Now back to west virginia. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

What an intense 33 minutes. 2 longbeards came in. Had a know down drag out fight feathers flying hard purrs.... they settled down and addison shot him at 18 yards. At 1140 he had a nice full fan, now not so much. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Addison's up and game on. We got 35 minutes Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

3 longbeards ran in to the bomber 2 left. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Roost got busted. Crosses the road to another farm and just had one cut me off. Game on. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Had a fun hunt in west Virginia yesterday. First time there in 40 years.. was on birds from dark till noon. Chased a lot of gobbles, passed up a jake and a 40 yard shot on what looked like a 2 year old with a small fan,,, new he had hens with him and couldnt see them so I waited for him to strut out into the open woods to my right but he got behind a big oak and walked directly away from me.. Tried getti g ahead of another bird but ran outa time...at noon I was 7 miles from my truck. Had a good chat with the local game warden on my way back to the truck. Got more good intell fro the next trip down Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Memories Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Was great to finally meet ya treeguy, I guess we did alright with the weather we were dealt. Hoping when the ice goes we can find some good perch. Yup no joke how many perch are here this year, the future looks promising for sure. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Brian, so very sorry to read your post. I want you to know that Judy and I will keep you and the kids in our thoughts. If you need anything please do not hesitate to call. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Not sure how to quote water rats post above but here is a picture I took this morning. I was surprised to see a meme or whatever they are called posted and I actually know and have been in this house and shot ducks from the yard. Looks different today than it did in 2016 or 2017 when the meme pic was taken. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

I know this location. I am actually on my way to look at a job just up the street so I will take a current pic. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

I know this location. Actually I am on my way to look at a job just up the street so I will try and remember to take a current picture. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Gotta help a short guy out ya know. Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

while its unlikely here in the east to call birds in from a mile away because of our terrain it is certainly possible to have a bird respond to a call from a great distance. their hearing is probably the best of any game animal we hunt as well as their ability to pinpoint where the sounds are coming from as has already been stated. nothing beats boots on the ground scouting, but we play the cards we are dealt so we use the tools available. there are good hunting apps available and certainly some great satellite imagery to do some online scouting. again it doesn't replace boots on the ground it can certainly guide you towards likely locations to start your scouting/hunting trip, as well as cut out areas that are not as likely to hold birds. Once you are up there and scouting/hunting pay attention to detail, mark where you hear birds and if they continue to gobble once off roost where they go or at the very least what direction they go once down. while here in NY the days hunt ends at noon, depending on when in may you are there that can give you upwards of 7-8 hours of scouting time. If possible have a chat with the rural mail carrier, ups driver, fed ex driver, and even the local encon officer or forest ranger. Sometimes you can gather priceless intel from these folks. as far as calls go they all can and will work on any given day, confidence in your calling ability and the calls you are using is priceless. Production calls are more than capable of calling in birds as proven thousands of times every season. Custom calls are more than capable of calling in birds and is also proven thousands of times every season. So with that being said the exact opposite can be said on both calls as well, some production calls sound horrible, some "custom" calls also sound crappy because the callmaker is in it for the money and doesn't have the ear for turkey talk. I would do my homework on a custom call and when compared to the cost of some of the mass produced calls your really not into the call for much more $ unless you are getting into the higher end specialty calls like a longbox but you are paying for a call made for YOU and likely 1 on1 customer service from the call maker, you will NOT get that from lynch, hs strut, penns woods and most any of the other mass producers of calls you are stuck with the call no matter how it sounds. any type of call can bring in a gobbler on the right day, some days they wont hit the longbox but will lite up when i hit the crystal or diaphragm. having multiple calls available can save a hunt, with pot calls having multiple strikers that will run on a particular pot call can give you multiple turkey vocal variations. no matter what call you choose to use be confident in your ability to do different calls to the point where running the call is just second nature, confidence in all aspects of the hunt will be beneficial to putting tags legs. so you are now in the area your hunting, you have done your scouting and have heard a bird, now is when your next decisions can be key to whether that bird will commit all the way to the gun barrel. know where natural barriers are ( streams, super steep terrain etc. ) while the right bird at the right time will think nothing of flying across a 10 yard wide creek or advancing through brush so thick you couldn't crawl through it I certainly wouldn't set up to make that happen because the same gobbler the next day can be hammering your every call making a beeline to you and then all of a sudden hang up because he wont step over a 4" log laying across the logging road.... otherwise known as a turkey being a turkey. so when you get your first response from a bird that is what you feel is a workable from here distance your first step should be a rapid assessment of your location, is it an area the bird would or should feel comfortable coming into? can you set up where the the bird when first visible will be on the outer fringe of your killing range. what I mean is you want to try and have the bird out of sight until he is close enough to kill so he doesn't have time to sort it all out, sometimes that is not possible so we play the hand we are dealt and sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't. this can be accomplished by using terrain to your advantage or by setting up back off the field edge -vs- right on the field edge. Pretty much this aspect of the hunt goes to your gut/hunch/experience feelings, again sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't most important thing to do is learn from the results. sorry to be long winded, hope at least something was found to be useful. let us know how it turns out.

Not knowing what the site elevations are will have to shoot from the hip with recommendations. Doing the pad prior to putting up the building is fine just remember to go a minimum of two foot wider than the outside dimensions of your building the only recommendation is if you are greater than 2 foot of fill filling a low spot like building into a sloped grade then I would extend my building pad 4 to 6 feet greater with than a building on what would be considered the low side of the building. Even if you're not planning on doing a cement pad immediately I would still recommend putting a fine Crusher run base in prior to putting the building up it is a lot easier to do all of the heavy site work and bass work prior to the building being up. Your pad preparation can be done at any time but if you're needing to fill large areas of low elevation you either have to compact the pill as you're putting it in or give it a substantial amount of time to naturally settle prior to doing your final elevation grades of the pad site. As a general rule of thumb when we do any potential future pad pours we prefer to have our Stone base is thick if not twice as thick as what the concrete level will be. I would do all of my drain tiles and if you're going to potentially in the future have floor drains Ledo's solid pipes with your elbow stubbed up with a cap on it don't let it all settle prior to doing the building. Once the building is up Final Grade elevations can be completed on the interior of the building Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

Thing are looking better since we finally got some rain. A handful of watermelons and cantaloupe showed up already. Lots of tomatoes and of course squash harvests already. Did score a jug of wild sweet cherriesyesterday, first time in 5 years I beat the birds to them. Dropped them off last night so I may have a cherry pie when I get back from pa. , Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk