RTGobbler contest thread

WNYBuckHunter · April 29, 2014

Contest thread for 2014 HuntingNY Spring Turkey Classic

WNYBuckHunter · April 30, 2014

Contest Card

RTGobbler · May 2, 2014

What a day! I don’t think you could have a better day without getting a bird, well maybe you could.

Went out with my younger brother, and the old man. We got moving a little late and didn’t get out as early as we wanted and nothing was gobbling from the roost. So we decided to head to a spot that we all have take a few birds. Grabbed a nice spot and called until 7 and decided to start a little walk and talk (or run and gun). Did our standard loop and still was stuck with nada, not a gobble. So now its about 9:30 and we decide to go grab some breakfast at the house and then come back in an hour.

As I am throwing my vest in the truck I hear it, the greatest sound in the world, "Groooboboboboble"! So run over to their truck and say lets go! Up the hill! We start moving back up hill on a log road and get about 300 yds in and I give it a yelp yelp yelp, and get the response we are looking for about another 300 yds in and to the north. So we decide we are going to end up about 50 yd or so from where we started the morning.

We get there and I give it another call and suddenly we get a single gobble followed by a chorus of 4 to 6 gobbles at once. OK OK, more than one bird is there! But they are much closer than we thought, so my brother and I grab a near by tree while the old man heads off to be 40 or 50 yrds behind us.

We start calling and we continue to get the chorus singing back to us and moving closer. Finally I spot the movement and see two birds, followed by another 3 I think headed our way. I whisper to my brother that they are coming to get ready. We both see we are now dealing with a group of jakes, most with 2 or 3 inchers. They end up about 15 to 20 yds away, but they are not giving my bro a clear and clean shot. Either they are so close together or they are behind something.

Then I hear the lone gobble again, trailing about 60 yrd behind. Now I know that these jakes are nothing more than advanced scouts and the king is still on his way. I tell my brother to hold off from shooting the jakes because that lone bird is the boss.

Well me and my old man are still calling but everything went pretty quiet, except for the occasional lone gobble that told us they were still close. Then my bro whispers to me "Oh my god, look over there" Takes me a little while until I see the boss standing on the ledge above us in full strut about 100 yrd out with his bright white head. He was a big bird, and he knew it.

Now me and my old man, having played this game together a few times started a cadence of him calling and me gobbling back to him. Trying to get Mr. Tough guy pissed off and come beat me up. Well he apparently didn’t care. He gobbled back at me every time, but instead of coming over to us he jumped on top of a big rock and spun around in full strut. He knew he was :king: .

Finally some real hens came and took him away. My brother and I chased them the rest of the AM, and got within 100-150 yrd of him a few times. But every time we got close those hens pulled him in the opposite direction. Didn’t matter if we were above them or below them. Last gobble we heard was at 11:45.

Looking forward to tomorrow morning .

RTGobbler · May 4, 2014

Well Friday and Saturday morning were busts where we had the birds gobbling opening day. Not a peep. Covered a lot of ground too. I had to head home, Saturday afternoon so packed up and said good bye to the parents and brother, and headed back down to Orange County.

We had a BBQ over at some friends for the race, and then I headed out to roost some birds in Sterling Forest which is very close to home and where I do a lot of hunting.

TL;DR - Roosted a bird last night, snuck in real close (closer than I wanted), got a great tree show, dropped him at 40 yrds. 20lbs 9.5" beard and 7/8" spurs ". Pics below

On the way in to roost I saw some bird land on a ridge line, but they never made any noise. So I walked in a bit deeper and just sat and listened for an hour but didn’t hear anything, so I gave it a hoot around 8:15 and nothing. Started walking out, and stopped where there is a nice valley between two hills and gave it a hoot. BOOM!! There he was!! Pulled out the map and figured out where he was and marked it for the morning.

3:50 AM this morning the first alarm goes off and I am out of bed by 4:10. Gear on and out the door by 4:30. Pulled in to the lot by 4:40. And tripping on sticks and holes in the dark by 5. Went in a little bit and just listened for a while hoping he would sound off, but nothing. It was starting to get lighter out and I wanted to make sure I had time to reposition, so I gave a hoot and BOOM!! There he was. I figured he was about 200 yrds away right on a ridge line, right about where I pegged him to be last night.

So I start pussy footing it over in the direction of the ridge line, quiet as I can be. He gobbles again while I am walking and think I should close the distance a bit more. The whole time I am walking I am scanning the trees looking for hens or other birds. I find a tree that looks good and do a scan for a better tree (grass is always greener right??) and see one that I like and start moving over there. That’s when I see him, about 40 yrds away!! Closer than I wanted to be!! So I slowwwwlllly get back to my first tree at sit down as slow as I can.

As I am sitting down he starts gobbling again. For the next 45 minutes I got to watch him gobble and strut on that tree branch. It was quite a show. It’s amazing to me he didn’t fall off. He was gobbling about once every 5 minutes, and all I wanted to do was tell him to shut up so he didn’t attract anymore hens or hunters . Around 6 he flew down, going away from me. That was actually the best case for me, well maybe second best, and I could still see him strutting around. On the ground he was quiet for a while, but as hens started flying down to him he was heating up again.

I kept the calling very low key, a cluck or two every once in a while to know there was another hen for here. After about 10 minutes of him strutting around at 50 yrds behind some trees with 2 hens, a third hen comes in from my left. He sees her and starts moving to her, right towards one of my open windows. He continued that way and right into my window and boom went the 870 and he folded right there. It was a 40 yrd shot, and that is about as far as I would comfortably shoot a bird but it was true.