Had an awesome day in the woods yesterday

turkeyfeathers · May 11, 2014

3 am the alarm goes off. Wake 11 year old daughter who then is standing in the kitchen ready to go minutes later. I'm toting her youth Remmy 20 gauge to try and break it in on a bird . Cross the trout stream, thru the beaver swamp where the peepers were singing. At about 6 am we hear gobbles over the top of the hill we sit on. At 6:30 we see a strutter and a hen in field about 200 yards off. He'd gobble and it was so windy you could barely hear him.We sit about 20 yards inside the woods overlooking this field. Standing DSD hen deke on edge of field. I called birds to within about 60 yards where they hung up. First hang up on a decoy ever. They farted around for a good hour. He displayed in circles and gobbled his fool head off. I purred very quietly but couldn't get him to come into range. Couldn't get bossy with the hen as they were too close. They had two choices of travel. Up towards us or into the woods. They chose the woods of course. Waited about 15 minutes and tried to go bitchy hen and drag her back with him in tow. No luck

Awhile later we have two birds ripping down the hill and one over the hill top. Tim Hortons coffee wanted out at about 9. I stand up walk about 10 feet from daughter and proceed to pee. SOB , a bird in full display is cresting the little knoll. I try and sneak back that 10 feet which seemed like a mile. His eyes are completely on the decoy. I wait til he gets behind a tree and slowly make my move. Daughter seeing all this unfold. Putt, putt putt off he goes. We shock gobbled another bird or maybe him 500 yards off an hour later. We crested hill to set up and busted out 8-9 deer and bird never hit my hen calling. Yellow warblers, yellow rumped warblers, flicker.downy, raven, wood thrush, robins, phoebes. rose breasted grosbeaks. The woods were alive. Love that my daughter who takes ballet 5x a week can also enjoy something I love so much. She thanked me numerous times for a great day. Didn't take a bird home with us but enjoyed one heck of a great morning. That's what it's all about anyhow.