day 3 and done in NY

reeltime · May 3, 2016

I walked from the truck at 4 am and was set up on a familiar point where I knew a good longbeard was hanging out. 5:!5 he revealed his location just across the ravine from me. I knew since he roosted farther west of me it would be tough if not impossible to get him to cross the big ravine and creek, my only chance off the roost was to convince him to fly over to me first thing. no matter what I did he decided to fly down right at the base of his roost tree. I took a good mental note of the location and got up and trolled south trying to get one to hit me,

I got caught up with a vocal hen and had some fun with her for a little while but she was alone and I let her walk off to finish churning up the leaves. continued on my journey with no response from a gobbler. I was now back close to where I started and dropped down through the ravine and crossed the creek and got up on the next bench and was soon close to his roost tree. My first calls from the Burrville Bomber were cut off with double gobbles from 2 birds.

I made a few more calls and each time they were cut off by both gobblers. I eased ahead 60 yards and let them know I was on the move and their response let me know they were closing the distance in a hurry. I got set up and a few more calls to verify their progress and then I went silent. They didn't gobble for a while and then one of them gobbled and they were closer. I let them gobble again before giving them more calling, they were now under 100 yards and all the deer out in front of me were giving away their location since they all had their heads up and staring in the direction of the last gobbles.

Finally I see 2 gobblers working through the beech brush headed NW which was gonna have them pass just out of range. They also had a hen with them, I allowed them to walk by and get to the NW of me out the bench about 80 yards then gave them some soft clucks and yelps on the bomber, they all spun around and shortly were 40 yards and closing with the hen now on a deliberate and steady vocal march right to me. There was no way to shoot as I would have killed them both and the hen was now 15 feet from me and had slowed down but still walking towards me.

The hen is now less than 5 feet from me but the 2 longbeards are side by side and still no shot, now she is 3 feet and purring softly, 2 feet purring harder and now a loud cluck, both gobblers separate and are now at 20 yards, the hen is within 2 feet of the gun barrel I purr on the diaphragm and she sharp clucks which causes both gobblers to break strut and extend up. My crosshairs were already on the smaller bodied gobbler as I knew what he was sporting for spurs.

At the shot the hen bowled over backwards as the gobbler hit the ground, she got up looked at me, looked at the other gobbler standing there looking at the one on the ground and they both walked away slowly. I sat there as the walked away and once they were out of sight I got up and walked over to my bird.

Just as I knew a good dominate lightweight bird with 1 1/4" spurs. 9 3/4 " beard and a whopping 17 lbs. he has been pretty busy fending off intruders from his hens over the last month and it was evident he was a scrapper.

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