The double or nothing gobbler

[alloutdoors]

Ended up having a great hunt this morning, even though it got off to a rough start. I was supposed to take a guy from work who is just starting hunting, this would have been his first time out. He wasn't where we were supposed to meet at 4:00, I gave him 10 minutes but after getting no response when I called and texted I decided he must have overslept so I headed out. I found out later he was running 15 minutes behind and had left his phone at home... oh well, that was lesson one I guess. Since I didn't have anyone with me I decided to go back after a bird I've been on several times this season, but when I got near his roost it was dead silence. No amount of hooting could draw a response so I decided to walk back to the car and go where I was planning to take the other guy after all. When I got over there it was already shooting light, and I still needed to cross about half a mile of open fields to get to the woods.

 

By the time I got out there I was pretty sure the birds would be on the ground, and at first I wasn't getting any response to any of my calling. I entered the block of woods from the north along a woods road that divides the block into an east and west side. The west side is bordered on the north by a beaver swamp that runs right up to the woods road I was walking on. I was alternating between crow calls and yelps on my trumpet and when I got roughly 100 yards past the back side of the swamp a bird gobbled from the west half of the block on my right. I quickly scrambled up the slope to get on the ridge he was on and gave another series of yelps. He hammered back immediately and had already begun closing the distance. I looked around and found a good tree, I was about 25 yards south of an east/west ridgeline and could see roughly 35 yards out toward the west in the direction the gobbler was coming from, it was a perfect setup. Approximately 5 minutes went by and I was starting to worry he might stay below the ridgeline and get too far to my right where I wouldn't be able to swing for a shot, so I carefully gave a couple of soft clucks on the trumpet. The response was instantaneous, he was no more than 50 yards straight in front of me and I could hear his gobble trail off into a low rattling rumble. I spent the next 15 minutes not moving a muscle, safety off, gun trained at the group of trees where I expected him to step out on one side or the other... but nothing happened. I waited another 10 minutes and tried lightly scratching in the leaves. Nothing. A few soft yelps, and again, nothing. 10 more minutes ticked by and I pulled out my crow call, and again I was met with silence. My best guess is that when he gobbled from so close he expected the hen to come right to him at that point, and when no hen showed he bugged out. If it wasn't for that last series of clucks he may have walked right into my lap.

 

I was a little mad at myself for messing up on a bird that was coming in on a string but it was still early so I backed out and went over to the eastern half of the block. I made a loop around the perimeter and on the far east side I ran into 4 hens by themselves in a field. I got them going with some aggressive cutting and they came in to about 5 steps of where I was leaned against a maple before they finally spooked. Despite all of the back and forth calling no gobblers were heard from. I continued my loop and wound up back at the woods road near where I had struck the gobbler earlier. As I was considering my next move I thought I heard him sound off a bit farther out than he had been earlier and closer to the swamp. Rather than trying to call him back to the same spot I decided to swing to his south to try and come at him from a new angle. When I got to the southern edge of the block I switched to a glass pot call and tried a few calling sequences but got no answer. I continued to circle around toward the last place I had hear him, calling every few minutes as I went. Eventually I made it all the way up to where I could see the edge of the swamp and still hadn't made contact with him. I slowly worked my way along the swamp back toward the woods road and was thinking about what area I should head to for the second half of the morning. I picked up the woods road and began walking it toward the fields, there is a small clearing along the road about 60 yards before you get to the fields and I stopped at the edge to call one last time. I got a gobble in response, he was out in the fields and had probably walked up the road that I was now standing on just minutes before. I quickly found a spot to sit in a small stand of hemlocks that borders the road and provided deep shade. With the swamp on one side and thick brush on the other he was going to have to walk up the road if he wanted to come find me. I called again once I was in position and he sounded a bit closer when he answered. Several minutes later he gobbled one last time where the woods road enters the field and I knew he was coming. Thirty seconds later and I could see his red head bobbing down the road, at 26 yards he stepped into enough of an opening that I could see his beard and a load of Federal HW 7's dropped him in his tracks.

 

My NY tags are filled but I may try to hit PA, VT or ME for a few days before the end of the month. Hopefully I'm not quite done yet.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lawdwaz]

Nice job!

[wmig2]

You earned that red head..... congrats.

[Jm510]

Congrats on a job well done

[Otto]

Nice job on the hunt and a great story to go with it, you earned that bird!

[Marion]

Sweet bird! You look like a Cabela's catalogue haha it's awesome!

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[alloutdoors]

Sweet bird! You look like a Cabela's catalogue haha it's awesome!

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

Haha! Actually the vest is pretty much the only piece of gear I have that you can pick up at Cabela's. The camo is all Ol' Tom. I do really like my Tat'r vest though.

[maytom]

Your persistence paid off!!! Congrats!!!

[MACHINIST]

Very nice,are you shooting a 20?Im thinking about switching to a 20.Tired of lugging the heavy 12 all around

[alloutdoors]

Yeah, this is my third year carrying the 20, will never go back to a 12.

[MACHINIST]

Yea from what Ive read on the 20 with those #7 heavyweights its a straight up tom killer.What do you think your effective range is?

[alloutdoors]

I won't shoot until they cross the 40 yard mark, but at that range I'm getting 170+ hits in a 10" circle (if it's a really cold morning with temps close to freezing, it's more like 135-140 hits). I've patterned it at 50 just out of curiosity and it's still more than capable of getting the job done, I haven't bothered shooting farther. In practice, the vast majority of my birds are shot between 15 and 30 yards. The first year carrying the 20 though I had a gobbler try and skirt my setup at 38 yards, he dropped in his tracks as hard as any of the rest.

[MACHINIST]

Yea 40 is my max also,What choke are you shooting?

 

[alloutdoors]

Choke is a SumToy .562-5. If you're going to shoot the Federals in a 20 I definitely recommend giving them a call, William at SumToy has those shells figured out.

http://www.sumtoycustoms.com/index.php/chokes

The Indian Creek .555 is another good choice, it actually puts up slightly higher numbers in my gun but I prefer the overall SumToy pattern.

[MACHINIST]

I shoot a sumtoy in my Rem 870 now.Great chokes!!!!

 

[alloutdoors]

Good story and a nice bird. That is one beautiful yelper!

Thanks, it was made by my friend Billy McCallister from GA, it was his personal call but he gave it to me in exchange for a wingbone I made him. His calls are getting to be better known now, his trumpets took 1st and 3rd at this year's Grand Nationals in Nashville. I have a lot of excellent trumpets but this one just suits me.

[Grizz1219]

Congrats!!!!

 

[Big Indian]

Great story and a really nice looking bird ! Congrats.

[johnphillips709]

Nice bird!

Sent from my SM-G360T using Tapatalk