MO-APE
Member
It was a rough season in Missouri for me this year. Between the crazy weather, battling a "lost" trespassing mushroom hunter at 7:00 AM one day and getting bombarded by a herd of rouge cows in the middle of a hunt (from a farm 1.5 miles away), I didn't have an opportunity to close the deal. In five hunts the Toms rarely wanted to gobble, I played cat and mouse with some mature birds but again came up empty handed.
I went out yesterday morning, our second to last day of the season and didn't have high hopes due to the dense fog and light mist. They finally followed the script! Three of them were going crazy after fly down. Only issue is they were about 4-500 yards away across a cut beanfield at daybreak. I lightly yelped a few times and they wanted to play. This guy slowly worked towards my spread gobbling about once every five minutes. I softly yelped and trailed off when he was 200 yards out and he started sprinting to the spread of two hens and one jake. He bypassed the hens and instantly started clubbing the jake, I laid him out at 6:30 when he finally took a break from the jake whipping at about 45 yards.
The bird ended up being a real trophy for me. Sadly I didn't have a scale, but two friends and I both estimated him to be 23-25lbs.
He had two beards, one being 10 7/8" & the other was about 9" even. His spurs each went 1" & 1" 3/8.
Can't wait till next Spring!!!
I went out yesterday morning, our second to last day of the season and didn't have high hopes due to the dense fog and light mist. They finally followed the script! Three of them were going crazy after fly down. Only issue is they were about 4-500 yards away across a cut beanfield at daybreak. I lightly yelped a few times and they wanted to play. This guy slowly worked towards my spread gobbling about once every five minutes. I softly yelped and trailed off when he was 200 yards out and he started sprinting to the spread of two hens and one jake. He bypassed the hens and instantly started clubbing the jake, I laid him out at 6:30 when he finally took a break from the jake whipping at about 45 yards.
The bird ended up being a real trophy for me. Sadly I didn't have a scale, but two friends and I both estimated him to be 23-25lbs.
He had two beards, one being 10 7/8" & the other was about 9" even. His spurs each went 1" & 1" 3/8.
Can't wait till next Spring!!!
