Preston and I had quite an eventful weekend of hunting. Some close calls and finally we were able to capitalize mid morning Sunday!
We started the morning off on one farm sitting next to a tom we roosted the night before. he had made the same trip a couple times past this island of timber and that is where we were setup. He got down with a few other birds and headed in the opposite direction he was suppose to, so the stalk was on! We got around ahead of him and belly crawled up to a terrace where he was strutting 60 yards away with another tom and some hens or jakes. Of course right when we get there they turn around and head in their usually pattered direction which would have taken them right by us. lol But what is the fun of sitting and waiting all day...its way more exciting to get up and after them! We headed back around the island of timber to re position on them. We got set but one of the hens spotted us...busted. We headed up to the greenfield to check for birds and look at the tree planting, no birds up there but we spotted three toms across the road on the neighbors. Once again the stalk was on....
We got a fan and crawled up and over the huge grassy hill to within 150 yards of one of the toms. Still crawling we got to about 80 yards before he started to walk into the timber. He was gone. We figured we might as well continue to walk deeper into the farm to see if there were any more birds. We noticed one tom gobbling across the creek so we sat down in the grass to see what kind of move he was going to make. He headed towards the creek and disappeared. So we moved in closer and noticed four jakes in the back field. Ended up being 4 jakes and 3 hens in the back field and the tom was coming for them. The tom strutted all the way to the very back of the field (300+ yards) away and stayed down there with his hens. After a bout a half hour we decided to make a move. We ran across the field to the creek (spooking the four jakes), we used the terrain of the field to crawl to within 100 yards of the tom and hen.
To cut the story short, we were in the middle of the dirt corn field with just a jake fan...the birds started coming towards us and we were moving towards them...they closed the distance the last few yards, Preston used my knee as a gun rest and smoked the bird! :way:
It was a good spring!