Liv4Rut
Active Member
Well Saturday morning started off with a big bang with no shots fired, The Roosta and I found ourselves set up on the edge of a hayfield, in the next 2 hours we seen 15 big mature gobblers and countless jakes, but they were all henned up and wouldnt come in for nothing, saturday night we seen 3 gobblers, and I had one come into 80 yards following a hen but she took him away from me. sunday morning, it was windier than heck and the birds wouldnt come out into the field, so we decided to head into uncharted territory looking for a hot bird. we walked up a big ridge and sat there kind of thinking what a crappy day since it was so windy, then a few crows started going crazy and we heard a gobble, we looked at eachother in suprise and ran down the ridge about 75 yards, and The Roosta gave out a few sweet sounding yelps, the ole boy fired up, we sat down for about 20 minutes and everything we threw at him he gobbled to, we decided to slip down the ridge another 50 yards and we seen the problem, we were on a ridge that lead right to a bottom and stopped, it was a big descent from the bottom to us so we knew he would hang up down there. we called at him anyways and he would double, triple gobble at us for the next hour. we heard hens down there and thought for sure he was gonna be gone son. finally i seen him strutting down there and i seen a couple hens, an hour had already passed and he must of gobbled over a 100 times, it was now 10:45 and we wanted to leave, so we decided a stalk was in order, i crawled in a small depression trying to get on the ridge edge, i got there and he shut up, i thought for sure he had spooked, i could only see down the left and nothing was there, so then i belly crawled about 20 yards closer to right half way there he gobbled so i knew he was still there. while belly crawling i would act like a turkey scratching towards him, i must of looked like a seaturtle moving accross the woods forest floor. once i got to the rim of the big ridge, i got up on me knees and peered over the edge, nothing, dangit i thought, he must of spooked i thought. then I looked straight below me and i seen what looked like a cow down about 25 yards from me, it turned out to be him in full strut, i raised my gun but i couldnt shoot because of all the brush, i moved my gun over about 6 inches to the right and i found a hole and let him have it when he faced me in full strut, the 3.5 inch hevishot 4's flattened him like a pancake, and 2 other gobblers flew off. It was an amazing hunt combined with a stalk and some sweet calling from The Roosta. He ended up weighing in at 28 lbs and had a 10 7/8 inch beard, and only one spur which was 1 1/4. the spur looked like it was completely sheared off. here is the pic.
the hunt lasted over a hour and a half and ended right at 11 oclock
