ironwood
Active Member
My buddy Don and I started for our morning hunt plenty early. As we prepared to setup I attempted to get some of the toms on roost to give up their location with an owl hoot, no luck. I felt good about the chosen location and we quickly put our flock of five out. It wasn’t long and we had toms sounding off all around us. As the day light grew all the gobbling and yelping became more intense. Some time before 6:00 two toms came onto the large alfalfa we where setup on. Looking over my right shoulder, in the photo of me and the toms, you can see the 270 yard distance they covered as they slowly moved towards the girl friends we brought for them. They really took their time and hung up at 150 yards or so with other real hens trying to entice them and another large tom now strutting and gobbling at another corner of the field. A little purring and soft calling kept the boys on the task we had scheduled for them. Soon they where moving our direction again and Don kept talking the strutter to the left and his shooting side. Has they continued our way we where both screwing with each other trying to will the dominant strutting bird to our own side for the shot. Once they hit that 60 or 70 yard mark they closed in a hurry and the strutter stayed on Dons side of the action. As agreed upon we did our count down… one…two….boom. The tom’s heads where not more than eighteen inches apart at the shot and Don speculates that we both blasted both of the birds. There where features everywhere. Man we where way pumped, laughing and high fiving each other. WHAT A BLAST!!!! The picture of Don shows the cedar tree we parked under for our hunt. 6:20AM, this the earliest hour of the day I have ever taken a Tom and my first ever double. Just to complete the morning we picked up a couple bags of mushrooms.
