DoneRight
PMA Member
This morning I had the priviledge and honor of taking out ,a good friend and Senior Regional Director of the NWTF, Mike Thornton. It's been 6 years since Mike has killed a bird, and he's never killed one of our Iowa longbeards.
We talked Thursday and got everything set up on where to meet and at what time. I scouted a piece of ground I hadn't been on since youth season that morning and was pretty pumped up that we could make something happen today.
3:30 am came awful early this morning, but I wanted to make sure we got to the place we were hunting and could get in and get set up in the dark. With the way the moon is right now, you can see where you're headed without a light at 5:10 AM and they were gobbling yesterday at 10 after 5. We lugged in a quick set-up for first thing (2 hens and a jake). I figured if the first set-up didn't work we be off runnin and gunnin. We got set up about 5:10 below a pond dam, where I had seen two toms strutting yesterday morning for over an hour. As soon as we sat down, a gobble lit off 250yds behind us. This is bad I thought to myself, because they were on the other side of the field from where they were yesterday and we were down over the hill where they wouldn't be able to see the dekes. Then another gobble and another. They were all back there. I called a little bit to let them know where we were and sat tight until about 6:30. I decided to creep up the pond dam to try to see if I could figure out where they were. As soon as I got up to the top of the dam, a lone hen started through the field below us. She came right to the decoys after dusting herself several times. So, I picked a fight with her, and the toms behind us just went mad for the next 20 minutes. Finally she moved off and I got back to Mike and told him lets go cut the distance. We started to move and a tom lit off again, within a 100 yds. We crawled up to the top of the dam again, and there he was about 50yds out. ( That figures, should have just waited right?) We were laying on our bellies, and I was softly purring at the tom every couple min, to try to coax him just a little bit closer. He gobbled over 15 times in 5 minutes. Then he started moving off. I told Mike to crawl up the dam a little further and take whatever shot he could get cause this boy's leavin. Mike crawled up and got to where he could get a shot and took it and smoked the bird. 35 yd shot after I was able to range it. The Bird weighed 21 lbs, 9 1/4" beard, LS 1 1/2", RS 1 1/4".
Congrats again Mike! That was a great hunt!
We talked Thursday and got everything set up on where to meet and at what time. I scouted a piece of ground I hadn't been on since youth season that morning and was pretty pumped up that we could make something happen today.
3:30 am came awful early this morning, but I wanted to make sure we got to the place we were hunting and could get in and get set up in the dark. With the way the moon is right now, you can see where you're headed without a light at 5:10 AM and they were gobbling yesterday at 10 after 5. We lugged in a quick set-up for first thing (2 hens and a jake). I figured if the first set-up didn't work we be off runnin and gunnin. We got set up about 5:10 below a pond dam, where I had seen two toms strutting yesterday morning for over an hour. As soon as we sat down, a gobble lit off 250yds behind us. This is bad I thought to myself, because they were on the other side of the field from where they were yesterday and we were down over the hill where they wouldn't be able to see the dekes. Then another gobble and another. They were all back there. I called a little bit to let them know where we were and sat tight until about 6:30. I decided to creep up the pond dam to try to see if I could figure out where they were. As soon as I got up to the top of the dam, a lone hen started through the field below us. She came right to the decoys after dusting herself several times. So, I picked a fight with her, and the toms behind us just went mad for the next 20 minutes. Finally she moved off and I got back to Mike and told him lets go cut the distance. We started to move and a tom lit off again, within a 100 yds. We crawled up to the top of the dam again, and there he was about 50yds out. ( That figures, should have just waited right?) We were laying on our bellies, and I was softly purring at the tom every couple min, to try to coax him just a little bit closer. He gobbled over 15 times in 5 minutes. Then he started moving off. I told Mike to crawl up the dam a little further and take whatever shot he could get cause this boy's leavin. Mike crawled up and got to where he could get a shot and took it and smoked the bird. 35 yd shot after I was able to range it. The Bird weighed 21 lbs, 9 1/4" beard, LS 1 1/2", RS 1 1/4".
Congrats again Mike! That was a great hunt!
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