Well my first day out this year was quite eventful. I got out at about 545 this morningand set up my jake and hen decoys in a field behind my sisters house. I used my box call a few times to see if their was any birds around. After about 45 minutes I heard a distant gobble. So I hit my box call again, then I heard the gobble again this time closer. I kept hitting the box call and the response kept getting closer.Finally I saw a tom strutting towards my decoys. I set the decoys up a little past where I sat in the tree line so if any birds came from where I thought they would they would have to walk right by me. As the tom got directly in front of me at about 20 yards he stopped and knew something wasn't right. He started walking back to where he came from so I drew my bow and waited for him to stop. When he stopped I hit the trigger and my alpha max sent an arrow into him. I heard a good smack noise when the arrow hit the bird and saw feathers fly all over the place.The Tom started running back to where he came from and then he sort of tilted over and I thought he would be down. He got back up and continued into the woods. I got up and went over to the point of impact and saw his feathers, then i went over to where I saw him originally fall and their was my arrow sticking out of the ground covered with feathers and blood.He fell because the arrow sticking out of him stuck in the ground and made him fall into a direction until the arrow exited his other side.I made a quick lookm into the woods for him and decided to get my brother-n-law to help. So I went and made a quick trip to dunkin donuts for my kids and niece to get them some breakfast, then me and my brother in law went looking for my bird.We looked for a good 2 hours and never found him. Their was no visible blood trail so we walked in circles in every direction until i felt we had exhausted all possible places for him. I hate to report that the bird was not recovered.The shot was a little lower than I had hoped so I know tghis played a good part in not recovering the bird.I have to go bury my grandmother who passed away thursday nightat the begining of this week so i wont be able to hunt again til next weekend.
lost a bird today
