Went out last night a listened for one to give his position away and didn't hear anything.So thismorning I set up where I knew a bird had been at the end of last week not knowing if he would be there. My friend and myself had set up on this bird and he came in too closeand my friend missed from about 10 yards. Not very hard to do with a very tight pattern. Don't worry, he went on to redeem himself about an hour later by killing an absolute monster of a bird.
Anyway, I put two decoys out. One was a jake decoy and the other was Pretty Girl. I really didn't want to put Pretty Boy out in fear that he could scare off a bird, instead of bringing one in. Well, it's getting light out and I hear hens starting to yelp in the trees, but no gobbles. I was mimicking the hens hoping to get them mad enough in hopes they would come my way and bring a tight-lipped gobbler in with them if he was still there.
These hens were to my right about 100 yards.I thenhear another hen to my left start yelping. Then I hear a gobbler answer her! So, now I'm hoping that she isn't going to drag him off. Well, it sounds as if he's getting closer so I shut up and let him gobble. He gobbles again and he's definitely getting closer, and fast! I peek through the bushes to my left and I can see him coming like he's late for a hot date!
He'd run and then he'd stop and strut for about a second or two, then run again for about 30 yards and do the same thing. Well, he's getting close to the decoys now and he slows down to check things out. I put the decoys at 40 yards and he was just on the other side of them, so maybe 45 yards. That's when things went downhill for him. I saw that he was getting a little "antsy" so I putted with a mouth call and he stopped and the hammer dropped. He was going into strut and facing me when I shot and it messed up some of his tail feathers[:@]. It was worth it though. At least Pretty Boy will have a real tail fan now. I used Nitro 4x5x7's and a Beretta Extrema.
The measurements are as follows:
Weight: 24.7500
Beard: 8.5000
Right Spur: 1.1250
Left Spur:1.1250
Total: 64.25
Please pardon the Dale Earnhardt Jr. PJ's. I killed this bird at 6:15 this morning and had enough time to take a nap until the kids woke up!
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Another tom down for Team 7!
