RE: Huntin' buddies
I hunt with a good freind of mine from time to time during the season.
The second day of May proved to one that we both will never forget!!
We got into this set of woods very early, and soon heard several birds sounding off in front of us. We set up and gave some soft stuff to let them know we were there, and bam, they answered each call. Soon, I could tell that they were on the ground and comming in. This section of woods was hit hard by a late snowstorm back in February, and there was numerous branches down because of it. We tried our best to pick out an open area within. Soon I see movement, and here they came. Looked to be two nice sized birds sneaking in to our previous calls. I use a scope, and ended up fogging up my lens due to the excitement of the hunt. Soon I lost them in the branches, but my buddy starts purring and there they came towards him. They never went into full strut, and I could of swore that I seen a dandy beard on one of them. BOOM!!! My buddy Chuck shoots and I see his bird do a backflip, and I immediately started cutting loud to stop the other bird. Sure enough it worked, and he soon came running back and stuck his neck up looking fro the hen. Bang!! The second bird went down. We both scored on two "large jakes" LOL!!! They completely fooled us by their gobbles and size, but for two buddies to score a double exactly at 6:00am the second day of the season was........priceless!! Both birds had 5" beards, weighed 16 lbs, and had nubs for spurs!! First jake I shot since 1991!! LOL!! But what a morning hunt, it was well worth the price of admission!!