I posted this over on OG and didn't want to have to type it again. lol
Guess what I heard this morning??? Geoooobbbbbbblllllleeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so shocked I couldn't believe it. When we got to the parking lot at 5 this morning it was FULL!!!!! I thought oh sh--- this is going to suck. Anyways we got the buggy cranked and headed to our spot. We had Brad's son with us and one of his buddies so we had to drive them to another spot first and then we headed over to the new spot we found on Wed. Brad dropped me off on the trail and headed about a 1/4 mile farther up the trail. It was a nice morning and the wind was calm so I just stood where I was and listened. This area is a wide open prairie with pines behind me and cypress heads in front of me. The grass is about like 3 ft. CRP. There's a ton of buggy trails out there and the grass gets mashed down from the buggy traffic and that how the birds get around. Anyways, I didn't hear anything on the roost so I headed to an intersection of several trails where it was matted down and dried mud which made for a nice opening. I had seen a lot of track's there on Wed. It was daylight as I headed over there and sure enough there was some nice gobbler track's in the rd. I found a nice spot to set up and I sat down and started calling. I did start with the travel call but switched pretty quick to the ol Secret Weapon. I let out a series of cutt's followed by some helping and boom one gobbled off in the distance. I was blown away. lol That's the first gobble I've ever heard in Big Cypress!! I fired back at him and he answered again but man was he a long way. Probably not as far as I thought but I jumped up and hauled butt toward him. The area is a maze of buggy trails and that's how you get around and sometimes you take the wrong one and then you have to do a cross country to hit another trail. I closed the distance quite a bit and now had him tearing it up. I was actually afraid somebody else would hear him but thought what the heck so i kept calling and moving trying to figure out how to get over to where he was. There was a big cypress stand between us and it was like a jungle in there and I got hung up and had to retreat back to one of the trail'.s To make a long story short I couldn't figure out how to get on his side of the head and he wasn't going to cross it either. I messed with him a while longer but he finally shut up. I did hear some hen's coming to him so I think he wound up with some ladies out of the deal and I wound up empty handed. Brad heard a single gobble too and his son and friend heard one so I'm pretty excited about our odds this yr. Only problem is he can't go back until next Th. ??? ??? I think I'm going back Mon or Tue and I'm going to ride my bike. This is the first time I've hunted out there when it was this dry. I know I can make it back there on my bike. The ride is only about 7-8 miles so it won't be too bad and I should be able to aver. about 6-8 mph so I'll plan on leaving the parking lot about an hr. and a half before sunrise. I'm excited about the deal. BTW!!! We didn't hear one single shot. I counted 21 trucks in the parking lot with 3-4 4 of them having to park in the restricted lot (no trailer's allowed) There is no walk in hunting done in this area. Not that you can't just nobody does it because the first 2 mi. or so is usually flooded. I took some video of the buggy ride and I'll post it later. Man, I'm whupped!!!!