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Old 04-30-2013, 04:24 PM
  #22  
blksn8k
Fork Horn
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 115
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I was able to take a decent bird last Saturday in Pennsylvania. Although I currently live in Ohio I bought a nice property near my PA home town last year. It is 91 acres total with about 85 of those being a mix of mature hardwoods and eastern hemlock. I had been hearing a bird on the weekends all spring from my back porch right at daybreak and he was always on the same ridge point. I camped out near that spot on Friday evening and waited for him to either fly up or sound off. I was not close enough to hear him go to roost but I did hear him gobble twice on the roost. I was back in the same spot by 5:30 AM on Saturday morning. Sure enough he started gobbling just before daylight at anything and everything, especially another bird that was about half a mile away on the far side of the river. I was not able to call him off the roost and he spent the next hour strutting back and forth on a gas pipeline about 150 yards from my setup. When he moved off the point of the ridge and out of sight I made my move. I was able to setup within about 40 yards of the point. I made two strings of yelps on a slate and he hammered both calls. I swear the trees shook he was so loud. It seemed like forever but it was maybe five minutes before he came into sight and I dropped him at 30 yards with one shot from my Browning Gold 3 1/2 using Winchester 3 1/2" Hi-Velocity No. 5 shot. This was my first shot fired at a bird with the new Sightmark Ultra Shot reflex sight. I stopped counting dead birds years ago but this ranked right up there on the excitement scale. I had back surgery a few weeks ago so this was an especially gratifying hunt. He had a 7 1/2" beard and 1" spurs.
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