Won't be able to post pics til Monday probably...but, it was a fun hunt! I got set up against one of my favorite trees on a very high ridge at 4:56 a.m., and waited for the woods to wake up. At about 5:30, he gobbled. He was about 75 yards away, across the holler and a little below me. About 25 minutes later, he pitched down in a small clearing on his side of the holler, and immediately started working away from me despite the fact that I had heard and seen no hens. At 6:01, I got up and followed him at a safe distance, and eventually, after crossing two ridges, had him in sight at about 200 yards. I crept through some thigh high grass to about 100 yards, and started calling again. He gobbled one time, took a few steps toward me, then turned back around and started working away. I then got aggressive and started cutting like the maddest hen the world has ever known. He quickly started moving toward me, but hung up at what ended up being about 50 yards. I can make that shot, but I thought he was a little farther away. He hung up there, and then worked back away. After he was out of sight, I followed again, over two more ridges. Spotted him way down the hill in an open field after topping the second ridge, so I worked behind some trees to the bottom of the field. By the time I got there, he had moved over toward the property line, and well out of range. Of course, he crossed over off the land I was hunting, and showed no signs of slowing down. All of this with no hens to be seen!
Well, I decided to troll (slowly move and call every 75-100 yards) back to my original spot and when I get to the spot where he hung up at about 50 yards, there he stands strutting at about 90-100 yards! I'm standing in the middle of a field, and somehow he hasn't spotted me yet. I laid down in the grass and touched the call. He gobbled one time, and again worked away from me! He went onto another property again, and I followed along the fence line of the property I was on. Then, I heard hens for the first time...figured it had been fun while it lasted. I sat down close to my original tree, cut a couple times, and he gobbled. I moved a little closer, cut again, and he had cut the distance between us considerably, but was still just across the fence on the next property over. I watched him, at about 40 yards, slowly moving along the fence line looking for the pretty lady he'd been avoiding all morning for close to 20 minutes, spitting and drumming the whole time. He still wouldn't go under the fence, though. He was just about to get beyond where I'd have a shot at him, so I cut one more time...he started working back toward me, but still on the wrong side of the fence. I decided to let out a couple series of gobbler yelps, and he immediately stopped in his tracks, and strutted. Started looking all over the place, ducked under the fence, took two more steps, and got shot in the face at 8:40 a.m. My Fitbit told me I had covered 21,675 steps, and had climbed 96 floors, and I'm feeling it now!
20 lbs even, 9 3/4" beard, 15/16" right spur, 1" left spur, two huge breasts sitting in my freezer! (Sorry the post is so long...got a little carried away reliving it. Ha!)