After hearing about 11 gobblers sound off the first morning for over an hour, only to here hens take them off in different directions I found myself sitting in a 18 year old pine plantation. The ice storm from this winter had it in pretty bad shape. Around 3 p.m. I saw 2 longbeards with 6 hens in a gas line about 300 yards away. I tried calling them in for about an hour but they seemed content to feed on the gas line and they were slowly working toward a hardwood bottom to roost. My hunting partner and I talked it over and decided to try to belly crawl to the gas line and intercept them. We began what would be a 250 yard belly crawl through a pine plantation that looked like someone had been testing military shells. When we got to about 70 yards of the gas line the flock had beaten us to our spot. We were pinned down for another 45 minutes as they seemed to instinctively know we were there and couldn't move and decided to concentrate on scratching in the gas line at that very point. Finally they moved down a bit further behind a thick section of briars. This gave me a window to move up to the edge of the gas line and one of the strutters was lagging a bit behind giving me a nice shot on him. I took him at 43 yards. (18.5 lbs, 9 1/2 inch beard left spur 1 inch right spur 1 1/16 inch)

The next morning we only heard a single gobbler and a few jakes and rising temperatures and birds unwilling to come to the calls had us on a chufa patch the next afternoon. After sitting in the sun for 2 1/2 hours 3 hens finally came into the field and fed at about 40 yards for around an hour, then 6 jakes came trotting in and spent the next 2 hours within 20 to 30 yards of us. We didn't use a decoy and had not made a single call. To say the least my back hurt, to say the most I felt like someone was jabbing a knife into me. It was good entertainment, but no longbeard ever emerged and the birds eventually eased out to roost.

The final morning we set up on a gobbler early, but soon another bird was gobbling back to our right and moving toward a chufa patch where turkeys had been seen earlier this week. We decided to move toward him. We were unable to beat him to a crossroad and though he gobbled at all of our calling he was moving away with what we suspected was other hens. We dropped back and made a large semi circle trying to get in position of the point we thought the birds might ease into some pines during the middle portion of the day. It was 7:30 a.m. when we sat down I could see the longbeard through the mature pine forest about 400 yards away strutting in the edge of the chufa. After 30 minutes we decided to make one calling sequence. We spent about 5 minutes calling aggressively like two hens dueling back and forth. The plan was to shut up and wait the birds out. I actually had layed down completely at the base of my tree expecting the birds to spend a few hours in the chufa until the temperature rose. I was using my seat cushion as a head rest. (A favorite afternoon hunting position of mine, killed a few birds in this posture.)

About 10 minutes passed and straight out in front of me about 75 yards he gobbled. I knew I couldn't move. The next thing I see is a first year hen running directly at me. When she finally slowed down she was at about 4 yards from running on my feet. I thought the gig would be up, but luckily she never putted. She just quickly headed over to my right the gobblers left. In a matter of seconds the gobblers head appeared and he was moving at a slight angle away from me heading to my left his right following the hen. I was so low to the ground he never picked up my movement as I eased the gun over on him and took him. (15.7 lbs, 9 1/4 inch beard 1 inch left spur 1 1/16 inch right spur)

Considering the birds didn't even seem to be in breeding mode it was a great hunt. They gobbled good in the tree and the bird this morning gobbled good for about 45 minutes on the ground. In a week or so it should start getting better in the Low Country.