my florida hunt
Got back from my first florida hunt late last night and the hunt was a success! Got my very first osceola and sure hope that there will be more hunts down there in the future.
I was on a semi-guided hunt south east of orlando and I must say that this guy sure had birds on his place.Saw 5 different gobblers and numerous hens and a few jakes in the 1 day that I hunted.
Started my hunt out in a field, that the afternoon before, we had seen a big gobbler out strutting his stuff in . The bird started to gobble on the roost at 5:50 in the a.m. and gobbled 9 or 10 times on the roost and another half a dozen times when he pich down to the ground,but he walked out the wrong way for me and never did come out to that field.
Around 11:00 the owner of the land I was on,it was 1500 acres,came out to see how things were going and after telling him what took place earlier,we went over to another field where he had seen 2 gobblers earlier that morning. I got to that field and nothing was on it but I set up on it And the rancher said he would check back in a couple of hours. About 10 minutes after he left I sent out a plan yelp and got a gobble back in return.A couple of minutes later a nice tom comes into view and is coming down a road into the field in full strut. Behind him is another gobbler. OH Boy,come on big feela! Going to get my first Osceola! WRONG!! A hen I had not seen earlier comes in from my left and starts to raise a fuss and those 2 long beards go over to her and won't even give me the time of day anymore. Despite my best attempts to call them back,they want nothing to do with me.She leads them off the field and gone.
The rancher comes back and after telling him this story we strike out to another field and scope it out but only see an empty field.He then tells me that he has a food plot up on the other side of this field about 200 yards back in. He leaves me and I get about half way to this field when a sandhill crane late out a call and a gobbler response from that field.I managed to sneek up to the field edge and there are 2 gobblers and 2 hens out in the fild about 100 yards from me on the other side.I settle down on the back side of a palmetto and start to call.
The boss bird would resond back to my calling about every 4th time or so.This went on for 30 or 40 minutes as he kept close to those 2 hens who were just feeding back and forth on the other side of the field. I finally got the boss bird to start to drift my way after I started to purrr and cluck on a slate call.He closed the distance in half when a sow and 7 piglets came out onto the field by the 2 hens.The second tom,who had stayed close to the hens then started to trot my way towards the boss bird when all of a sudden those 7 piglets started to chase after that 2nd tom. It was kind of funny watching this as those piglets chased that tom twice around that field.Each lap around the field they would push that boss bird closer to me. When the boss was about 60 yards out I let out one last soft cluck and he came running in to me,but he was behind a big palmetto.When he finally stepped out to the side, I leveled him. It was at 18 yards.When I went over to him I saw that I had blown most of his beard off! I wanted to get him mounted but I guess now I'll have to go back and get another one next year.
Great excuss to have to go back down,right?
The bird was 16.75 lbs with a 9.5" beard and 1 16th" spurs.