Monkey is off my back
 

Friday Morning,

Started out in the morning in the middle of a field between a number of birds that travel through this spot. The morning light came up and gobbling started but the birds did not come in. I had a friend down on a field edge that was setup and the birds move around him aswell. So one gobbler headed out in the open field and gobbled at my calls but walked off. I picked up and moved down to Chris's setup and we move over to a field and setup closer in the same direction . I placed a hen decoy out and we sat and I called once the bird returned anwser to the call.

I gave it a minute and made another call, short series of yelps and he returned again but a little closer. So I started to cluck only on the call. He came closer and closer , then out in the middle of the field he stood in Fan looking at the decoy. Now I've seen so many times this season the bird work good all the way to the decoys untill they get out side of shooting range and then walk off. So I though I would only give a couple very soft cluck as soon as the bird goes into strut and this is what I did. The bird would come out of strut and walk a few yards and go back into strut. I would cluck again a few times. He worked right into the decoy. As he walked in strut around the decoy I had some brush in front of me and at the time of setting up the decoy I never noticed that it was in line with the decoy untill I sat down. So needless to say I had a small problem , I could not see the bird at the decoy. So I waited him out and let him walk around untill I could see the head of the bird. Well heres the next problem I aimed at the bird and in the excitement squeezed the trigger , but forgot about the Darn travel on the benelli trigger system. When I shot I guess I was just off the neck a little and the bang went off and the bird did what ever because I could not see him real good , but I could see that he was trying to run. I cranked in another follow up shot and waited for him to move into another opening and as he passed I shot again. I hit him in the Body and he flew

He headed right over the ridge top into a 100,000 foot dropped gorge and was gone. I new he was hit hard so Chris and I ran for the ridge and we moved apart and headed dowen the steep imbankment. About 75-100 yards down I found him upside down in a pile with no movement. Now we were right on him and it took no time to make it to him because of the straight down run it was, so I figure he died in the air and piled up. After cleaning him , he was broke up and brused real bad as the fall took the most of the impact. but there was a few shot that hit the neck/head of the bird.

When we got back to the setup area , we looked over as to what may have happened. I could see I hit him the first shot , because of feathers around the decoy and another thing I found was the wad about 2 feet passed the decoy (this is a dirt field), so this tells me that the shot did not have time to open at 25 yards and I hit the bird with flyers from the load. Something I never thought of with building this gun. Being a new gun It may take me some time to get used of the way this thing shoots. Guess this can happen to the best of us. Over all it has been a very tough season and all the birds have been presured so bad from others that they do not want to work that great to calls. This was the ending of the Friday moning hunt,,,

18.80 IB
9.5 beard
3/4 spurs

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Glad you found him BT!!!Looks like a heck of a thick beard on that badboy!!You could be my retriever anytime bud!!!:D;):D;):DCongrats on a fine bird!![8D]

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Congrats Adrian!! This season has been a bust for me so far!! I haven't had a gobbler's head in my scope yet!! Two days left, and I'll be out both days still working on bird #1!!!

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Congrats on an awesome bird!

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Congrats on the fine gobbler:) I'm really surprized that you didn't have a better season... Howed the guiding go down in Florida???

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Great story and a great bird! Glad you were able to detect the problem!! I always enjoy the stories and learn from each of them.

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Thanks guys,
Keep at it Paul one more day !

Mr Longbeard , really I have had a bad season here in Ontario , but the start was a nightmare as my wife went into surgery on opening morning for brain surgery. I only got about 2 hours a day for the first week and a half. That made for tough hunting with the new all day hunt that was started here this spring. The seasons weather was nasty with wet and snow up to the last 2 weeks of the season and cold temps stuck around the whole season.

Over all I think I'm around 10 kills and had 4 shots with Misses [:@] here.
Florida I had 7 birds for 8 days so it seemed to be good and we had some road blocks there aswell.

I can't complain I guess as the whole season sure has been upside down for me right from the start...BT

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Congrats on the great bird!

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

Really nice bird. Way to go!

RE: Monkey is off my back
 

A fellow Ontario boy and he's on team 7 with me! :D

I can say first hand that BT worked his a$$ off this season. Really seemed to be everywhere that the birds would shut up once on the ground.

Adrian had detailed how he called this bird in and yesterday I went out with another guy. Used this calling technique to get a big tom to cross a feild from 300-400 yds away. He never once made a sound but managed to put him in the guys lap at 20 yds after this story and picking up some calling when I hunted with BT.

Unfortuneatly Adrian I now know what it's like to work that hard after sitting for 5 bloody hours only to have the ugly miss [:@]

Good luck to all still hunting. Until next year......