Dryspell's OVER!! WOOHOOO!!
04-30-2004, 08:14 PM
#1
Typical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 554
Dryspell's OVER!! WOOHOOO!!
First off, I'd like to apologize for such a terrible pic of this great bird, I didn't have a camera, so a friend of mine took the pic with an old Ezonics Dual cam...what a mistake, but anyway onward.
I've been on a dryspell this year calling for other people as out of the first four attempts for other people I only had one bird in. I'm starting to wonder about my calling abilities.
I had a lot of gobbling this morning, and it seemed the birds hit the ground running in my direction. The fun stopped when the ones I was calling were across the river and would just come to the opposite bank and strut. My luck started to change around 7:10 though when three on the other bank gobbled at me I heard another gobble about 150 yards behind me. When the 3 on the other bank walked back into the treeline, I decide to work my way to the tree lined drainage ditch nearby to see if I could see the other gobbler I heard behind me......NOTHING! I started to call again having moved about 30 yards to the NW towards where I heard that other gobble. As soon as I hit the call, a response....AGAIN the other side of the river. I was standing up by one of the small trees when I saw the two birds come to river's edge. They then dropped out of sight TOWARD the river, I thought, could they really be going to cross?? Sure enough, I started calling again to see two heads clear the rise between me and the river,and suddenly they were RUNNING straight at me. There are a few scattered bushes amongst the marsh grass, and when they were obscured from my sight, I sat down to get ready. I waited for seemed like an eternity without seeing or hearing anything, when I caught movement to my left. I slowly turned my head to see a huge gobbler strutting on the other side of the drainage ditch that I was only 30 yards from! I was happy just to see him there, then he started to strut diagonally along the ditch, and unfortunately, he was angling away from somewhat in doing so. I picked an opening to shoot through if he came that far, and just when he needed to clear the last foot of a bush, he broke strut and started to putt. By now I saw the second gobbler and the one strutting looked like he towered over the other one, so when he turned to run, I let drive with my Browning Invector 10 gauge and drove him face first into the dirt. WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!
I stood up right away to see the other tom fleeing and that's when I found out what spooked them, a coyote closing fast from my right. I had 2 shots left in the gun, and I used them both. The first shot knocked him down and the second sealed his fate! HAHA Serves him right for trying to sneak in on my action... BUT he was a big male with very nice color in his coat.
Now for what you've all been waiting for.....the score for TEAM 8!
Weight: 28.6 lbs.
Beard: 11 3/8"
Lspur: 1 1/2"
Rspur 1 3/8"
TOTAL: 80.675 using the calculator here!
I've been on a dryspell this year calling for other people as out of the first four attempts for other people I only had one bird in. I'm starting to wonder about my calling abilities.
I had a lot of gobbling this morning, and it seemed the birds hit the ground running in my direction. The fun stopped when the ones I was calling were across the river and would just come to the opposite bank and strut. My luck started to change around 7:10 though when three on the other bank gobbled at me I heard another gobble about 150 yards behind me. When the 3 on the other bank walked back into the treeline, I decide to work my way to the tree lined drainage ditch nearby to see if I could see the other gobbler I heard behind me......NOTHING! I started to call again having moved about 30 yards to the NW towards where I heard that other gobble. As soon as I hit the call, a response....AGAIN the other side of the river. I was standing up by one of the small trees when I saw the two birds come to river's edge. They then dropped out of sight TOWARD the river, I thought, could they really be going to cross?? Sure enough, I started calling again to see two heads clear the rise between me and the river,and suddenly they were RUNNING straight at me. There are a few scattered bushes amongst the marsh grass, and when they were obscured from my sight, I sat down to get ready. I waited for seemed like an eternity without seeing or hearing anything, when I caught movement to my left. I slowly turned my head to see a huge gobbler strutting on the other side of the drainage ditch that I was only 30 yards from! I was happy just to see him there, then he started to strut diagonally along the ditch, and unfortunately, he was angling away from somewhat in doing so. I picked an opening to shoot through if he came that far, and just when he needed to clear the last foot of a bush, he broke strut and started to putt. By now I saw the second gobbler and the one strutting looked like he towered over the other one, so when he turned to run, I let drive with my Browning Invector 10 gauge and drove him face first into the dirt. WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!! I stood up right away to see the other tom fleeing and that's when I found out what spooked them, a coyote closing fast from my right. I had 2 shots left in the gun, and I used them both. The first shot knocked him down and the second sealed his fate! HAHA Serves him right for trying to sneak in on my action... BUT he was a big male with very nice color in his coat.
Now for what you've all been waiting for.....the score for TEAM 8!
Weight: 28.6 lbs.
Beard: 11 3/8"
Lspur: 1 1/2"
Rspur 1 3/8"
TOTAL: 80.675 using the calculator here!
