dhhunting

Well I have been watching many birds on my property the past week. I have counted 2 longbeards and about 3 jakes. This Morning..... Wake up 5:00am, In blind at 5:15am, turkey starts gobbling by 5:25 and on the move about 250yds in front of me past two hedgerows, He does a complete circle around me at the same distence, meets up with another gobbler behind me, finally 6:15am he starts coming in from my right, he comes in to view about 30yds away coming up one of my paths that leads to the clover plot I am overlooking, Turkey stops at end of path, checks out my decoy which is about 40yrds away from him, I don't have a shot yet he needs to walk about 10 more feet out the path, then he turns around and fast walks away.[:@] I know he didn't see me because I couldn't see him then. There was a spot up the path farther which is how I saw him coming.

SO... Woods goes dead. Don't know what happend to the other gobbler. Now 6:45am, I run back to the house for a quick egg and toast, 7:15am Back in the blind , hear one gobble way off across a creek in some pines, "not my land" 9:45am I called in a pair of hens to the clover plot, they walk around a little then leave the way they came. 6:55am Almost jump out of my pants from a gobble about 25yds to my right on the same trail, he stops at the end of the same path looks around and walks through the hedgerow to find the other hens. Thats the last I heard of any birds the rest of the morning. I walked through the hedgerow at noon and saw nothing in the field. All in all it was a good opening day of hunting I got alot of action.

I don't know what went wrong though. I am almost positve they didn't see me. The first one acted like he got spooked by my decoy. When I came back out I ditched the decoy. Then the second bird acted scared because he didn't see anything.

Last year in a diffrent blind I couldn't get a bird through the hedgrow. He would go into the hedgerow and look out, then walk back to the field on the other side. He did this twice.

So I am looking for advice on how to get these birds to go the last few yds I need them to go. Any help would be great.

moose1915

move closer!

Allseasonhunter7

run and gun

MDManiac

other side of hedgerow? or move blind closer too it?

I was done by 6:15 this am...doubled it too! Sorry to hear of your bad luck

Mr. Longbeard

Give me a week

BuckAlley

Dh, I'm no expert. Heck I worked 3 separate toms this morning myself only to have all 3 only work in to about 50yds, and eventually walk off. But I can tell you using a decoy is no guarentee. I've had several toms spook to decoys over the yrs. Especially on public land. I've heard many experts say they don't use decoys, and force the tom to look for the hen thats calling. But I've also had other instances where I didn't have one out, and wish I did. Decoys seem to be a hit & miss. But the one decoy setup I do like to use is a jake on top of a hen. I simply push the hen all the way to the ground, and stake a jake over top her back side. That seems to piss the tom off to come in closer. Good Luck