Originally posted by MooseontheLoose
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I ended up sneaking in on one of the birds that was gobbling yesterday. I set up on the creek and he walked by on the other side about 40 yards. Wasn't responding to calls and just cruising. Did a bit of exploring and found the roost tree the birds used across the creek early season. No idea why they roost there, but they did for a while early on.
I summed up the hunt in the other post but just to add to it a little bit. The pair of longbeards came in early. They didn't like the decoy at all and just stared and stared. Two hens eventually filtered in from the opposite direction and they seemed to calm down, until one of the hens saw the decoy. She started putting and quickly left. The other hen didn't care at all and took a perch on a low limb, 50 yards from me. She stayed there for over an hour. I think her not leaving confused the toms because they wanted to leave, but didn't want to leave that hen there by herself. They eventually worked out of sight. A pair of jakes came in after that, not interested at all in calling, the decoy, or even the live hen.
Eventually another hen came (I'm assuming it was the first one) and joined the limb hen. They left and I assumed went down to the creek to get water. As soon as they were out of sight I took down my decoy. The birds eventually came back up the hill from the creek and were milling around. They seemed much calmer with the decoy gone. The hens got close to me and one of the hens starting talking some. This caused the jakes to head my way, which, in turn, caused the toms to come quickly. The strutter puffed up a few times at the hens yelping and once he was clear of the others I gave him a few yelps of my own to pick his head up and that was that.
He's a little better bird than I initially thought. I was racing on Friday for pictures and to clean him before the storm hit. I didn't get to measure anything before it started dumping. I just measured and the spurs are 1.25" and the longest hairs on the beard are right at 11". Like I mentioned before this is bird #2 out of a trio of big birds that didn't break up this season for some reason. All of them big spurred, mature birds. Weird.
The last one seemed happy. He gobbled a good bit Friday evening and Sunday morning. I'll see him next year
I summed up the hunt in the other post but just to add to it a little bit. The pair of longbeards came in early. They didn't like the decoy at all and just stared and stared. Two hens eventually filtered in from the opposite direction and they seemed to calm down, until one of the hens saw the decoy. She started putting and quickly left. The other hen didn't care at all and took a perch on a low limb, 50 yards from me. She stayed there for over an hour. I think her not leaving confused the toms because they wanted to leave, but didn't want to leave that hen there by herself. They eventually worked out of sight. A pair of jakes came in after that, not interested at all in calling, the decoy, or even the live hen.
Eventually another hen came (I'm assuming it was the first one) and joined the limb hen. They left and I assumed went down to the creek to get water. As soon as they were out of sight I took down my decoy. The birds eventually came back up the hill from the creek and were milling around. They seemed much calmer with the decoy gone. The hens got close to me and one of the hens starting talking some. This caused the jakes to head my way, which, in turn, caused the toms to come quickly. The strutter puffed up a few times at the hens yelping and once he was clear of the others I gave him a few yelps of my own to pick his head up and that was that.
He's a little better bird than I initially thought. I was racing on Friday for pictures and to clean him before the storm hit. I didn't get to measure anything before it started dumping. I just measured and the spurs are 1.25" and the longest hairs on the beard are right at 11". Like I mentioned before this is bird #2 out of a trio of big birds that didn't break up this season for some reason. All of them big spurred, mature birds. Weird.
The last one seemed happy. He gobbled a good bit Friday evening and Sunday morning. I'll see him next year
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