This morning I went to a 150 acre farm in Tennessee I got permission to hunt last week. I slipped into the middle of the farm to a pasture bottom surrounded by steep hardwood ridges. I didn't really know what to expect because I didn't scout it besides topo's and aerials. I just drove up to see where it was at for sure before I hunted it and that was it. I picked out a good tree and set up this morning before daylight on the side of a harwood knole surround by pasture. As day broke I heard a few hens scattered all across in front of me on the hillside and knew I had to be in a pretty good spot. I heard 6-8 different gobblers off in the distance, but off of the property. I gave a few tree calls and a couple different fly downs and soon the hens were pitching out and landing all around me. The first one lit close enough that I felt the air off of her wings when she put the landing gear down. 8 or 10 hens pitched down and worked up the hill behind me and then BAM a gob sounds off in the bottom that hadn't made a sound all morning. He was close already, maybe 150 yards max, but I could not see him. I tried swwet talking him, getting aggressive, shutting up, I pulled the stops out. I finally pulled out the Dead on Double glass over slate call and started an all out brawl with purrs and cuts on the slate along with The Slam mouth call. He gobbled at least 100 times before I saw him, but I had the hen that he was with's attention now. She was getting aggrivated and cutting hard at me so I poured it on her copying every cuss word she threw at me to a T. After about 10 minutes I could see her working up the bottom and could see the gobbler behind her. They worked their way up the bottom to about a 100 yards and she worked up the hill and out of sight, but he would not cross a small ditch to follow her and did not want to leave sweet talking me on the hill alone either. She worked out of sight and I started getting aggressive again until she pitched back down to him and landed within 5 feet of him. She tried to lead him off again, but he angled half way between the hen and myself. I shut up when he went up a draw where I could not see him and hoped he would come on in. The next time I heard him gobble he was above me around the corner of the hill I was on in the roadway at about 75 yards. I yelped a couple times to him really soft and saw him coming down the road to me. He finally cleared some brush and I let the SBE and Nitro's turn him inside out at 30 yards.
I never saw this bird strut, but could tell he had a short beard. He had a good full roll gobble on him is all I knew for sure. In the end he played the game like a big boy so he died like a big boy and got a ride in the back of my truck.
I figure he was either an early hatch last year or a really late hatch 2 years ago. Pictures stink, I didn't have anyone to take pics so I just set the camera up on a cooler and set the timer.
17.5#
6 inch beard
1/2" spurs
by SBE on Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:27 pm 
