What a beautiful opening day it was today! This was my first attempt at taking a bird with a bow. Got up at 4 a.m. after getting Caroline from her work at 11:30 p.m. Arrived at the farm at 5:05 and got set up by 5:30.
Heard my first gobble around 5:45 and then in the next 15 minutes heard 7 different birds on the farm. One bird behind me was really hot... so hot that I was sure the neighbor was working him and when the shot rang at 6:20, I knew. That left at least 6. Had hens roosted 60 yds in front.. no gobblers with them. About 6:30, caught two jakes coming in silent ... beautiful show... right in to my decoys, but I practiced the LJW (Let Jake Walk) rule that I imposed a number of years ago... they fed around the dekes for almost an hour and then got a little edgy... and left in a hurry... about 10 minutes later 2 of the other gobbling birds came out into the road and they had LOTS of hens with them... the hens didn't like my hen and they led the big boys straight away.. but one of them stayed at about 75 yards gobbling his head off at every call I threw at him... But no dice... he was NOT coming in. They stayed around for an hour or so and then it got quiet. After not hearing anything for half an hour, I got out of the bilind to adjust my dekes a bit and there was a silent gobbler coming my way at 50 yards... BIG boy too... but he saw me and took off running away.
Oh well... what a great day!
Heard my first gobble around 5:45 and then in the next 15 minutes heard 7 different birds on the farm. One bird behind me was really hot... so hot that I was sure the neighbor was working him and when the shot rang at 6:20, I knew. That left at least 6. Had hens roosted 60 yds in front.. no gobblers with them. About 6:30, caught two jakes coming in silent ... beautiful show... right in to my decoys, but I practiced the LJW (Let Jake Walk) rule that I imposed a number of years ago... they fed around the dekes for almost an hour and then got a little edgy... and left in a hurry... about 10 minutes later 2 of the other gobbling birds came out into the road and they had LOTS of hens with them... the hens didn't like my hen and they led the big boys straight away.. but one of them stayed at about 75 yards gobbling his head off at every call I threw at him... But no dice... he was NOT coming in. They stayed around for an hour or so and then it got quiet. After not hearing anything for half an hour, I got out of the bilind to adjust my dekes a bit and there was a silent gobbler coming my way at 50 yards... BIG boy too... but he saw me and took off running away.
Oh well... what a great day!
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