D week bird down! A banner year!

**mazzgolf** · May 20, 2019

Feast or famine again this year! Frustration late in the week last week with all the dog walkers and dirt bikers, and then I didn't hear or see a bird all day Saturday in a couple different spots I tried. But it was a completely different story this morning!!! Been a banner year for me in terms of birds harvested. Lots of perseverance and patience, however, have been required!

I got in at 5:15am and nestled next to a tree. At about 5:30am, I let out just a couple soft, subtle clucks and immediately... GOBBLE!! Holy cow, I'm right next to a bird! It almost sounded like he was still roosted in a tree and couldn't have been more than 100 yards. Well, I put the pot call down, that's all the calling I was planning on doing - I knew that bird knew where I was. 5 minutes later, I hear him gobble again, only this time it sounds like he's on the ground and getting closer!! OMG! I'm thinking to myself, "I am going to get a tom within 30 minutes of walking in the woods. This is going to be easy!!" Welp, that was the kiss of death. I never, ever tell myself that - it's almost like a curse.

So this bird is really close, but I can't see him. Then I hear a second Tom! A bit further away and to my left. I can't worry about him, I've got this one bird coming in and he's about 50 to 75 yards away, but I can't see him through the brush. So for awhile they are gobbling off each other - I just sat and listened and enjoyed the music - it was so rare to hear this at all this season. I've got my gun up on my knee just waiting for someone to show himself.

And then..........

From almost behind me.... about my 5 o'clock... I hear "pit pit pit Putt PUTT" DAMMMIT!!!! WHERE DID THAT ONE COME FROM!!! Even though I never saw it or heard it until that moment, it was a bird that was probably coming to the gobblers and was really close (30 yards? 40 yards?) and I'm almost positive it busted me. I heard the rustling of turkey feet shuffling really fast and getting farther and farther away until everything went quiet.

I hung my head in shame. I didn't think I moved to give myself away - all I could think of was I was sticking out too much and this bird caught my outline and bee-lined it out of there.

I thought for sure this bird took the other toms with it. It was all quite for the longest time and I thought I lost my chance. After I don't know how long of nothing by quiet, I decided to slightly move another 10 yards but in a bit more cover. I was hoping either these birds would be stupid and come back or there were more birds in the area. I started calling some more just to see what would happen.

Then I caught some movement way out in the distance - over 100 yards through the trees I caught the sight of something black flash by. I took out my monocular and sure enough, there's a Tom wandering back and forth! Phew! Birds are still around! I give a couple loud clucks and GOBBLE!!! Yes! Game back on!

Well, at this point, assuming they were the same birds, I pretty much figured they were jakes. They were too stupid - sounding off as much as they were and then coming back after an alarm sounded earlier. But I don't care - this was a lot of fun and jakes taste just a good as the big boys... so I decided to play the game and see what I can do.

As I see the movement get closer, I notice there are two birds together. Once they got within 50 yards, one of the birds would gobble, and then the other would cluck-cluck - they knew they were in the area where they heard my calls. They finally walked to within 40 yards and that is when I noticed a THIRD bird!! Hmmm... interesting. I wonder if that was the one I didn't see earlier and that I thought busted me? I'll never know. But I needed to be really careful - I got 6 nervous eyes looking out for trouble. These birds did appear on high alert. Necks were all stretched upwards, they would pause for 10, 20 seconds and just look around. That third bird ended up being the one that was gobbling, and he was the closer of the three. So while keeping an eye on the other two to make sure they wouldn't bust me, I slowly raised my gun, got the bead on the third, and pulled the trigger. He went down quick and the other two looked around and were all kinds of confused! There heads immediately went on swivels and looked all around to find out what was going on but they didn't stick around long - they "putt putt'ed" and quickly shuffled away.

Just a jake. But this was a very fun hunt, and I have more meat for the freezer.

And I learned something today! You can still be successful even after you think you were busted (though, now that I think about it, I'm still not 100% sure that bird actually busted me) - but you have to be patient, and you probably need to have stupid, young birds around that don't know any better