Short, sweet, best bird ever


3seasons

Recommended Posts

Well what can I say, after dealing with poachers and a week of some of the worst weather we have had in a while (over 10in. in 4 days), I connected on my biggest bird ever.

Went out Saturday morning after one of the may storms of the week and could not believe my ears, I heard 5 birds and man were they blowing it out. The land I’m hunting is a first cut pine plantation and scattered hardwood bottoms, needless to say it’s open at the least. I was unsuccessful at closing the deal that morning but I did get to see a huge bird with 4 hens. Talk about acting spooky, I sat my b-mobile out and when he saw it he broke strut and hit the woods. I got worried after I saw that, they have been getting pressured from a few other people and it showed.

Well this morning was nice, 41deg little bit of a wind but clear as could be. Me and a friend of mine who is co-founder of DogWood Outdoors meet up at 5:15 this morning. We got to the woods and set up way before daylight hoping the birds would be roosted in the same area as the day before. No suck luck, we didn’t hear a thing for what seemed like forever and finally we heard a faint gobble. The wind had picked up and we couldn’t tell where it was coming from. We heard it a few more times then we pin pointed him, he was back towards my truck, then we heard what I was not wanting to hear. Yep and owl hooter headed his way, the guy was still on his side of the fence but he was closing the distance blowing the hooter every 30sec. The bird gobbled a few times at it and we decided to close the distance so we gathered all our gear and took off down a row of cut pines. We ran about 300yds to the edge of a bunching ground and stopped to see if we could hear him gobble. Along the way Shane said he thought he heard him gobble a lot closer to us. I was standing beside a small pine and Shane was knelt down getting the decoys ready to put out. Then up pops a head down at the end of the road. I told Shane not to move it was a gobbler at the end of the road, he must have run all the way in, and he was looking for a hen. He would spit and drum but never go into full strut, he was looking everywhere for that hen. When he started to walk he moved behind a pile of old pine limbs and that is when I dropped to my knees and Shane grabbed the camera; we were able to get all 2min of the hunt on tape. He was filming right down my gun barrel it turned out great. When he came out from behind the tree tops we yelped and he stopped and the hunt was over at 6:50am. Had to give all the thanks to the Good Lord for that hunt.

The shot was 50yds, I jelly headed him, he had 1 pellet in his breast. ( I almost missed)

He has an 11” beard and 1.25”spurs (that makes up for my first one) and weighed 21.5lbs.

2nd.jpg

1.25"spurs

2ndspr.jpg

11" paint brush beard

2ndbrd.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.