After returning from Kansas I put in 4 night shifts loaded the truck and headed west. I had two tags for a new area and a new property to hunt. First night scouting revealed one larger group of birds and a few satellite Toms. I set up the next morning in a narrow creek bottom with some nice green flats I figured the birds would strut on in the morning. After 1.5 hours I had heard alot of gobbling but no birds besides a few loan hens. At about 8 am I had 1 loan gobbler top a ridge 150 yards away and start strutting for all these hens in the meadow as they moved on he came down the hill on a string and soon spotted my jake and hen combo at 15 yards he stopped to fan and strut and look for my calling he had heard earlier. 1 Merriams down and only 8 am, with birds still Gobbling I was excited for the rest of the morning.
I located another bird on the other side of the creek and moved down a few hundred yards. He was back in the timber and didn’t appear to be moving so I snuck in for a better look. He had circled up the saddle to my left and when I let out my next purr an eruption 15 yards behind me had me on high alert. I was pinned down so to speak and and the bird was at half strut. With just a lone hen decoy out he slowly made his way closer. He fanned once and gave me a chance to get my gun up. At the end of this all though I think he caught some movement. A few excited paces only got him to 20 yards where a load of 5s laid him to rest. 9 am two gobblers down and 3 days to hunt.
I took the extra time to head over to some of my deer could try and snoop around and spend a night out with a few good buddies. More stories to come, good luck to those all still getting out. QB
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