Copied from my other post in a seperate thread but wanted to include in this one!
Went back out this morning and was in the field at 4am this time.
Chose the west side rear field with the thick bush to the east. Set up my hub style ground blind 10 yards from a thin tree line with my decoys set up 15 yards north. Half strut jake first on east side, then laying hen in middle, then upright hen on west.
A coyote was kind enough to howl and cause a shock gobble letting me know that there were still a few males roosting up in the bush. Didnt hear any hens tho.
Did some soft clucks and after a few minutes did a fly down cackle. Still learning but the Primos Hookup is easy enough to work lol heard a few gobbles off and on as sun came up. Saw a lone hen walk in from the south east clesring side and start feeding and preening her feathers.
I was hoping she would bring a jake or a tom in behind her. No such luck.
She poked around then left through the thin tree line behind my blind heading south.
Little while goes by and i hear some more gobbling from the eastern south side field from the bush. I do some yelps and clucks. Then a few minutes go by and i hear the gobble REALLY close by behind me.
So i get out of my seat in my blind and slide open one of the rear windows and see through the trees a big fan rotating around in the field directly south of me. Awesome!!
So i do a few more clucks on my pushpull call. No gobble but i see him put his fan down and start heading west in my direction.
So now im in remodel mode! I am a left hand shot and my chair is facing the decoys anticipating a turkey coming from the front and east.
So now a turkey is coming from behind me and west.
I hop out of my seat and close the front windows and open up the ones on the west side. I dont have time to move my chair because itd be too loud and the turkey is moving at a good pace.
Im kneeling now and have my mossberg 500 on a shooting stick pointing out the corner of one of the windows. Just as i realize i need more of a shooting lane and start to open another side of the window the jake appears in the gap between the tree line.
So i stop opening the window and freeze. It sees my decoys and be lines it towards them. So fast that my shooting lane runs out before i can get a lock on him. GREAT! Now i gotta open back up the decoy side windows and hope not to bump into anything in my blind while turning back around!!!
Just as i start looking at my footing as to what i need to sidestep in order to spin around towards this jake investigating my decoys..... i see a much bigger bird coming down the same path as the jake! Luckily tho, he is walking along nice and slow.
He just cruises into my shooting lane, i struggle with the extremely stiff mossberg safety (ill have to take a look at it and try to smooth it out) and line up my red dot. I let him slowly walk into the crosshairs with his head out and touch off a 3 inch winchester double xx number 4 at 35 yards. He drops backwards like a rock. The jake comes over and runs towards the tree line like a hostage that was just set free and worried he is going to be shot lol quite amusing!
Here he is. Taken down around 730am. Looks like an old jake/young tom? Fan was flush but the middle two feathers were slightly different colour. 17.8 pounds with 3/4" spurs and 9.5" beard.
Looking forward to cooking him up on the holiday monday!
PS: dont know why the last pic is rotated! And i was wearing all black while in the blind but after i got out and collected the bird and was out in the sun i took off the black mask/gloves and black hoodie i was wearing while in the blind.
