Last Saturday’s hunt was a comedy of errors that started off with me bumping a bunch of birds off the roost above my blind. I was in the bush early, but the buggers busted me while setting up. Unfortunately the Tom that was roosting there flew off gobbling, never to return. Based on my game cam footage, I was able to determine that it was my target bird. I spent the rest of the day conversing with half a dozen hens, only to have left 8 hours later empty handed.
Not to repeat last weeks failure, I set my alarm clock this morning at 2:30, was out of the house at 3:00 and all set up my blind at 4:30. It wasn’t quite a full moon, but enough to light up the night sky so I was extra cautious heading into the blind. No birds roosting this time, but as first light approached, I could hear 3 Toms gobbling on the neighbours property. Everything went silent after fly down. And remained silent. At about 9:00, I decided to sneak to my second blind near the property line. When I arrived, I saw three Toms strutting around with a few hens in the neighbours field. I tried calling them in, but they wanted no business of me. Its possible they couldn’t hear my calls as the wind was blowing hard and it started snowing heavily. Slowly, they distanced themselves into the neighbours bush. The snow started accumulating of and I was no longer concealed. It was then when I heard a gobble from behind me near blind one. I quickly had to make the silent 100 meter sprint back to my first blind, and given that it was a white out, I stood out like a sore thumb in my camo. Eventually got settled into my blind, and for fear of being spotted, I didn’t dust off the snow that accumulated on the decoys. Silence hit again for 20 mins and figured I was busted during my 100m dash. I started taking some video of white out blizzard to send to the missus because she didn’t believe me when I told her. It was then when I spotted movement about 100 yards away. In total, I could see 7 birds, two of which were strutting. I gave them about 5 mins to find the source of my calls, but they started heading in the wrong direction. A gave them a few more yelps and they turned enough to see my snow covered decoys. Now it was game on! The two more aggressive birds raced toward me with the other 5 or so in hot pursuit. No hens in this group. A couple large birds and a handful of jakes. When the two leading birds turned past the final obstacle, they were 8 yards away with the remaining group at about 20-25 yards behind. As soon as they got eyes on my dekes, they almost stopped in their tracks. The inch or so of snow on the dekes was a dead giveaway that something wasn’t right. I turned on my strutting jake decoy to try and buy some time for the rest of the birds to come in, but the subsequent putts told me the party was soon going to be over. I decided to take the bigger of the two birds in front of me knowing that I’d risk the chance that the bigger Toms in behind may not come have in. Besides, I was completely frozen and wanted nothing more then a heater and some hot coffee. And so I punched my second tag and closed off another season.....in a snow squall for the second consecutive year.
Tale of the tape
18.8lbs
.75”x.75” spurs
7.5” beard
Well done, we got some snow here but no accumulation.
I think I am going to sleep in this week and start again in a week or so.
