THA4
A Few Steps Ahead Of You
Well, as with most Thomas Allen stories, this one has a little drama and some history needs to be shared…. Being able to live near where I hunt has allowed me to scout hard; I have been getting up at 5 AM for the past 8 days in a row hoping to build a solid plan based on the patterns I had been observing.
We had been watching this very overlooked small group of gobbies and felt like opening morning would be a piece of cake. There were three 2 year old long beards that did everything together; a double should be as easy as shooting one. We affectionately named them the 3 Amigos. All of them roosted in the same tree with the occasional 4th bird, but every morning they flew down in the same place and chased the same jake away from their harem and our plan appeared seamless.
We met at 4:30 AM hoping to be extra early as we were planning on setting up around 60 yards from their roost tree. We got the Matrix put up without spooking any of the birds and I put Pretty Boy at about 6 yards as I didn’t want to risk spooking them by walking out across an open field either….
They started gobbling early and were showing signs of getting antsy I assume because they saw the “Terrible T Strutter” already on the ground with one of their ladies. We knew it was going to be close to legal shooting time, but we still couldn’t see our sights…. Finally the first bird hit the ground and began heading right at Pretty Boy, we had 5 minutes until legal shooting time and we were praying he would hang around. This bird was not a part of the notorious Three Amigos, we was simply a straggler.
The Three Amigos jumped down and landed about 80 yards from our set up and began heading straight at us. 2 minutes to go, and 6:18 finally came and we were ready, so we thought…. We were having a hard time seeing our sights, but we figured we would improvise. All 4 turks made it to Pretty Boy, but were getting kinda nervous as we had our barrels poking out the window trying to find the right shot. They started doing their periscope thing and we counted down. Jeremy was shooting a muzzleloader and smoke covered our vision…. But it was evident we had missed, at a mere 6 yards…. That hurt
After a bunch of swearing, we wiped up what was left of our egos and decided to leave and look for more active turks. We had several great hunts before noon, on birds every time, and a few close calls, but no dead birds. We ran back to town, had lunch and headed right back out for a long sit.
We knew of a place where nearly a dozen longbeards were frequenting and we decided to put out the Matrix and Pretty Boy and sit till dark. We were set up by 1:00 and ready for a nap. In fact, Jeremy and I traded taking naps. 2.5hours later and shortly after a calling sequence I looked up and saw 2 white heads advancing quickly.
They got to the decoys and kinda acted skittish, so we counted down and the result was nothing short of redemption! I love it when a plan comes together and we were extremely blessed to have two double opportunities in the same day!
Thanks Jeremy!! Great times!!!!!
Both birds were virtually carbon copies of each other, 22 lbs, 8 inch beards, 5/8 & 3/4 Spurs,
Here is Jeremy's Bird
Here's mine
I love Double Shots.....
Good Luck to those with tags yet!!!!
:way:
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