jmoose
PMA Member
My brother and I have been hunting hard all season and have had some great hunts! We started in Kansas with some great friends and all 5 of us were able to tag out. I managed to tag one with my bow here in Iowa earlier this season and after a bunch of close encounters, with no shots fired, Joel filled his 3rd season gun tag a couple days later.
Then 4th season started and all of a sudden a couple of our "honey holes" went dead. I'm talking about spots where we would hear up to a dozen gobblers every morning, now were completely silent! We only had one place we were seeing/hearing birds on a consistent basis. Two big gobblers were roosted in there every night. It's a small property (about 20 acres). The major problem we've had with that place is the birds don't seem to roost in the same spot every night. Half of the time they roost on our property, but they don't hang around very long...they fly down and head directly for an open field on the neighboring property. The other half of the time, they roost on the neighboring property and stand in the field gobbling at every sound, but not moving. The neighbor doesn't allow any hunting, period. We've tried setting up right on the fence line in hopes of intercepting these birds on their way to the neighbor's. We've tried aggressive calling, very little calling, no calling, jake and hen decoys, full strut decoy, just a hen decoy, no decoys, etc. Three or four hunts here with nothing but frustration, but like I said earlier...this was one of the few places we were actually seeing birds still, so we kept at it.
Fast forward to this morning. Joel couldn't hunt, but I decided to go anyway. I went in a little further than usual in hopes that the birds were roosted on our property and I could be right where they would fly down. I put out a jake and 2 hen dekes, found a good tree and sat down. A few minutes later an owl hooted and 2 birds sounded off...CLOSE! One was roosted about 70 yards to my right and the other about the same distance to my left. The birds continued to gobble off and on and as it got lighter, I could see the one to my right in the tree. It continued to grow lighter and I was just watching that bird strut and gobble in the tree when all of a sudden I hear wing beats and crashing and the other gobbler lands right in my decoys!! He went into full strut and I swung my gun up. BOOM!! He flops 80 yards down the ravine and into the creek. I looked at my phone to check the time (to be perfectly honest, I wasn't even 100% sure if it was legal shooting time yet because it was so early and happened so fast!) 5:33...legal...good! I smiled ear to ear as I walked down the hill to the creek and retrieved my soaking wet trophy! I never even touched my calls. What caused that bird to fly down so early, let alone land right in front of me, I'll never know, but I'd rather be lucky than good any day!
I wish Joel could have been there with me, but hopefully I'll still get to watch him drop the hammer on my bird's buddy yet this year! Then up to Wisconsin for one last hunt this year!
My 4th season bird:
24 lbs
10 1/8" beard
1 1/4" spurs
Then 4th season started and all of a sudden a couple of our "honey holes" went dead. I'm talking about spots where we would hear up to a dozen gobblers every morning, now were completely silent! We only had one place we were seeing/hearing birds on a consistent basis. Two big gobblers were roosted in there every night. It's a small property (about 20 acres). The major problem we've had with that place is the birds don't seem to roost in the same spot every night. Half of the time they roost on our property, but they don't hang around very long...they fly down and head directly for an open field on the neighboring property. The other half of the time, they roost on the neighboring property and stand in the field gobbling at every sound, but not moving. The neighbor doesn't allow any hunting, period. We've tried setting up right on the fence line in hopes of intercepting these birds on their way to the neighbor's. We've tried aggressive calling, very little calling, no calling, jake and hen decoys, full strut decoy, just a hen decoy, no decoys, etc. Three or four hunts here with nothing but frustration, but like I said earlier...this was one of the few places we were actually seeing birds still, so we kept at it.
Fast forward to this morning. Joel couldn't hunt, but I decided to go anyway. I went in a little further than usual in hopes that the birds were roosted on our property and I could be right where they would fly down. I put out a jake and 2 hen dekes, found a good tree and sat down. A few minutes later an owl hooted and 2 birds sounded off...CLOSE! One was roosted about 70 yards to my right and the other about the same distance to my left. The birds continued to gobble off and on and as it got lighter, I could see the one to my right in the tree. It continued to grow lighter and I was just watching that bird strut and gobble in the tree when all of a sudden I hear wing beats and crashing and the other gobbler lands right in my decoys!! He went into full strut and I swung my gun up. BOOM!! He flops 80 yards down the ravine and into the creek. I looked at my phone to check the time (to be perfectly honest, I wasn't even 100% sure if it was legal shooting time yet because it was so early and happened so fast!) 5:33...legal...good! I smiled ear to ear as I walked down the hill to the creek and retrieved my soaking wet trophy! I never even touched my calls. What caused that bird to fly down so early, let alone land right in front of me, I'll never know, but I'd rather be lucky than good any day!
I wish Joel could have been there with me, but hopefully I'll still get to watch him drop the hammer on my bird's buddy yet this year! Then up to Wisconsin for one last hunt this year!
My 4th season bird:
24 lbs
10 1/8" beard
1 1/4" spurs
