John & Fred

Day one- found us setting up with in a 100 yd. of two roosted gobblers. A couple tree yelps and they gobbled their heads off.  at fly down, we heard more than two bird fly down.  OH NO!!! Yep hens.  the hens proceeded to pull the gobblers up the hill away from us. we regrouped and decided to explore a logging road. we would call every hundred yards. About a quarter mile from where we started, I struck up another gobbler.  he was hot, gobbling to every call I sent to him. He slowly moved toward us.  after ten minutes of calling he started to wander away from us.  we managed to get a sighting of him at about 80 yard away. but he had another route in mind. In the afternoon we set up in two different meadows. John S. on one side of the hill and Fred on the other.  Fred, had a hen come into his decoy. It hung around for about two hour, but no boss tom to be seen.

Day Two- John S. set up on the roost from the morning before. While Fred and I proceeded to power walk to another vocal gobbler.  Fred and I set up again about a hundred yards from the bird.  He gobbled to my tree yelps, so I did not call again.  At Fly down, the gobbler sailed down from his tree to a clearing just out of our site.  I purred and yelped just enough to let him know we were there.  Then I heard the hen start their song as well.  We moved four time to get closer to the gobbler, but he had to many hen to contend with.  we worked our way back to the spot where we had struck the mid-morning gobbler the day before.  Sure enough he was back. We set up and proceeded to call.  Mean while John S had also heard him. I could hear where John S was by his calling.  I kept the gobbler talking while John worked closer to the bird. Some where in the process John S bump another gobbler that must have been sneaking in on us.  Game over.  John S followed the bird across a highway and got into two more bird, but not luck.  That evening we made set across the road in likely spots. No Action, just fresh air and a great evening.

Day Three- John S started across the road with the plan of joining us at our usual parking spot. Mean while Fred and I found a bird about a eighth of a mile away for the truck.  We set up again on him only to have his hen lure him away from us.   We then setup in various meadow in the area.  At about 11:00 am, the action happened. We were just calling every five minute at the last location for the morning. when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a red head running directly at our location. I had hoped Fred had seen it too.  The report to the shot gun blast had confirmed that he had seen the bird.  He jokingly said afterward that he had shot in self defense of the on coming bird. There were four toms coming at us at once. Then there was a second report of a shot gun. It wasn't us, we had hoped that it was John S. It had been, but the shot was rushed and no bird was had.