multibeard
06-01-2002, 08:16 AM
How sweet it was to sleep in this morning!!!! I feel blessed to have been able to put a turkey in the freezer for Thanksgiving. With more than 20 years of chasing these great birds, this will go down as the most unusual season I have experianced. I start scouting almost daily before work the middle of April. I hunt season 234 now as I want more time to hunt and not be pressured by a short season. This year if I heard more than one bird gobble from the roost it was an unusual day. I have to agree that the population is down quite drastically. I hope that the DNR rethinks the plans for the fall hunt in area K--------I was lucky enough to fill my tag on May 24th. It wasn't a standard call-um up type hunt. There were three toms in this woods at the start of hunt 234. I didn't hunt them as I wanted to leave them for my son as he only had a couple days to hunt and i was the only one with permission to hunt the property. WE ended up getting under the hens when we hunted them and messed up that hunt. Only two toms were left.-------On the 24th I went into the woods in the pitch dark and set up on the road that the toms had been strutting on. The lone tom finally started gobbling on his own. I softly tree talked him a couple times and he flew down at about 60 yards and continued to gobble. I softly stepped up the tempo and the next time he was leaving town. I figured that he was heading for the cherry orchard on the edge of the woods to strut so I made a frantic 300 yard scramble to cut him off. I was about 10 yards short of winning the race as I didn't make it to the edge of the orchard before He got to that end gobbling all the way. He stood and gobbled at 30 yards but I couldn't see him because of a beech limb. I softly purred at him and when he came into the open he was leaving dodge. The old 835 reached out and stopped his exodus. He was the first book bird I have been able to harvest since the early 1990's. 10 3/4 in beard, 1 inch spurs and 20 lbs. The good Lord blessed me.