Appreciate it. I was able to hunt Friday morning until 9:15 and again on Saturday morning. We had some storms come through thursday afternoon and heard nothing Friday morning on the roost, although at about 8:30, I did hear one way off, but wasn't able to make a move on him.
Listened at a different spot on Saturday and heard 3 different birds, all within the same vicinity. Once on the ground, it was apparent that one bird was alone and two were together. I set up on an old field edge, that has recently been planted in longleaf pines, as well as a 5 row strip of loblolly between me and the longleafs, that were about 5 feet tall. Needless to say, due to the height of the loblollies, I couldn't see the birds. I worked the birds for close to 30 minutes and at one point, I thought i pulled the birds just to the other side of the loblollies.
At this point, I had the safety off and was ready for them to come through the pines and step out into the opening, which was about 30 yds wide and a 100 yds long. I was way off on where those birds were, as they were all the way down at the end of the 100 yd stretch I was looking down.
Both birds were gobbling, with one right behind the other, pausing every now and again, searching for the hen. I couldn't tell much about the beard of the first bird, but saw the second bird had a nice one. At this point, I decided I would take whichever presented a shot first. As it turned out, the lead bird moved off to my right and once he was clear of the second bird, I took the shot. I was pleasantly surprised with his spurs when I got to him and he had just under an 8 inch beard, with a little bit of beard rot.
I had this bird on the ground by 7:30 and toon him back to the truck. As I was sitting at the truck, I heard another bird sound off, no more than 300 yds away from me. I eased down the road about 100 yds, set up and made a few calls. He answered every call, but was not coming my way. I got up and tried to circle around to where I assumed he was heading, calling every 200 yds or so, just to try and pinpoint his location. After about 800 yds, I got set up and had him about 120 yds below me. As I worked him for the next 30 or so minutes, he was responding, but not getting much closer. About 20 minutes in, I had another gobbler fast approaching from behind me and to the right...he was coming quick. Just as I was getting to the point that the second bird my show itself, a truck drives within 30 yds of the other bird, and everything went silent.
