A guide---not really, but this was definitely very cool. As some of you may know I tore the retina in my right eye about 4 weeks ago and the docs have forbidden me to shoot a gun for 6-7 months for the high risk of retinal detachment and thus blindness. As the surgen who repaired my eye said, "well Scott, do you want to hunt one more time or for the next 25 years?" Nuff said I thought! So in the recent weeks I met a new friend, husband of a co-worker who had only turkey hunted a couple times but had not experienced much action let a lone harvesting a bird. I stepped in and said why don't we try to change that. So yesterday on his new land in the southern tier of NY we set out after a long night of rain and wind to locate some birds. We had a bit of intell since he had hunted the spot last weekend and heard birds nearby.
We scouted the evening before for a few hours and located a sweet little opening in the timber and transition area from fields below the mtn. The rain continued till 6 am and we lite out fast to get set up. Sitting in the corner of the opening (35 ydfs wide and 60 yrds long) we got tucked under some thornapples I quickly set out the dec's. Without knowing who was in the area and not hearing anything and missing the roost due to the rain, I ran a mudpuppi glass pot and a torman Ipe striker with a few crisps clucks and a short sieries of yelps. After 2 minutes I ran a Mahogany over Red Cedar box I had built for Dave 2 years before, again just briefly with a few clucks and soft yelps...before I could finish and set the box down we had a loud response from no less than 100 yards. Dave's eyes blew wide open as he took his position on the dec's. Dave, this bird is closing and fast! I waited 2 minutes and ran a very short series of purrs and he cut me off at 50 yds. Now the understory is really picking up around here so we couldn't see him, but he was CLOSE. He entered the opening just as I had hoped at the far corner, a nice jake with a +-5" beard and plenty of attitude with bright red waddles. "Dave, let him get to the dec's and from there you have a green light" It only took him 15-20 seconds to reach our jake/hen setup and in his first trip around the jake, Dave lowered to BOOM...flop flop flop!!!
Well, needless to say we have one happy hunter!
