Had the pleasure of a friend Paul Rouse from the Chesapeake Bay area in Maryland to share some of my woods with me the last three days. Paul has never hunted mountain birds and I feel he has gained stronger legs for the remainder of his Maryland season now..hahaha. We hunted all day every day and Paul was in the fight every day as we were in turkeys. The second day hunt is one neither of us will ever forget I know. We snuck in on this bird on the roost, he began and we sat down before light, and the game began. At one time we actually had birds behind us and in front of us gobbeling. There was one particular gobbler that circled us 4 times, coming into range 2 time but never offering a shot. This bird gobbled a minimum of over 400 times and the hunt lasted a unbelievable 7 1/2 hours. The bird was never further than 150-200 yds from us and never shut up. Although we only moved on him one time about 80 yds--we ended up almost in the same place we began the chess match. In my 35 years of turkey hunting, I cannot ever recall keeping a gobblers attention that long. This bird finally got close enough as his drumming on the final approach had Paul ready for the shot. Although we hadn't physically chased him, we were both exhausted when the ole mountain monarch finally hit the ground. We had such a pile of calls on the ground I hope we didn't loose any. They included Twisting Creek box, Ghostmaker double pot, Glenn Marrer slate, a Steve Lumma trumpet, Joe Slaton mouth call, and Lonnie Sneeds green glass and Tub soft talker. Paul it was a pleasure sharing the mountains with you and you are the luckiest hunter I have spent time with---congrats on the great hunt !!!
bird one:
bird two :
bird three :
