Well--the most favorite hunt each year has come and gone. This year found the gobblers hammering on the roost--hitting the ground and slap shutting up. Ya never knew what happened they got so quiet. Usually this place has birds co operating all day long. If ya played it slow, they were cranking back up for a while around 10 to 11 am. Made for long hours in quiet woods. The first bird my 3rd day of the hunt fell to 2 simple tree calls, he flew down and marched right in just like the book says they will do ...but seldom really do. The second bird was the result of staying vigil in familiar woods where I had confidence. Was sitting there rotating a box of mine, a Jenkins pot and Gary Anderson pot and a trumpet from Fetters. Finally after sitting there quietly a while, I heard a hen cluck behind me in a swamp grass field. I grabbed Andersons ceramic pot and clucked back--she circled me and drug the second gobbler in with her. It was a fun hunt nonetheless in a place that is sacered to me. The real adventure begain that evening when I took the 2 carcasses to the "boneyard" back in the woods. It was 6 or a little after when I threw out the cleaned birds, and began my trip back to the camp house. I felt my vehicle slow down and realized I was about to get stuck. I stopped and locked in 4wd...to realize my tires broke thought the swamp graa and I was on black muck---my tires spuns and I wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't get out and only went deeper fast. I had to call for help. The calvery showed up about 45 minutes later with chain in tow---only for him to get stuck worse than I was. It was evident a truck wasn't going to pull us out---it was going to take a 4wd tractor. We had the choice of a LONG walk of call someone else for rescue. The call was made and reinforcements were on the way to pick one of us up back in the wood.....and go to bring the big tractor back to the charade we created. Well, I stayed at the vehicle, and the men left. Should have took them an hour and a half or so to return. It was getting dark and I kept smelling something so I noticed a strange piled up mound of swamp grass...went to investigate it--to find I was stuck 15 yds from a smoking hot fresh Panther kill of a small hog. The men arrived at the big tractor which was just serviced and returned(only 40 hrs on it) cranked it up, and began the miles of hwy 70 to get to the property --they only made it 2 miles when the engine seized up from the dealership failing to put any oil in it when they did its first service. It was dead and totally seized---blown engine......
. They had to resort to a 2wd tractor and finally returned to me sitting in the truck waiting on the cat to come finish its hog to find me there. It was 11;30 before they finally got back to me --and no, I wasn't about to walk out of that area after seeing that fresh kill. We had the 2wd stuck 2 times trying to get my truck out, but finally managed to free all vehicles and get back to camp after midnight---it was quite and adventure after the hunt was over.
