Well it finally got here !!!
Spent the day looking Sunday in anticipation of really getting after em starting Monday. I have been hunting this place for 12 or 13 years and it has always been a turkey meca !!! Seems the timber company is dead set on destroying all the habitat tirkeys need so to prosper. Been noticing a drastic change in the numbers of birds the last 3 years there. What used to out --now we struggle to find 2 birds to hunt on one trip. The timber there will not be left alone---they cut and cut and cut. Thinking about getting me a pack of beagles and going back to chase rabbits....it all the land is worth now. Nothing but saw briars and broomsag grass--so stinking thick you cannot even walk through it now. I am faced with the fact that I am going to have to find somewhere to lease land from that leaves some suitable habitat for turkeys !!!
To the hunt-Got out Monday and heard not a thing due to the waether---wind was really blowing.Spent a couple of hours in the woods and headed to the pasture to see what I could drum up there. Saw this ole bird with no intentions what so ever at love---he had him some hens andf was perfectlly content feeding across the pasture behind his little herem. Thats when his luck began to change. I took of to circle them to get ahead of them. I was picking my way through all those briars when I suddenly fely a sharp pain in my right eye....ouch!!! I was looking down sneaking and had stuck a limb into my right eye---no ---my shooting eye. It hurt like #$%%!!!!! I got my composure and took off again.
Got set up and pulled this new call =---think they call it a FIDDLE CALL made of butternut and Macassar out of my pouch and waited on the hens to get a little closer-they were @ 150 yards or so in the pasture.. Started the box up and all birds checked up immediatlly like they had been commanded to listen to this box. The old hen started in on me and that Fiddle awnsered with a little more attitude than the hen showed. It went back and forth 4 times I think , and here she came---on a string. Guess what followed.
I could see the beard and knew he was a keeper , got him ground checked and boy he had a sharp set of spur to go with a real thick beard. The ole bird had 11.75 inch beard and 1 5/16 inch spurs and was a whopping 24 pounder.There is another gobbler somewhere in that area that his love life just took a dramatic turn for the better !!!!
Marlin----I sure like the way that Fiddle comamnded that hens attention----thanks for the great call !!!!
