Handcrafted Wing

[drabndouble]

The gobbler that wing came from was roosting alone the last time he roosted . His local competition and no doubt the dominant bird were roosted across a wide shallow holler from the lonesome bird . The boss and a few jakes were gobbling hard on the roost . I got into my set up and waited for them to pitch out .  All went quiet and I made a faint series of yelps on a scratchbox . Shortly after that I made some more on another call that at this moment I can't recall which one it was . The dominant bird was now gobbling in fury again and had evidently intimidated the youngsters because there was nothing to be heard from them . He came about halfway from his roost tree to my position , which put him about 100-125 yards from me .  I could not see him but could tell by his non-stop gobbling that he was moving back and forth on a low gulley ridge . About this time I used a wing to rake and scratch . Right after that I heard heavy wingbeats from up the ridge which I sat on . This bird hadn't made one peep . Now all my calls were on the ground and I was determined to wait silently . The gobbling bird was still gobbling good . Then I caught movement to my left . Here comes this gobbler . Feathers folded tight and head high , sneakin' 'n' lookin'.  The gobbling bird was still gobbling when the sneaker bird gave up the ghost . It was twelve or fifteen yards , again my memory fails me . Suppose I could check my journal  .

[Blackfalcon]

Cool story Mark, reminds me of one time I had my son sitting about 40 yards in front of me. He was about 12, so I was calling for him. He had 4 toms, at least one strutter come in directly in front of him, but couldn't get a shot due to some bushes in his way. I caught movement to my left, and it was a nice tom working in towards the other birds. He had come in behind me and was circling left towards the birds my son was watching. When the other birds saw this gobbler, they started running,, away from my son, and he thought they had somehow busted him. He never saw the gobbler, apparently the dominant bird as it came in behind him and on his left flank,his attention was on the birds he could see. He stood up to walk back to me, and the bird flew, finally he saw it,lol. We both learned something that day!

[shad309]

Sweet!!! The story makes this that much better 

[drabndouble]

Blackfalcon , I've been known to do just what your son did ,,,all by my lonesome ,,more than once too.