Another day of getting screwed up. Just comical at this point…
Roosted a longbeard, 3 jakes and one hen last night. Snuck in extra early this morning and got set up well before first light. Just as the gray light is lightening the woods a bit, someone rips an owl hooter right over my left shoulder. Nothing. I strained to make out where he was but couldn’t. Hoping that he’d move on after not hearing anything, I waited but he ripped it again. Still nothing. I knew the birds were close and hoped that if he moved on that he went away from them. Didn’t hear him anymore so I settled in and heard a distant gobble once in a tree and that was it. Fast forward a bit and I see something down through the woods that looked like a turkey standing there. “Naw, that’s a stump” and I moved my eyes to the right and when I came back, it was gone. Suddenly there were turkeys moving in front of me and I could see the longbeard chasing the jakes around and the hen headed right for me. I gave some soft yelps and purrs and she closed right in. She passed me at less than 10 yards and then I saw the jakes and the big boy in tow about 70 yards out. The jakes were quite a bit in front of the tom and they followed the same path as the hen. As the longbeard got to about 50, all of a sudden this guy took his box call to task and just started hammering on it. The tom got all spooky and ended up trotting back down the woods where he came from and I never saw or heard from him again. And after he took off, I see this guy come walking in from my left, right to the spot where the gobbler was, turn and look at me for about 15 seconds and then put his arms out in a “how do you like that” gesture and then walked away…
