Round Two!

Good evening!

I hope this blog finds you in a warm place!

Well let’s get to it! Toady was the second day of Spring Wild Turkey season here in the beautiful state of Virginia. It has been cool or down right cold all spring! On top of that, we have been blessed with a lot of wet “dreary days. “Dreary” is a term my Dear late Grandmother use to use to describe a day like today!

Back to the turkey story.....Bobby and I actually got started with today’s hunt late Sunday afternoon. We drove down to Halifax County in the late afternoon with the hopes of “putting a turkey to bed”. The purpose of such an exercise is to know with in a few hundred yards if a Tom turkey has roosted in the area to increase the chances of hearing and seeing a Gobbler the next day. Male turkeys have the distinct habit of gobbling up in the tree just after roosting; this enables us, the hunter’s slight advantage the next morning!

Well Sunday night we were blessed to hear two or three birds sounding off just before dark! We hastily set up Bobby’s portable blind for the next mornings hunt with great hope of success!

Once again 4:00 am came and I downed my fake rice crispies and quickly got dressed and Bobby and I headed south to Halifax County. We had anticipated a clear morning but the clouds and cool weather had already moved in. We arrived at the farm we scouted the night before only to find a man in a truck near the entrance to our farm. Strike one!

He informed us that he would be hunting the adjacent farm and from what he said it sounded like he might as well come and sit in my lap!

Well Bobby, always the optimistic one said, come on he’s not going to mess up my hunt, so off we went! We gathered up our gear and set off to our new “honey hole!”

It was breaking day light and we had just barely enough time to set out B – Mobile ( with his new “10 beard”) and henny penny and my two feather light decoys.

Bobby climbed into his blind” and I moved quietly into my pre determined place closer to the barb wired fence and the hardwoods next to the field where we had our decoy’s set up.

Daylight came quickly but it wasn’t the bright daylight we had hoped for, it was that dreary thing that we talked about earlier. Strike two; not prime conditions for Tom Turkeys to Gobble on the roost!

Well once again we waited and waited to hear that wonderful sound of a long beard gobbling his presence to the awakening world!

It was 7:AM and I hadn’t heard a peep and this time I knew the Toms were their!

All of a sudden I hear the most awful imitation of a barred owl that can be uttered by a human being! It was our buddy next door trying to entice a Tom to Gobble. Strike three, I thought! Not only that, he was headed in the direction of where we had located the birds the night before! What else could happen?

It was heading on to 7:30 Am a good hour after daylight and we hadn’t heard a bird.

So what did I do? I quietly went to my father in Heaven again and asked for a little help!

A few minutes went by and Tarzan of the jungle faded away and Bobby and I tried some of our best turkey calls to see if we could get anything,and I mean anything to happen!

Way off I heard that beautiful sound....Gobble Gobble Gobble . It was a Tom and he was showing a little interest! Well,we persisted in our serenade and then to our delight we heard another bird and he was closer. Then we heard two jakes (young Toms) sounding off too! It was turkey hunting heaven on earth!

Then way across the field another Tom sounded off and he had a little more respectable gobble than the others.

Now , please excuse me but this next part of the story is a little “hear say” because I could not see the bird from my position. My hunting partner for over 36 years tells me that all of a sudden the huge Tom appeared across the field. He was strutting and gobbling, spinning, putting on a real show,kinda easing up the field toward the decoys and the turkey calls that we were expertly “putting down”. If there is an “American Turkey idol” we would have stole the show! Well the old Tom suddenly noticed a couple of gentlemen escorting the ladies,old b mobile and my Jake decoy!

He started running up the field and just as he stopped and spun around about 25 yards from Bobby’s blind I heard another shot go off!

Well this time we have a little different ending, Bobby and I had fooled a twenty, two pound “hammer Tom” into a deadly love triangle and Bobby had made the perfect shot!

Once again our Heavenly Father had blessed his two sons with a hunt that we will never forget!

That’s all for tonight! We will try again Thursday! Till then , as always, I hope this blog finds you and yours “Just right”!