Larry A. Smail's Blog

Yesterday, I moved to an area to listen for gobblers. The area is very difficult to hunt because  a roosting gobbler can see all around the open woods. Why this would be is due to the fact two small woodlots are divided by a right-a-way. The right-a-way yields to waist high grass. I have never been able to call a gobbler from one side of right-a-way to the other. Once daylight is on it is nearly impossible to sneak into the opposite woodlot.

I heard the first gobble at 5:28 A.M. and began moving to locate the bird. Eventually I was to about 70 yards, but the gobbler was on the other side. Should I try to sneak across? I decided to play the hand dealt this morning. I sat for three hours and the gobbler gobbled on and off during this time. After a pause in gobbling I called again and heard a distant tom sounding off. I assumed the gobbler was down from the roost and had moved away.

(I spooked a hen from the roost in the darker moments and later called her back in to me. I literally had to stand up to chase her away.)

Black and white pic.

  I went across the right-a-way and heard an answer down over the hill’s side along the reclaimed strip job. I set up and called and the gobbling seemed to get farther away. I stood up to move again and the sounds of wing beats exploded to my right. The gobbler was still in the tree. The gobblers below were jakes! I saw three. Had I not have heard that distant gobbler I would have stayed in place longer. Oh well I screwed up again. I know where I would be the next morning.

I went to another area about 10:30 and worked a bird for about an hour. I don’t what happened in this hunt, but he seemed to lose all interest.

This morning I left the jeep at 4:40 and arrived behind where the gobbler had roosted yesterday by 5:10. A quick mile long hike, but I made the jaunt in time. I heard a Barred Owl hooting off in the distance. The Bullfrogs were singling joyfully and a Whip-O-Will enjoyed the coolness of the pre-dawn day.

A far off gobbler to my right began gobbling. One began to gobble far off to my left. I was wondering if either of these birds were the gobbler from yesterday.  Suddenly he gobbled exactly where he had been at the previous morning. He may have been  less than a hundred yards from me. It felt good. I clucked and cutted some. I did only clucks as the morning progressed.

After  a time of silence he gobbled again and I could tell the big guy was down from the roost. My shotgun was leveled as I waited and watched. Finally after fifteen minutes I saw the gobbler and the thirty yard shot was true.

Jack-In the-Pulpit (Indian Turnip)

The gobbler weighed twenty pounds. He sported a ten and a half inch beard and each spur was one and an eighth inches long.

On the drive home I saw two hens being followed by three Jakes.