My hunting season has been great, but not without a few hiccups. Coyotes, bobcats and jakes have foiled me a few times, but Saturday was a rollercoaster ride.
My wife and I went out at 0400 to our spot. We get set up and settle in by 0430. Birds start gobbling at 0500, good so far. They fly down at 0520 and stay vocal. No action but hope is high. Intermittent gobbling but it dies out. At 0620 I look to my left and there he is, 10 feet away, lol. I tell my wife to get her gun up. She starts to look for the bird," he is right there, get the dam gun up" She does her part and wallops him. Woohoo. We get the bird and head home after pics. We take a little break and get ready to head back out. I am a detail guy so I shake my gear down. I cant find my new OG pushpin, WTH. I tear my cab and bed apart and nothing. I grab my wife and we head back to our spot, I had it picking up the decoys. Ibacktrack to the kill site and nothing. Not going to lie, I almost cried. We start back home so I can puke or have my heart attack, whichever hits first. My wife yells, " There it is" Its a hundred yards up the road on the opposite side of the road up a dirt driveway. I jump out and grab the " Yoder Holster" and open it up. It is unscathed, my heart skips a couple beats and I am not collapsing. I pull back in and say" Well we might as well go kill another bird", we both laugh. We walk back to our spot. I am putting out the jake/hen breeder pair and we hear a gobble in the woods. We get in the blind and get ready. 2 birds gobbling pretty steady but not really committing. They gobbled for over an hour until a gang of jakes moved in and they shut up. The jakes moved off and about ten minutes later I hear a gobble over the little rise to my left. I look out and the wife says " There is one in the field, no two. I cant tell what they are" I see the strutter on my left, he is a tom. I say" get ready, they are toms."They come in fast to that jake decoy and start to throttle him. I say " that bird on the right is a giant", my wife takes a deep breath and flips him right over. The strutter runs and I do a fighting purr and he almost breaks his neck coming back. I end our NH season a second later. I cant load pics right now but I will as soon as I get smarter. The most interesting one is of my wad sticking out of my jake decoys butt, lol. I couldnt pull it out, so I pushed it inside, it will remind me of this awesome day. Z
