I missed 2 ½ days of work a couple weeks ago and 4 days last week, along with a doctor visit and chest xrays. I've had cough medicine, antibiotics for good measure, and more cough drops, Ibuprofen, and Tylenol than is probably considered healthy for a man to take in the last week. In short.......I felt bad a couple weeks ago, terrible last week, and like I'm running on half a tank right now.
However, I was bound and determined that I'd make it out to hunt during the opening weekend with my youngest son Boyd. We didn't draw a local tag, so a 3 hour drive was required to hunt. I couldn't get us to the woods until Saturday evening by which time the wind had picked up from the beautiful opening morning we had missed. No birds heard except a lonely hen that came in yelping her head off at me. We did get a couple birds to gobble on the roost that night, but by Sunday morning a light rain, cooler temperatures, and wind had them zipped up quiet. Again, we called in single hens at two of our set ups and Boyd heard one distant gobble that I never heard.
The weather cleared up and turned off nice about the time we had to hit the road to make it three hours back home for Boyd's soccer game. To add insult to injury as we topped a hill that left the public land we were hunting, I spotted a Merriam's blown up in full strut with three hens and one sidekick tom in the timber just off the side of the road. Any strutting tom is a beautiful sight, but a strutting Merriam's with all that stark white against green ponderosa is a true sight to behold.
One missed opportunity that we had was videoing the antics of the last hen that came in to about 5 yards yelping her head off. I had left the video camera in the truck due to the early morning rain, but wish I had it with me when the hen put on a show. We were hoping that she had a companion following, but that wasn't the case. She finally passed us by but only made it 40 yards downhill from us and continued to yelp, cluck, and purr while looking for the hen that she'd heard. I went ahead and yelped at her some more and was surprised to see her go into strut. I've seen other video and photos but had never had one do that. Every time I'd yelp at her, she'd go back into full blown strut; tail fanned out, dragging her wings, and tucking that tiny hen head into her feathers before relaxing back into a half strut pose. She did it for 15 minutes with no sign of leaving until we decided we had to go and stood up.
4-9-16 Sunset
