it was time to take care of business. Partially my fault as I was on auto pilot when giving the advice to my neice. Let me pain the picture:
Got there a little later than I'd liked. She had some trouble finding all the stuff she needed to go this morning. I had to improvise some to get the ball rolling a little faster. We get to the location my buddy said they'd be and waited for it to break a bit more. I'd have liked to have been down on the next flat but in the end, it really worked out best that we arrived too late to do that. we stood atop the hill listening and I'd hooted a couple times knowing it was maybe a tad early to get one going. However, when I finally felt they should have been gobbling, they were tight lipped which had my mind running through other possible scenarios. I told her we'd give one more hoot and if nothing happened, we'd just work our way out to another vantage point where I figured we'd hear a bird or two. With that next hoot, three birds fired back. One was close. Too close to even consider going down on the flat I'd mentioned above so again, it was a good thing we didn't get that close. We dropped down the hill a bit and got set up. Once set up, I grabbed my Yingling Crystal and aluminum, laid out my SS box and grabbed a diaphragm for closing the deal. Used the crystal to do some soft purrs, clucks and yelps. Birds responded so we waited a while before repeating. Once the seemed anxious enough, I used the SS for a fly down cackle and some louder yelps. Laid it back down and went to the pot calls again. They really dug the crystal but ended up in the clearing and strutted their wing feathers off. Slipped the aluminum into my hand and did some soft purrs as well as some leaf scratching. The birds came down the clearing and I expected them to come up the gas line behind us. Told her to swing the gun around and wait. They the. Cut back the other way and started coming toward us. Literally straight at us. This was not good as I'd set her in a position to block the downhill side expecting them to come through the woods in front of us. Thought it was over before she even got to see them. They started swinging back the the original direction I'd intended them to come from but she still couldn't see them. I'm not joking, they were 4 steps away before she could see them. Spitting, drumming, gobbling and the whole show. Not going to lie, I've never let one get this close. Not sure who was more excited at that point but I made the fatal mistake of telling her to shoot it in the head. She shot and immediately I started cutting to see if they'd slow down. She turns and says out loud, "did I get it? This thing doesn't kick at all." I told her no and that's great because they were still standing there at 20 yards. Shoot again. She does and we both feel it this time. She said it kicked a little bit but I'm betting it was nothing compared to how fast that empty hull came screaming at the side of my head. Missed again. We took it all in for a bit as they went on about their way and apstarted gobbling down the hill a ways. We regrouped again on some others and had them coming until some hens pulled them away. She had fun. I had fun. All-in-all, it was a good morning.
