May 6, 2006

Well, I spent my first full weekend chasing turkey's in Cobleskill this past weekend. It was fun, as always, but not very successful. Saturday was a perfect morning, low 40's at sunrise and overcast, with a rain storm in the forecast. I took Dad over to the corners where I had tangled with that big longbeard off the roost opening day. Hoping he still had the same pattern, I setup where I saw him last, hoping that he would eventually get there if he wasn't there already. Well, as soon as we got to the spot where we had to be real sneaky and get setup within 30 or so yards, I stopped to tell my dad that I had called this bird in right where we were standing. As soon as we stopped I heard a distant gobble, 5:08am. I knew right away it was the same bird. This is the first time that I have ever really been able to differentiate between specific birds. Sure, I've heard birds in the same roost and known that it was the same bird as before, but this bird has a distinct gobble. Don't all true trophy's have something characteristic about them that keeps you chasing? That bird gobbled his head off on the roost, but I was afraid to move, so we snuck the final 25yds or so into the position I wanted to be, just in case another bird had utilized the same roost as he did last Monday. It wasn't flydown time yet, but I had a good feeling that there were no birds in front of us that day, so I did the obligatory "pssst" and the quick flick of the hand and we were off! It wasn't really that distant, as we came up on an open section of hard maples, I realized the bird was only about 125yds from us, and I didn't want to risk getting caught in the middle of that as it was getting pretty light out. We set up and I put out a decoy. That bird gobbled and gobbled, just like they all are supposed to. He flew down and continued to gobble at my calls as well as the crows and the hens that I am sure were with him. He eventually stopped anwering most of my calls, only responding to a hoot or a crow call. I tried to move in on him, because it sounded like he was stutting away from us, then coming back, and leaving, and coming back. I figured if I kept moving up on him, and using only locator calls, I would eventually break the threshold and be in his stutting zone, and that first call I made would turn him inside out. Well, I kept after him until I made one more move, and ended up on some state land. He shut up after that, and I never heard him again. I made it back to the truck just as the rain started at about 7:30 and drove up to where the state land meets the road. There was a truck from Mass. parked directly above where I last heard that bird gobble. I never heard a shot, so I hope the bird just shut up, or maybe that guy walked in and spooked him. That wouldn't be that good, but at least he would be alive still. That truck was parked there for the better part of the morning, as I stopped back around 10:30 to try a mid morning assault on the big guy. I never entered the woods, I didn't want to step on that guys toes, and I didn't want to pressure that bird any more than I had earlier. Bill Lang took Aaron Haig up to my Beard's Hollow spots and they heard multiple birds but couldn't really get anything to give them a good look, except one bird up behind the big field and that bird got close and then shut up, maybe spooked somehow, they aren't sure.