After having three birds within 25 yards earlier in teh season and not being able to close the deal on any of them, I was really looking forward to one last trip to the North GA Mountains for one last try - a hunting an camping trip with friends.
One of my buddies had his son in law with him and they decided to hunt a burned ridge where they'd seen birds earlier in the season. My friend's brother in law decided to hunt a different area, so I agreed to climb a ridge we'd hunted before and scout/hunt my way back to the truck. I climbed a mountain in the dark, arriving at an open area a little before daylight. Tried to hoot one up, but didn't hear anything. The wind got up right after daylight, so i decided to hunt down the ridge and see if I could get something to respond to calls. I slipped about 300 yards, calling softly as I went, then skirted another opening in the woods on the uphill side. When I got to the other side, I clucked a few times, then ran a string of soft yelps. A bird gobbled dwon the side slope immediately below me!! I moved ownslope about 15 yards, found a good set-up tree with cover, got my gear in place, then ran another sting of yelps. Double gobble! And I was convinced he knew where I was.
For once, I remembered that these public land mountain turkeys aren't real vocal, and to keep the calling light and to a minimum. I scratched in the leaves a bit. Another gobble, this time a little closer! I let about two minutes pass, then clucked twice on my softest slate. Gobble cut me off! And he'd cut the distance in half. I dumped my calls, got my gun up and looked for the bird. In about a minute, he came into view coming up the siedslope. When he passed a tree, I snapped the gun on him and waited for him to step out. I could see he was an adult, but that's all I could tell about him. He came clear at about 30 yards and I gassed him. It was a bang flop shot - no kicking, wing flapping or chasing down the mountain.
When I got to him, he had nice spurs, thick beard, strutted off wingtips and great coloration. Wow, what a way to spend the morning - high elevation with a bird down at 7:05! Spurs were 1 1/8 on one side, 1 3/16 on the other. 16.5 lbs with a nice thick 10.5 inch beard. I'm guessing he was a three year old....We got rained out Saturday night, packed in the rain Sunday and headed home.
Elkbane
