I took off for one last trip for the last weekend. A buddy an I had 3 tags between us and 2 days to fill them.
We arrived in the area we wanted to start in before light and found birds in the trees. But no joy the real hens were more alluring. The world went quite after flydown and we struggled to find birds. Around noon we found some in a field and eventually got permission to try for them. A couple hrs later when we got back to where we had seen them they were gone. While trying to find them in the timber behind the field, a couple birds on the other side of the valley were going nuts. We thought maybe the birds we were looking for had moved over there, we were hoping we could call them back...about this time one popped in the trees below us and quickly came in gobbling. Boom bird #1
Buddys 1st
Meanwhile the birds across the valley never shut up so we went looking for the landowner. We stopped at an obvious house on the property, but were told: they just rented, the landowner had told them no hunting, but if we wanted to ask they lived across the creek down below this house. So we drove down the driveway to a closed gate, with no trespassing/no hunting signs on it. I said what the heck lets go get yelled at. So we went through the gate and drove down the driveway through another gate, and stopped at some hot tape blocking the driveway to the house. As I got out of the truck I could see a woman standing back in the shadows kinda glaring at us. At this point, I was really thinking this was a bad idea....and the feeling got worse when I got out and 15 feet from the porch was a bird feeder with a hen calmly feeding about 10 feet from us plus a half doz hummingbird feeders being swarmed by hummers.... What the heck, I gave my speal and got a "wweeeellllll, you know what?...........we kinda have to many around, so maybe taking a few out would be a good idea" YEA BABY!!!! She said she only owned half the property, and pointed us to her brothers place up the rd, who owned the other half of the ranch. He also let us on. We drove up the rd about 3/4 of a mile past his place and went up a hill to some fields where we had heard the birds and as soon as we peaked into the field I spotted 2 strutters about 100yds away under a big pine. I moved to a little better position "setup"....layed prone in the grass and called. Both toms lit up and a hen started cutting like crazy. So I started cutting and cackling and all three started coming. They were hot, hot, hot! every call got a double response.... the hen didn't seem very happy the toms were leaving her and kept up a steady stream of ticked off cutting. I guess I sounded more slutty as they came straight for me without missing a step. A pull of the trigger on the 20ga and I was out of tags in MT. I have gotta say Im luvin the 20 with hevi weight 7s, cant wait to try tss 9s. I also have to say Im embarrassed this bird dropped without a twitch at over 60yds. I was laying prone in the grass and could only see two heads and the occasional fan. Thought it was a much closer, Thank god for a couple magic BBs. My buddy was pretty impressed and asked if he could try it on his last bird.
Day 2 we went to the spot where on Sat morn we worked birds without success. Worked better Sun. Started with some reluctant gobbles from the trees. We moved in tight and set up. As it got light gobbling picked up and we could tell there were at least three popping within 100yds of us. We also had some hens too. I was trying to get the toms super fired up an have them bail out and come to us befor the hens bailed out...they did but wouldn't come all the way. Then the hens got fired up so I started cranking out the cuts and kee kees they came right to us or as far as they could. Turned out we had an irrigation ditch about 60yds in front of us and they came right to that milled around for a few and wandered over the hill. My buddy made the crawl forward motion???? I nodded and he moved up 20 yds and peeked up. 20yds with the 20
Buddys 2nd
All in all 2017 was a great year. I filled 5 tags in MT with quality birds and I got to participate in 10 other successful MT hunts with family and friends. Cant wait to do it all over next spring
