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Beard in the dirt!

Bigslam51

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Stark County
 

Jackalope

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It was I. Alex and I went out this morning to a spot we scouted the Saturday before season and heard 4-5 birds. We hunted it Monday and Wednesday and set up 50 yards north of a bird only to have him pitch off the roost and work to the southwest. We only heard one other bird in there Wednesday about 150 yards west of us but due to our scouting we knew there were others.

The plan this morning was to slip under the birds on the roost and setup more on the hillside to their southwest where they want to go. As we slipped through the woods at 5:15 we skylighted a few birds in the trees and got set up on them. I wanted to cut off the exit in case a hen tried to pull them away hard west after hitting the ground so I moved about 60 yards to Alexs left to cover more ground. No sense in two guns covering the same 50 yards.

One bird to the East was hammering where we setup Wednesday that we determined was a satellite jake. Another bird 50 yards in front of us was fired up and another close to him only gobbled once on the roost. They all pitched to the same spot about 15 yards to my 2 o'clock and 40 yards to Alexs 10 o'clock.

Unfortunately, they all landed over a little rise and all I could see was heads, I couldn't see beards and they wouldn't strut. They dipped below the rise and started to work away from us heading west. I didn't know it but three jakes had beat feet over to alex using the rise and out of my vision. I caught movement in front of me and it was just a head bee-bopping along and moving to my left. Come to find out later it was one of the jakes leaving Alexs decoy. I watched him until he lead me to the other birds. They were about 40 yards away to my 10 oclock downhill and behind a log between some trees. I could see two heads milling around and the occasional momentary strut. I got the gun up but couldn't tell which head was the tom as I couldn't see a beard. A couple times I thought I had him after identifying his full fan but as soon as he would come out of strut I would lose which head was his. On the last strut he stopped doing 8s and while facing me came out of strut and stuck that snoodle up high. The cannon barked and everything disappeared. I then heard the flopping and ran down to give him the old head stomp.