Been taking a bunch of birds for granted the last couple years and it resulted in me eating tag soup last year. This year, the first week I spent relearning harsh lessons about some basics I'd started to cheat on. The second week was spent getting serious and working much harder at studying old toms than I had been.
I knew when and where this bird and his compadre Tom preferred to be most days, but had never hunted pressured birds before and had no idea going into my hunts just how wary and sneaky they can be. Any movement, any sound and they were gone without a moment's hesitation or backwards glance. I could set up on a route i'd watched them use 2 days straight, but when i was there they would skirt by just a few yards out of range. I actually witnessed 2 groups of jakes running away from a single yelping sequence on my 3rd day... after spending 2 days yelping trying to locate these birds. lol I didn't find out until a week later that neighbours are often hunting nearby and even on the farm i had access too, and it was common for them to rip around on atvs until they saw birds, then jump off the atv and immediately begin calling to them. SMH
Anyways, on the day of this hunt i actually was just visiting the farm to check on my honeybees in the middle of a rainy afternoon and as i was entering the nearly kilometre long lane i noticed this guy and a hen working a fence line between fields. I didn't have faith in my ability to get set up on birds in the middle of the field, but decided to give it a try. It took me 25 mins to work around the entire farm, rear pastures, cedar woods and back to the proper field again and when i arrived at the spot i had expected the birds to work towards, the field was empty. I sat and tried soft calls for a few minutes hoping to (at best) get a response or (at worst) perhaps spook them out of hiding just so i'd know where they went. No response, no spooking.
After a few more minutes i decided to walk up the fence-line to figure out where they'd gone and could see where they'd been tearing into old tree stumps just moments before. The field was very muddy so i had been sticking close to the fence but hit a patch of really nasty thorn bushes and as one snapped out from under my boot and shot up to snag my crotch i had to stumble sideways into the field a few feet... and that's when i saw his bright red head shoot up from some weeds he'd been digging in and start turning to run/fly away. He was about 35 yards away which is the max range for my 20ga with longbeards, but i risked the shot as I knew i'd never get this close again. The cone of shot actually clipped the top of his head, not lethally, and took both wings out at the mid-joint. Had the finishing shot into him just a couple seconds later. He didn't even flap.
Beard is very close to 11 inches but i cannot get it to lie flat without having my hands on it, so 10.5" it is for the contest.
Spurs are nearly matched at half a hair shy of 1 3/16s... so... 1 11/64? lol
Edit to add: No bonus, score 100 i think.
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Originally Posted by marky.mark
