I have a very good friend that finally smoked his first bird last year as I called for him. This was many birds and a miss or 2 later. I often teased him about nuttin up at the moment of truth and forgetting to lay his head on the barrel everytime he missed. I also loved to throw the fact of only 1 miss in my entire turkey career of 16 years or so. Well fast forward to this year. several longbeards called in, a few hung up and 2 flew off after I scared them silly with a boom. The first bird was a midday gobbler who answered my calls and came running to the pan. I jumped the gun and shot before I should have, I was afraid he was going to leave at the sight of the dekes. This past Sunday I had a couple hours before church so I ran over to a WMA and boom he was gobbling in the dark. After 3 hours of calling, crawling and getting inside his wide open strut zone. I ease up against a tree and lightly yelp...there he is. He peaked over the ridge looking for a hen and was leaving. Boom, flapping wings and there he goes. 1 miss since I was 14 and now 2 misses in 3 weeks. Lady Karma is leading the dance and my buddy is the DJ. Ain't it fun though.
If it was easy, everyone would do it. Sounds like you go the right attitude bud, enjoy the hokey pokey bud.:d
The last 2 deer seasons.. I went into both 2007 and 2008 with a cocky attitude towards that first poor doe that would cross paths with me on Wisconsin public ground. Low and behold.. I cleanly missed both those doe's.:d And still laugh at myself everyday I think about it. (Sorry for the double post.. I noticed roostery is now been dubbed over my original expression.. weird).
Ain't that the truth Ben, sometimes you gotta laugh at yourself. He was actually hunting near the area and called me when he heard the shot. He met me at my spot to rub it in some more. I just explained to him that I am such the turkey hunter that I now call them in and shoot stright up in the air. Catch and release style. He laughed and told me how full of it I am.
Duke it is amazing whne it happens...you just stand there kind of blinking like NAH NOT ME. And then it is funny...unlsee it was a 180" 8pt. I find those times much harder to laugh at. Laugh to keep from crying...oh yeah. You gave a beautiful example, you put the smackdown on your swampbuck which tears most hunters up (buck fever) and then two little ol nannies mess you up. I think these are the fun times...but then again all of it is.
Lol!! Gotta love hunting don't ya!! I think everyone goes thru something like this a few times through out all their years of hunting. Good luck, shoot straight!!
LOL Schultzy...hopefully I will shoot straight in about 7 hours. I am going back out for awhile as we have some more rain coming in.
The Jake that i shot in the fall was on my secound shot. The First shot was at 25 yards and it was just a hair high, but the turkey jumped towards me and gave me a secound shot at ten yards. I guess karma was on my side on that one.
When i got into bow hunting in 2006, i shot my first buck in November of that year. Then followed up with a shotgun doe the next week. Then in 2007, i shot a doe in early November with my bow. I felt like i was on top of the world and that i had this bowhunting thing down. Wrong. Since then = 0 bowkills and 2 shotgun kills (BB and Doe), 2 wounded deer and half a dozen misses. Turkey hunting, i killed a double bearded Jom my 2nd year hunting after calling in a jake for my dad the first year, i thought i had that down too. Now im running on a 4 year drought coming into this season. It doesnt help that my younger bro has killed 3 deer and 2 turks in that span.
This year proved to be terrible during bow season. Three wounded animals 0 recovered. The buck i shot in the pouring down rain luckily was taken by a 12 yr old 2 days later during muzzleloader on the farm to the north so i was awful thankful for that. The first doe i shot on opening day, well it turns out she was a mere 10 feet away from the last blood we had in a bean field. We absolutely scowered the area i dont know how we missed her over the course of two days searching. The second doe was simply a bad shot WAY WAY back that probobly is still around if i had to guess. I think it comes like rain its either drought or pouring - which hopefully means 09' will be the greatest year yet. we'll see what old lady karma says !