Yesterday, The plan was to call in a bird for my buddy off our back clearcut. There has been a big bird working that area.

For some reason, wether it be where we parked or the path we took to get to the bird, or whatever excuse an old bird uses, he did not co-operate. We could hear one sounding off on the next clear cut so we headed south. When we got there he was quiet. This was the way it went for the next 3 clear cuts too. Finally we got on a bird that seemed to be vocal enough to work.

We set up on him across the clear cut from him, around 400yds. We leaned on a log pile to break up our outline. After a few minutes, we realized he would rather us come to him than he to us. We decided that by using the log pile he was behind, we could and would close the distance to within 100 yds.

With minimal noise, we had set up in a good position to close the deal. Now we had not one but three birds in different directions gobbling strong and often. We stayed very aggressive on the box and slate calls. The three birds continued to gobble at each yelp sequence, although they were not closing the distance. We decided a move closer would put A tom in the bag.

We edged up to a log pile using it to hide our outline from the three toms. There was a gap in cover about 20 yds wide we would have to cross to get to our desired location. I peeked through a bush to see if there were any eyes that could see us scurring across the open ground. Just as I eased up to a standing position to look through the bush, there was a close gobble from less than 50 yds straight through the bush.

Most of the ground ahead is open ground, but I could not see the strutting tom. There are knee high pine tree rows that was hiding the big boy from me. I saw a blue spot that stood out in one of thoes pines and was able to make out the rest of his fan. I motioned for my partner to ease around the bush and get into shooting position. As I looked back in the toms direction, somthing caught my eye to my right. It was a big tom that had slipped in to steal this hen. It took us totally off guard. Somehow he had not seen us yet but I did not want to give him a chance to pick us out. My partner rolled him up from around 40 yds.

Looking back, we walked over 2 miles from the truck sep up at 5 different locations, and I left somthing at 4 of them. I had to pick up my mouthcalls from one, my jake from another, my chair form the next and my themacell from the last.