Here’s the story for anyone interested:
Mason and I went out to the gar hole farm. We haven’t been out there to listen for a couple years. Mason took a buddy out there to kill a bird in 2020. He and I haven’t shot one there since 2018. Prior to that I think we had shot a few too many out there and the population showed it. There just weren’t many around for a number of years.
Having not been there to listen this year, I decided to have Mason drop me off on the east side while he drove around to the west side to see if he could hear a bird. He did, but I already had a couple going across the township road from our place. Over the years I’ve probably called a half dozen birds across the road, across a creek and up a hill to my gun. I thought today would be the same so I told Mason to join me. The bird did just as many of his predecessors had done and I shot him at about 20 yards or so.
We had to drive back across the farm so we stopped to see if we could strike up another bird. We did and since it was still early we looked for them and found two longbeards strutting for a lone hen. We fooled with them for a while. We even drove the truck within 40 yards of them, making them gobble the entire time. It was a lot of fun this morning but I could not help but think I could have set up and killed a bird out there with my recurve. Maybe next year.