Rainy day crossbow gobbler
Fought the temptation to stay in bed this morning when the alarm rang at 4:30am. The plan was to hit a local spot before work and sit in a blind that I had pre set last week. The rain was pounding down on the roof of my house but I gathered my gear and headed out.
With the rain continuing on, I slipped into the blind and prepped all of the video gear and got the decoys set out before the grey started to lighten the eastern sky. At 6:00, I heard the gobblers sound off from their roost which was about 100 farther down the valley from where I expecting them to be. At flydown time, I let out a few soft clucks and some yelps and a hen that was roosted right beside me went off. I thought, great, nothing better than the real thing.
With her and I yapping up a storm the gobblers headed my way in short order. I saw them, two gobblers at full strut, headed my way but they hung up at 60 yards directly to my left on out of the cameras line of sight. They eventually feed back behind me gobbling as they went. I used the opportunity to add a jake decoy to my spread in case they came back.
Within 20 minutes they were headed back my way and I caught them coming hard. Everything we set but they two gobblers literally ran past me at 25 yards into the woods without a shot being offered. I tried to stop them but they were on a mission. Soon, the black shapes of the twins came back into sight and this time they stopped at 23 yards to some mouth yelps.
With all systems go, the TenPoint Tactical XLT sent a Easton FMJ on its way and the Lumenok streaked through the wing butt of the trailing tom. He took to the air and sailed out of sight but I heard him crash with a thud in short order.
I found him pretty quick tangled in a blowdown. A nice two year old Pennsylvania Gobbler with 7/8 inch spurs and a 9 1/4 inch beard.
Got lucky this morning for sure. Thanks for looking.
