Post by LongSpur39 on May 4, 2014 18:38:04 GMT -5
This morning was a bit slow but heated up quickly. We set up on the bird I followed around on Friday. When I glassed him at 200 yds he looked big. Well when he came in today he was all the way around big. Had about a 10 1/2 beard, huge fan and heavy body. But the spurs were dang close to 1 3/4. The sun hit them on his approach and my eyes got big. My buddy mike was the shooter. He was up from philly for the weekend and only has four days to hunt. And after his miss yesterday. I wanted him to get back on the horse. This bird had it all. So he comes in perfect at 30 yds he didn't like something. Mike had a good clear shot. It was slightly downhill. Boom!! Bird goes flying?? What the @#!??!!! I said what happened? As we walked over I said you shot clean over him. He was bummed!! "He said how am I missing these birds"?? " I'm holding right on their eyeball"?? I stopped right there!! Eyeball I said?? Huh? He said, yeah I hold it right on their eyeball. I said oh no no no!!! Dead nuts with your gun bead right to the base of the neck under 40!!! I've hunted with mike for 3 yrs. A fall and two spring hunts. He's shot five or so birds with me. two of them he had to shoot more than once. I chalked it up as excitement. But after the investigation on their misses yesterday. And remembering going to look where he missed a bird last year. It now is very clear what's going on. I swore when we went to the range last year I told him where to hold? His patterns were not bad at 25 and 50. But we only shot a couple times between 25 and 50. I just assumed it was shooter fatigue? Well everything came to light today and yesterday. I felt terrible. Especially today. You can hunt years where I'm at to get a crack at birds like the one today. A real trophy bird. Both my girlfriend and mike were like you call these birds in . And try hard to give us good hunts and we miss. But in all honesty I'm a veteran I should have picked up on it. My girlfriends miss yesterday was just plain unseen saplings that jump into a pattern. But mikes was just plain shooting over them. I keep playing today's hunt over in my head. Cause I haven't seen many of those birds on our property over nearly 3 decades. He had to weigh 23 to 25. And his fan came up blocked the sun. Hopefully he won't leave the area. Give him a few days and try him again. I never used a mouth call on him. Stuck with soft subtle calls on the slate. He was roosted pretty close. Bummed for those two.
R&S 
OWNER/PRESIDENT
Good luck bro!
