Here are two pretty incredible hunts from last spring. Will James from The GarHole was generous enough to help us with editing the video footage we sent him and putting together these clips. Will has a really impressive blog, along with some other buddies of mine, that gets updated much more frequently than this one. Be sure to check them out. You can subscribe to their blog on the right hand side just below the goose if you click on the hyper link above.
This was the first hunt on the first morning of a three day turkey hunting marathon. I drove down on Thursday evening from Richmond to meet Ragsdale and Huston at Ragsdale's family plantation near Georgetown, SC. I got there about 12:30 AM and Rags and Hus got in from Atlanta at about 2 AM. We got up after a couple hours sleep and Rags took us over to a spot they call the 700 acres. We set up near where Rags had seen a big bird go to roost the week before. Right after we sat down Rags let out an owl hoot, and we heard two birds gobble off the roost way off to our left. We sat tight for about 15 minutes and listened to the birds gobble a couple more times before Rags decided he knew exactly where the birds were, and where they were headed. We jumped up and literally sprinted through the woods to be sure we got to the spot before they did. This video starts pretty much right as we sat down. It only took about 15 minutes for these two gobblers to come in and they were talking the whole way. We have it condensed here down to two minutes. I won't name names, but I think the camera man had a little accident in his pants, when I pulled the trigger. I think he was expecting me to let this bird hang out for a while, but I had an itchy trigger finger because I was in the middle of a multiple year slump without dropping a bird. Fortunately for me and Rags the cameraman did not document the excessive man hugging that took place after the shot. Notice also I let that other long beard go so we could chase him another day. I would like to pretend I let that bird go because I am a true sportsman, but it is really because I was fully aware of the beat down I would have received.
Click on the bottom right hand corner of the video to expand to full screen.
After the first hunt we ran to the store, grabbed some breakfast, and got right back in the woods. This time I was on the camera and Huston was the gunner, while Rags called them in. The video pretty much tells the story, but the jist of it was that Huston's gun misfired twice and I could not stand to wait for a third click. Fortunately it was really windy out and we had good cover so the birds did not spook at either misfire and they did not see me reach for my gun. This hunt took a bit longer, we sat for a good while and I was settling in for a nice mid morning nap when the first bird gobbled behind us. It took about 30 minutes, which seemed like forever at the time for these birds to come around the corner and work into range. Fortunately, Will cut the footage down so the video below gets right into the action.
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