Matthew and Curtis, along with the family, showed up yesterday. Curtis has a foot giving him trouble so he elected to stay in their Airbnb this morning while Matthew and his 5 year old went hunting with me. We found this bird around 9:30 and killed him around 10:30, calling him off of private and onto national forest 75 yards or so.
The kid sat beside me 20 yards behind his dad while we work the bird. Once in the right location it didn't take too long and we are pretty sure it would have went quicker if not for a coyote that got close.
The gobbler had went quiet for a couple minutes or so and had been 75 yards last time he gobbled. I'm assuming he was at the fence then and went quiet after crossing. He was going to pop up fairly close so I yelped hard to get a response and he fired back from 50 yards and out of site then I yelped again and he gobbled from 35 yards and Matthew could see him. I never did see the bird but Matthew killed him at 31 yards.
During both of the close gobbles I was looking right at the kid beside me and his eyes got huge while he whispered (as quiet as a 5 year old normally does) " He's really close.". We got lucky on the setup since the gobbler was not able to get to a point where he could see us without getting shot.
It was a fun hunt
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