Today is the third Tuesday of April, 2017, and I meander back to Gunn City. For the first time ever, I didn’t hunt the traditional Monday opening day of the Missouri spring season. Opening day was forecasted heavy rain. Rather than burn a day of vacation for naught, I rented my time at the salt mine.
I arrived at 5:30. Again I hunt the heavily wooded west property boundary very near the creek. And again, gobbling activity is reserved to property across the creek….or giant chasm. Crap! Same as previous years. A very vocal gobbler called from the roost until 6:30 not 100 yards or more across the creek. I could not see him, but a blind man could have walked straight to him if not for the creek. I call moderately. I heard yelping that turned into aggressive yelping and cutting further west and south of the gobbler thinking it was another hunter. Eventually I conclude it was a real hen trying to ward off the phantom yelping east of the creek. I called again around 6:45, nothing. With period yelping, I make the gobbler sound off around 7:30 and south of his roost tree. This solidified my opinion that a nearby roosted hen was in fact real and his interests were focused at slinky Suzy. At 8:30, I made the gobbler sound off again further south and he gobbled several times and appeared to me moving closer to my position. I made calculated move further south about 50 yards to a more open position to sit under a large oak tree. Silence prevailed and so did my lack of patience. I depart at 9:30 or so. Breaking the tradition of hunting opening day proved to be a bad omen to Missouri’s 2017 spring season.
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