After having hunted with my friend Tom Brown on Missouri’s opener, I selfishly scheduled a few solo pre-work morning hunts at Camp Branch that week. My friends wedding anniversary also happens every year during the first week of the season, so he tends to be unable to go hunting until after the first weekend of the season. Due to weather on the second day of the season, I decided the weather forecast looked much better for Wednesday, so I worked at home on Tuesday, dreaming of gobbling longbeards across the chasm of Camp Branch Creek. On Wednesday morning, I again depart at 4:45 for Pistol Gap. This morning, I set up a little further south along the woods road along the creek. At 6 a.m. the first gobbler fired up, about 90 yards across the creek, again! But that gobble was followed up by a double gobble from another longbeard roosted near the first. Then number one gobbler fires off again, and the second gobbler cuts him off with double and triple gobbles. This went on for several minutes, then clearly I hear two more gobblers fire off a little further south of the first two and further away to the west, maybe 150 yards. The roosted quartet gobbled at least a couple hundred times for nearly 45 minutes, and I occasionally yelped. The last gobble was around 7 a.m. At around 7:30, I yelped again and one of the closer gobblers fired off from the ground. I suspect with all the gobbling, several hens have wandered in to all the ruckus. I estimate that the second peak of gobbling is occurring right now, and that to hunt these birds would require sitting until 10 or 11 a.m. after the hens loose an interest and I don’t have time to stay that long. I depart Camp Branch at 9:30 knowing there are four gobblers in the area and optimistic. Maybe one or two of those gobs will get his ass beat by the dominant bird and change roost sites to my side of the creek. The next couple of days I am unable to hunt due work schedule changes and weather. I am hoping my son will be interested in a Saturday hunt at my friend Chuck’s place in Nevada, but again the weather is bad and Chuck has family in town.
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