I guided my buddy to his first birds ever. We hunted for 2 days at our place in Schleicher County last weekend. Despite storms messing up our Friday evening hunt, we persevered and stayed optimistic, putting in an average of 8 miles hiking a day.
The best part of the weekend was being flexible in our strategy, which paid off in a big way. Saturday afternoon we decided to set up in a known strut zone with a Jake decoy and periodic calling. That ultimately produced a shot at a jake for my buddy 180 degrees behind his position nestled up to a large live oak. He swung around the tree and made a good shot and follow-up kill shot on the bird.
Sunday AM we had only until 8 AM to hunt because of travel. We went to a ridge and listened in draws on both sides ready to approach birds gobbling on the roost. We eventually heard one about 700 yards down a draw and we're very aggressive, resulting in a quick, very rewarding hunt. As we approached the bottom of the draw, we bumped 15 hens and jakes that was initially a very sinking feeling. Fortunately, the gobbler roosted 200 yards away and responded immediately to yelping despite the fly down and hens' putts. We had a split second to stay on one side of a dry creek or crawl under an internal fence and set up on the other side. I decided quickly to get us under the fence and I set up my buddy in a juniper at the edge of a strut zone, which proved to be the right choice. After a few series of soft yelps and clucks, the tom gave my buddy the whole show strutting and drumming up to 30 yards, where my buddy rolled him. By 6:59, the old 3+ yr old was on the ground and gave us time to reflect on such a successful hunt after being so aggressive pressing the gobbler's engagement zone. I'm still on cloud 9 and so happy for my buddy and I know he's hooked for life now.
