The Hunt for “StoneWall”
“StoneWall”
The Story of my First Solo Turkey Hunt:
This hunt was such a fun and stressful hunt! It started out with me going to this field edge the first day and this gobbler gobbling right on the other side of the stone wall from me, and I didn’t have a call, so I couldn’t call him over the wall and he just walked down the old dirt road. Then I went in there the next morning and he was roosted in the middle of the field and wouldn’t get out of the tree til 7:00. I had watched him for just about 2 hours just up there gobbling and watching the field. After he decided to fly down he went the total opposite way from where I was at. Then Dad decided to go with me, so just before 11:00 we decided to see if that gobbler was in the field, Dad called and sure enough he wasn’t far away, and he came in on a string! Dad said he was coming from the right when I clearly heard him from my left, but I listened to Dad and was pointing the wrong way. And that gobbler popped his head up over the crest of the hill and didn’t like what he saw and putted out of there. Then I knew he was the bird I wanted to go after so I went in there on Thursday evening and set up my blind right where he was the first morning thinking he would do the same thing. So Friday morning I set up and set out a decoy in the woods and at about 9:30 he started gobbling and I knew it was on! So I called a couple of times and he kept gobbling and once again came in on a string, and guess what he did? He stood right on the other side of the stone wall from me and gobbled and strutted, but I didn’t dare move if he could see me and there was brush in the way. Then he just walked down the road that he walked the first day and just kept gobbling down through the woods. So I went on hunt stand and mapped out every place I had seen/heard him, and the commonplace was that old dirt road, so Saturday morning I hiked up the road and set up in the pines and thought “eh, this isn’t a good spot.” I then moved to where there were these 2 dirt mounds and I knew it was going to be a good setup because he “Should” walk right down the road towards me. Around 8:00 I heard 3 shots that sounded down below that field and I thought “Well, they just killed StoneWall” Then at about 9:00 I am sitting there and see what looks to be a gobblers head coming down the road, then he turns to go up another road. I call and he didn’t gobble or anything, which I thought was strange. But then at around 10:15, I heard a gobble on the hill above me and I knew that had to be him! I called very highly and he gobbled right back, and it didn’t take him but about 5 minutes and he was right on the other side of the dirt mound from me, I didn’t call after the initial calling because I didn’t want him to go to exactly where he heard the “Hen”. As he is strutting and walking in the leaves next to me, I’m thinking he might take the road up to where I had the hen decoy, which I didn’t want him to because it was not even 10 yards from me. Which gladly he didn’t take that, but now he is in the woods across the dirt road and it may look like he is going to go to walk down the other road towards the hen that was right out in from of me, but he decides to start heading back down the hill and he gives me a clear shot and BOOM! I got him!!!
When God wants it to happen he will make it happen! It’s just like what Ben Rising said: “When God wants you, when its time and God’s ready for you to harvest one, there is nothing you can do to screw it up, I guess his time is perfect!”
