After twelve hours of hard core labor as a landscaper, gobblers were the last thing on my mind.  Running on next to no sleep, I decided to take the morning off to recuperate.  At 4am, my internal clock went off.  Not being able to fall back asleep, up and off I went.  Arriving at a spot that I did not scout this year, I kept telling myself the birds are always in the remote field.  I bee-lined through the woods at a frantic pace, the breaking of day was coming too soon.  A mere one hundred yards from the hidden field, I pulled out my owl call hooter and ripped out a loud cadence…an instant response.  I was caught way off guard being my fifth day afield I was only able to work one longbeard into range and messed that up royally.  Gobbling activity was as poor as I can remember.  The light of day was upon me.  Not wanting to spook the Toms, I was forced to stay put.  The set up was fair at best.  I donned my head net and the other camo goodies.  Starting out with low clucks and a couple of yelps, to my amazement, there was an instant response.  At least four toms hammered back.  Feeling I may have a chance for one of these Toms, a hen rang out at seventy yards much to my dismay.  Her continuous cutting and cackling forced me to call to her.  Immediately, she answered with her own vocal abuse.  We proceeded to do verbal battle while all the time I thought I would come out on the short end of the war.  I kept laying it on as heavy as possible.  To my delight, she came to me on a rope.  During this time the Toms continued to gobble their heads off.  With the hen a mere twenty yards in front of me, she rose on her tip toes and cackled repeatedly then walked on by.  Here comes the entire flock, a total of eighteen birds…not good.  Too many pairs of eyes for me.  Controlling my nervousness and playing statue, they proceeded to surround me.  Then came the Toms, three Jakes, a six-incher, and a good mature bird still hammering the great sounds of spring gobbling.  As the big Tom went into strut, I made my precarious gun move.  At thirty five yards the mature gobbler spun full circle, coming out of full strut, I shot.  Instant harvest.  The remaining Toms proceeded to move up on the pecking order by thumping the lifeless bird.

Retrieving my bird was delayed so that I could observe the rest of the Toms activity.  Once to my Tom, I was very pleased to pack out my nineteen pound, eight and one half inch beard and one inch spurred bird.  I have taken bigger gobblers, but never one with the excitement and nervousness of this one.  Pulling back into my driveway, I was able to share my morning hunt with my wife and daughter.  To me that’s Mountain Morning Magic that will stay with me for a very long time.