Tom’s Tom Finally Falls
Tom Hart finally fastened his tag to a nice gobbler on day one of period 6, but it took patience while hunting with his brother/observer Mike Hart in New Berlin. It also took a well-placed area. Forearms are not allowed in the Milwaukee suburb.
It was quite a hunt this morning,” Tom wrote. “I’m sure Mike told you about it. The funny part is the shot came after the birds were sitting behind us at five feet for a half hour. Gobbling, spitting, drumming….We could hear their wings dragging over the corn stalks. It sounded like plastic decoys rubbing together. They never came in front of the open windows and moved off.”
Tom Hart scores with the bow on day one of Period 6 in New Berlin. Photos by Mike Hart
After the birds moved off, Tom risked a peek out the back of the blind and saw they were about 50 yards out. With fog limiting visibility, he was confident they could close the front windows and open the back. “As we were closing the front windows where the decoy was I said to Mike, ‘You watch we'll close these and one will come to the decoy and we will be looking at closed windows’."
“After getting everything switched around, I called aggressively with a box and diaphragm calls,” Tom continued. “The two hens with toms starting drifting our way with the toms in tow...ever so slowly. A few more calls and two more gobblers responded, close. Guess where? Yes behind us, which formerly was the front. So I was wrong, it wasn't one, it was two. Through a crack in the window I could see those two strutting 30 yards away from us. I was going to attempt to get one of them but Mike was watching the other four birds and whispered that the hens were coming. At that point we disregarded those two in the now back, and focused on the original toms and two hens. The hens came by at 10 yards followed by the two toms. I shot the second one which was a 2 year old bird with a 10 inch beard.”
“Great hunt,” Tom concluded. “One more tag to go.”