) All of a sudden I heard one mature sounding bird and probably 4 or 5 goofy sounding jakes about 65 yards up the ridge.. So I shut up and play hard to get.. About 10 mins later, we see a long beard and a jake coming down the ridge.. They stop at around 50 yards because thanks to the early warm weather this year, the green foliage was about 2 foot tall. Me and dad is sitting there, gun at the ready.. The birds stay there looking, scoping the area, looking for what they thought was 2 hot hens. Then comes that sight and sound all you experienced turkey hunters know of.. They raise their head, clucked a couple times and headed back the other direction. After that walk we had, I was in dismay, I was also frustrated because Saturday morning which was Kentucky's opener, I had 4 strutters at 35 yards but thanks to the green shrubbery and foliage once again we couldn't get a shot. We decided to move up to the spot that those birds just hung up at, and wait, because in these mountains, it is almost impossible most of the time to circle a bird. I let out some yelps on my WoodHaven and then some more cuts on my Death Wish and got a quick response from the same birds.. I shut off once again, playing hard to get. I guess probably 10 mins later I heard footsteps and I told dad that I bet it is one of those jakes coming back to check things out, but I didn't care if it was a jake or longbeard because hey if he gobbles like a big boy, he dies like a big boy. My dad says that he didn't care if it was a chicken haha.. Anyways back to the story, the footsteps was down under the hill to my right, so I turn around and get set for a straight on shot. Finally the foot steps got really close to the top of the ridge from under the hill and I clicked my safety off.. A few seconds later, all I seen was a head pop up over the hill and I fired! The bird went rolling and I got up and ran to it to put my foot on it's head and low and behold it was that longbeard!!! After some celebrating and high fives we took it home for pics and measurements.Hard headed Eastern Wild Turkey, 10 inch beard, both spurs was 1 inch, and 22lbs! Solid 2 year old!
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