Guest Blog: By Jacob Edson
It was my first day in Texas, and Mossy Oak Marketing Manager Dustin ‘Shed’ Whitacre and I had some serious intel on two Rio Grande gobblers that were roosting in a favorite honey hole, so we set up for an evening intercept hunt.
The idea was to get in close to the birds’ roost, but not so close that they we would booger them from the area if we didn’t kill them that evening.
Whitacre’s boss, Ben Maki, had told us to expect the duo of longbeards at 7:30 sharp, so we settled in a little before 6:00 p.m.
Every so often, Whitacre would caress his H.S. slate call or offer a few strokes on a box call against the gusting wind. It was 7:29 exactly when a distant gobble floated back to Whitacre’s pleading yelps.
I turned my gun barrel towards the sound and froze as Whitacre — seated against a live oak 5 yards behind my tree — offered a few more yelps and purrs.The tom ate it up. He belched back a gobble and strode toward our setup.
The bird was 70 yards out and coming fast. This was going to happen. But then, just as suddenly as he had marched forward, the gobbler stopped, extended his neck and turned inside out to race out of the area.
I looked at Whitacre and he looked at me with slack-jawed confusion.
“You didn’t move,” Whitacre blurted. “I didn’t move.
“What in the HECK?!”
We both slumped against our trees and weighed the situation.
“Well, that was only one of the two,” Whitacre finally whispered. “Let’s just wait it out.”
A few minutes later, the second bird blasted a gobble from behind us. He was already in his roost.