With the season winding down I called up Jim, a good buddy of mine, and told him to "clear your Thursday and Friday morning schedule because we are hunting." Thursday morning was a bust with only one long beard seen (I believe the one which he killed the next day). I had seen this bird on every hunt but he was very decoy shy and timid of his own shadow. The bird skirted behind us at 80 yards just as we were going to call it a morning. So on Friday morning we set up at an end of the farm that I had never hunted, just for a different look. After a coyote ran a nice tom out of the field, we had the tom that Jim ended up killing again skirt behind us at 100 yards or so. Jim let a couple jakes walk that would have made an easy end to the hunt as well. Then at about 125 yards or so away, out steps the timid long beard. It took him about 45 minutes to close the distance to 32 yards. While he was coming, we had 3 long beards coming in from in front of us. I told Jim it was his choice, shoot the timid bird or wait to see what the 3 coming in hot were going to do. Jim decided a bird in hand was better than any other option. So at 32 yards Jim ended the elusive bird's reign. A nice 22# bird that I had been watching for over two weeks. A great bird for a great friend.
[video=youtube;-MkCJdmCVow]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MkCJdmCVow[/video]
[video=youtube;-MkCJdmCVow]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MkCJdmCVow[/video]
