4-24-2013 Owen County

I was planning on going out yesterday morning, but after looking at the radar I went back to bed. I decided to head out for an evening sit to see if I could catch anything going back to the roost. I was hunting a place near Patricksburg where I knew there were birds and I was somewhat sure I had an idea of how they traveled the property. I set up in the corner of a woodlot just off the edge of a hay field. I set out the decoys, a submissive hen and a feeding hen, at around fifteen yards in the field from where we were sitting. I had my wife with me, because she wants to get into hunting and I thought it would be a good first trip for her. We got set up around 4:30 and after a few minutes I did a couple of calls with the mouth call. I had my wife on the plastic pot call. It took her a second to figure it out, but I had her make a couple of calls a little after I did the mouth calls. We sat for a little while longer when I noticed a couple of birds coming from our right along the edge of the field. I thought they were hens at first, but saw one of them had a red head. The closer they got I realized it was two jakes. I noticed one had a decent beard for a jake, so I decided that if he gave me a shot I was going to take him. Had I been by myself I would have passed, but I thought it would be cool to take a bird with my wife sitting next to me. From the time we got set up to the time he dropped was no more than forty-five minutes. He's not the biggest bird, his beard was four or five inches, he weighed fifteen pounds and had eight millimeter spurs, but he'll eat just fine and it is a special memory I'll have with my wife...