Mr. Longbeard

When is your opening day???

BowHunter46

The PA opener was this morning

tky1187

Well I'll go first I guess.20pd 11in beard 1'' spurs. Shot him at 10:30a.m. Second year I hunted this bird, talk about a sense of accomplishment.

Mr. Longbeard

I shot one at 10:30am today also... 20lb 10" beard 1.125" spurs

SoggyCereal

Pretty interesting opener for me. Friday night we had this huge bird strutting out behind the house for about 4 hours and we watched him go up into the roost, and then we noticed a truck parked up on the hill watching him too. It was a guy from Penn United. Penn United owns this land and we have permission to hunt there as well but this is just a small tract of land and there's no sense in more than one person hunting there. He has more of a right to hunt there than we do so he went there for the opener. We went to the spot we hunt deer at and didn't hear anything at daybreak. I just called everyone 10 minutes or so and listening to other people calling all around me. Then the 4 longbeards that we've been seeing around that property started gobbling. There's one that's a year older than the other 3 and you can tell which one he is just because his gobble is so much raspier than the others. I could tell he was closer to me than the other 3 birds. Now I wouldn't consider myself a very good caller, so I was suprised when I realized he was coming into my call. When I could tell he was getting close I got my gun up and turned the way that I thought he would come. Then he gobbled once on the other side of the tree line so I moved and started pointing that way, and then low and behold he shows up on the side of the treeline that I was watching at first. He was huge too. Big body, 11"+ beard. Those birds are tricky.

jasuz61

Here's a long one: Good opener for me. I wasn't able to get an birds sounding off to my calling, however about 4 minutes after a series of cutting and yelping with a glass and mouth call I saw a bird coming in quietly about 70 yards away. That really gets the blood pumping. As he came in he briefly disappeared from sight, I moved my gun to where I thought he would be coming. While this was going on I heard a gobble from what sounded about 50 yards and to the left of where the bird I could see was coming from. I couldn't see this bird as I was on the flat top of a hill and this bird was approaching from downhill. As the first bird got in range, I could see he was a jake. I followed him with my barrel, but didn't have a clear shot, he was about 20 - 25 yds out. As I was trying to slowly move for a shot, he started acting skittish, then he putted and turned and started walking away putting the whole time. I let out a couple yelps to try to coax him back, but this didn't work. Did I mention that I had a single hen decoy to my 12 o'clock about 15 yds out, that didn't seem to ease his mind. I was bumming as he eased out, thinking maybe he busted me moving. Then I started hoping that maybe the other bird I heard was a longbeard and that's what scared him off. I didn't see any birds to my left so I slowly moved that way. A couple minutes went by and I saw movement. It was a gobbler in full strut heading to my deke. Out of the corner of my eye I see another longbeard heading in as well, this one coming in way from my left. There was no way I could move on the strutting tom with the other bird there at about 15 yards. Just then a vehicle drove down the service road of the adjacent property about 50 yards away. This provided enough distraction for me to move on the left most bird as the strutter had wandered off. I had just enough time to lay the smackdown on him as he was starting to bug out as well.