Post by caretaker on Apr 18, 2011 20:19:40 GMT -6
As some of you I was drawn for an Oak Ridge hunt along with Greg and Mike. Mike and I met at Wallyworld at 5am on Saturday morning which was a feat in its self as the Noah weather moved into the area Friday evening and was still here. Maybe being old men should have know better. But being contrary ol codgers we were goin to hunt if the weather let up a little. We decided to take Karen my explorer. We stopped off at Mc donalds fer coffee and sausage biskits and drove on to the gate. We stopped at the gate for a while and had some coffee and breakfast and waited for the rain to slack off. We finally started on down the road and came to a road that came in from the left. mike who was the navigator with the map and who had been there before said to take the left. We drove down the road for a ways and it just fell awat into a big ol mud puddle with one ridge in the middle of it and deep ruts on either side. I knew I could not go to my left as there was an over flowing creek on the left. We couldn`t turn around as there wasn`t no room. Noiw you have to remember it is dark and rainy and windy. I hang to the right and try to straddle part of the puddle with my left wheels on the ridge in the middle of the puddle. We got about 1/2 way when the ridge fell in just about setting Karen on her side. I backed out. We tried again and I made a new road to the right around the puddle. We went on for a little ways and ran into a long steep hill covered with mod,wet leaves and part of the over flowing creek running down it. We made it about 2/3 way up and slid/backed back down. We turned around. I drove back around the mud hole on the make shift road I had made and made it back out to the main road. We turned left and went a little ways and discovered that that road to the left was not the road we were looking fo after all. We found a road that took us up to a real nice ridge with an old logging trail along the top of it. We parked and walked along the old trail. We walked for a while and stopped and started calling with Mikes call box. We hit pay dirt. The toms gobbled. They were a ways off down the side of the ridge. We eased along toward the birds calling as we went. The toms kept gobblin and we were gettin closer. We eased along and Mikes call broke. The birds spooked. We decided not to press the issue and left. We didn`t want to run the birds out of the county. We decided to get new calls and return on Sunday as we were also runnin short on time. We had to stop huntin by noon and be out by 1pm. We were able to get our fair weather hunter friend Greg to join us on Sunday. Again we took Karen as the three of us could rode comfortably and save gas in the other trucks. We had new box calls and Greg is good with mouth calls. The less said about my or mikes mouth calls the better. I sound like a sick jackass and Mike sounds like a sick goat. We got there well before day light and made our way into the woods along the trail. We eased along and called and yep there they were . Just where we thought they would be. Greg was in front of and to my left and Mike was in front of and to my right. Suddenly they stopped and sat beside trees. I stopped and sat beside a tree also. The were able to see over a bench that I could not and could see the birds. Hens were between us and the tom`s. Greg called with a mouth call, Mike and I used box calls. The tom`s gobbled we called the tom`s gobbled this went on for a while. I bjust new Greg and Mike were going to double. Then a ll hell broke loose as a hen or two decided they had had enuff. They went to squawkin like women and ran their men folk off with them. We didn`t get the birds. We hunted the rest of the alloted time and saw some more birds all hens. Did see a big deerand Mike found an antler. All in all it was a good hunt. I ready to hunt Oak Ridge again!