Figured this would be a good after season topic to kick around.

What has been the toughest bird you have killed? How many days did it take for you to kill him, and what did you do that led to success? What did you age him to be? Also, what birds are still out there giving you nightmares in the offseason? What have you tried so far and what happened?

To me the old one's always seem to share a few common characteristics. They have no pattern of day to day movement, they roost in multiple locations across multiple acres never using the same tree twice, and typically shy away from any turkey sounds thrown their way, be it calling or just scratching in the leaves. If a live hen doesn't walk up to them where they can see it, they get spooky and go the other way gobbling all the way just to let you know you were not fooling anybody. And sometimes, a live hen does walk up to them and speaks hen talk that would make a sailor blush, and they just turn a cold shoulder and go about their business like they could care less. Challenge his dominance and he is more likely to go over the next hill to watch the grass grow than waste his time teaching some jake who is boss.

I guess the first truly old bird I ever fooled with was in a club I joined down below Centreville. I didn't even know he was there until he was "given" to me by 2 other club members who double teamed him 4 straight mornings trying to kill him without success. There was a very small green plot with a small strip of open pines behind it. The property line was about 100 yds through the thin pines. Some days he would roost in the pines, other days he would roost back across the property line. Never seemed to be in either place on consecutive days. Also, he never seemed to venture further into our club. The road out in front of the green plot had little to no turkey tracks and the ones that I did find were hen tracks. He would gobble like crazy on the roost, then fly down the opposite direction of where you set up. On bright to semi-bright moon mornings it was impossible to get in there with him before daybreak because the pines were open and there was no understory. If you called to him on the roost, he was guaranteed to fly down the other way. Scratch in the leaves, he flew the other way. Decoys, forget it. May as well just set off fireworks. Multiple setups from different locations during the hunt never seemed to pull him in your direction either. The only thing this bird seemed to do that you can even consider a pattern was he liked to go about 100-200 yds across the line and gobble till his throat got sore. Tried a few times to slip in between where he roosted on our side to get in between him and the line, but he was never roosted on our side when I did it. Even if he was in the tree, it was next to impossible with the openess and terrain. Heck, he may have been in the tree and saw me slipping in behind him in the moonlight and just sat there, quiet till I gave up and left. The only thing I was not able to try was roost him late in the evening.

I gave him back to the other guys after a 5 or 6 mornings on him. To my knowledge he is still down there, walking that property line and putting his voodoo on the next group of unsuspecting turkey hunters.