Turkey Tour 2020

[James]

I ended up sneaking in on one of the birds that was gobbling yesterday. I set up on the creek and he walked by on the other side about 40 yards. Wasn't responding to calls and just cruising. Did a bit of exploring and found the roost tree the birds used across the creek early season. No idea why they roost there, but they did for a while early on.

I summed up the hunt in the other post but just to add to it a little bit. The pair of longbeards came in early. They didn't like the decoy at all and just stared and stared. Two hens eventually filtered in from the opposite direction and they seemed to calm down, until one of the hens saw the decoy. She started putting and quickly left. The other hen didn't care at all and took a perch on a low limb, 50 yards from me. She stayed there for over an hour. I think her not leaving confused the toms because they wanted to leave, but didn't want to leave that hen there by herself. They eventually worked out of sight. A pair of jakes came in after that, not interested at all in calling, the decoy, or even the live hen.

Eventually another hen came (I'm assuming it was the first one) and joined the limb hen. They left and I assumed went down to the creek to get water. As soon as they were out of sight I took down my decoy. The birds eventually came back up the hill from the creek and were milling around. They seemed much calmer with the decoy gone. The hens got close to me and one of the hens starting talking some. This caused the jakes to head my way, which, in turn, caused the toms to come quickly. The strutter puffed up a few times at the hens yelping and once he was clear of the others I gave him a few yelps of my own to pick his head up and that was that.

He's a little better bird than I initially thought. I was racing on Friday for pictures and to clean him before the storm hit. I didn't get to measure anything before it started dumping. I just measured and the spurs are 1.25" and the longest hairs on the beard are right at 11". Like I mentioned before this is bird #2 out of a trio of big birds that didn't break up this season for some reason. All of them big spurred, mature birds. Weird.

The last one seemed happy. He gobbled a good bit Friday evening and Sunday morning. I'll see him next year

Great Pic Great Bird Wetz

[Arrowsmith]

Minnesota tag punched. Only hunting public for a day and got into birds the second spot I pulled into. Lots of atv traffic in an area that I believe was supposed to be walk in only, so I’m sure those birds had been exposed to hunters some. Bumped a group of hens and jakes waking in. Was able to strike a couple different gobblers, but they never closed much ground. I’m sure they had been called to/hunted some and maybe if I stuck with them a couple more days, I could have killed one of them. The wind picked up, so I backed out of the public and did drove to some different areas the remainder of the day. Got access to some private ground and was able to kill a bird this morning after getting tight to him yesterday on the limb. He didn’t quite follow the script yesterday. Hammered literally 100 times. I gave him a three note tree yelp where I was setup above him slightly and within 100 yards. He didn’t immediately gobble to it. Clucked a couple of times and shut up from there. He dropped straight down from the limb and I thought it was going to be a done deal quickly. He hugged the contour just below me and I never laid eyes on him other than seeing him fly down from the limb. Stayed on the same contour moving quickly away and gobbling good on his own. Tried to close the gap when it was apparent that he wasn’t coming to me, but I assume he henned up and pretty much shut down 10-15 mins after his feet touched the ground. Hunted a different area yesterday afternoon with not much gobbling.

Went back in to the same spot this morning and sure enough the bird was where he had been yesterday, likely in the exact same tree. Got on the contour he worked down yesterday (probably within 100 yards of him on the limb), got setup, and never called to him. He flew down a bit earlier, gobbled once when his feet hit the ground. I scratched the leaves twice in quick succession. Could hear him walking towards me, shifted ever so slightly to have my gun up from where he was approaching from, and put him down at 10-12 yards. He got on me tighter than I would have liked. It was still pretty dark in those woods looking through my red dot. I honestly think I was a bit off the neck when I pulled the trigger. That’s where having a forgiving shell/choke combo really helps. I may have very well missed him if shooting XR’s. First legitimate fly down hunt I’ve ever had, and I’ve killed my fair share of birds.

Outstanding job !!!!

You need to come by our farm in SE Iowa on your way home and drink a beer.

[TwoHighways]

Wisconsin is looking to be a bust. Hunting out of state requires some homework that I didn’t do. I don’t particularly enjoy hunting field birds either. The bug situation was pretty insane at the first public I hit. Dunno why the heck I even came up here. I was pretty **** spent after Oklahoma and Missouri. Don’t know how travel turkey hunters keep the fire burning.

[ClayW]

I was down at my brothers lease this morning and saw 2 gobblers with 11 hens

Thought that was pretty odd for June

[.243 WSSM]

Were they strutting? One year there was a really bad drought and me and Eradicator were hunting nw tx late april and both toms and hens were traveling together with zero strutting, gobbling or response to calls. It was like they skipped breeding season that year. Obviously with so many hens in the flock nothing was nesting. Conditions were bad. What little green growth had sprouted was mowed down by cows

[quackadikt]

Birds are still gobbling on the tree down in Bandera.


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[quackadikt]

And an hour later they’re still at it on the ground.


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[.243 WSSM]

Grab the paintball gun and video camera and take us along on a live hunt

[El General]

If you need them to shut up, I can come out there. My presence shuts down the gobbling like nothing else.

[MooseontheLoose]

And an hour later they’re still at it on the ground.

They were getting after it pretty good in the evenings in Brady last weekend. Probably mostly the jake cartel but we got a handful of pics during the week of a couple of big birds strutting with hens around. I suspect we should start getting some poult pics pretty soon.