16ga.com ~ View topic - 2016 Turkey Season: Highlights and Commiserations

Member Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 1863 Location: Wisconsin

I'm in awe of such opportunities. Not to mention the brook trout in the nantahala or the gobbling toms of the Pisgah. Reno

Member Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 1863 Location: Wisconsin

After listening to and coaching others I finally found some time to chase a bird later this week. He's the brother of the one I killed at that location last year, and he stepped out at thirty feet with my barrel pointed the wrong direction. When he moved out of sight I moved my barrel to cover the spot he appeared at and killed the second largest turkey I had ever killed at 25+ lbs. 100 yards away and ten years earlier I killed the heaviest bird I ever killed at over 27 lbs.

I don't have a permit because there aren't any left for the dates and location I'll be hunting, but I'm going after that bird as if I was carrying for the shear thrill of it. I'd also love to get that bird down barrel of the Dean's SxS 10 bore. Since the left ear quit I'll have to sit to his left to hear his whisper. As he is right handed, I'll have to be sure not to deflect calls to my left and increase the chance that those big bores aren't in front of my face when he sets them off.

My SC buddy Tom (yeah, I said it) sent me a new mouth yelper that looks to be 3.5 reeds with a V cut on the left vs. right like the ones from year's past. The latex looks durable and I hope to remember not to wreck my yelp muscles before I use the thing. Just remembered that I lost my favorite slate striker and didn't replace at the end of last season so I'm falling back on a set of Pittman lucites to go with my all weather Pittman and little duce slates. Better start looking for my scruff paper.

Gun less saves me nine pounds of arms and ammo and I'll bring out the new binocs that I wish I had had last year. If circumstances were the same and plans could change, I would have sent the Dean after the bird we will hunt Friday crawling behind a fan; he was fifty yards away, standing with his feathers out and his head tucked. I made the mistake of passing an aggressive option thinking we could hunt him more coventionally the next morning. I think it was twelve degrees the next morning and we froze our butts off trying to stay still while the sun rose.

Although my methods designed to minimize my limitations qualifies my efforts for the "challenged" category of old and worn out turkey hunters, I thankfully still get excited!

Reno

Reno, it is a good thing for both of us that health and age can't dampen enthusiasim. Although blessed with good health, not a damn thing I can do about age. Wink

I just put the 35 year-old Thermos filled with hot liquid tar (dark-ass coffee) and my boots in the truck. I loaded up the Kongs with peanut butter and put those Brittany pacifiers in the freezer so that they don't wake up the house in their crates pissed off I didn't take them with me when I leave at 5 a.m tomorrow. I have a score to settle against turkeys in general and one in parrticular that I flat missed Friday. They finally opened up more areas and work is no excuse not to be there at first light. Gil

I must of walked under two ladders and broke a few mirrors the way my opening weekend went.

My wife wanted to go this weekend which is always a bonus for me but does add a few complications. She is an avid and very good pro/amateur photographer so when she goes we always set up blinds. When I hunt alone I usually move around and call until I get a response then set up but not this weekend. First night we got out plenty early and saw ~ 10 birds but nothing I could get over to us. All the gobblers had hens with them and I could not pull them away. It was also windy as can be.

The next morning we set up in a different spot that I love but there are cows in the pasture which ended up being a major problem. Right off the roost we had two hens which were being followed by a big gobbler come right to us. The problem was the gobbler was 100 yds behind the hens and as soon as the hens crossed the fence two yearling bulls decided they would make good play things and proceeded to chase them off. Needless to say the gobbler wanted nothing to do with the two bulls and went the other direction. 45 minutes later 3 hens show up and 4 toms are following behind strutting and gobbling the whole way. This is when all 65 head decided they need to come over and see what all the fuss was about. Again bye bye birdies. The toms were literally 10 yards from us but on the other side of the fence which I do not have permission to hunt.

That evening and the next morning we were rained out which is actually great because we are dry as a bone. Tonight was my last opportunity to hunt for a few weeks so I was hoping to get a least my first bird. We again get there plenty early but there were 10 turkeys already in the field I was going to hunt and there was another 8 in the field just north of the first field. We quickly, if not quietly, sneak down and set up on the small creek between the two fields. We must not have disturbed the place to much because I was able to call the group of 8 down to us, 5 2-3 yr old toms and 3 hens. The toms got to the edge of the creek, on the wrong side of course, and strutted for 30 minutes but would never cross over where I could get a shot. They were 50+ yards which is further than I will shoot.

It was a fun weekend non the less and we got some much needed rain. Turkeys 3, James 0.

James

Had one within 25 steps but couldn't positively id it as a gobbler. It was. He had a light screen of 18" sweet gum saplings and couldn't get a good look at head or chest. His head shot forward and he gobbled, but was screened. Too risky a shot. He had gobbled in, but sometimes they'll bring a hen or jake with them. Glad I passed. Beautiful day in the lowcountry. Heard three more while working him. Gil

Gil, As a friend of mine would say, you just had 95% of a good turkey hunt. The kill is only 5%.

Member Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 1863 Location: Wisconsin

Half of any hunt is getting one in range, the other half is killing him. I find that the older I get the second half is by far the most difficult. When you can remember every mistake you made over forty years of trying you tend to think about how you can screw it up instead of taking him down. Gil did the right thing and that bird will give him another chance another day; he liked it enough to look for her, let him fanticize until they meet again! Reno

Today about 7:15 a.m. 36 steps, 21lbs , 7 and a 10 in" beards, spurs .81 and .82.
No gobbling at all at day break, they woke up a bit later though after getting the first one to open up.

Griff

Member Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 1863 Location: Wisconsin

Way to go Stack! My Mojo Dove still working for you? Reno

Joined: 30 Dec 2015 Posts: 31 Location: Arizona

Those photo are UNBELIEVABLE. Great job.

[quote="slowpokebill"]

Last Saturday I setup to do some photography near some trees where the birds are roosting. Here is a photo I got of a nice Tom just coming on for a landing on the roost.

Took this one opening day(4/9) with my 20 gauge Red Label. It was snowing as he came in. He came in quiet. Only gobbled on the roost. I think I heard him fly down, but it sounded like he went away from me. Kept hearing what I think was him flapping his wings and he strutted right into the Avian-X decoys. 1 ounce of #6s at 15 yards did the trick.
Sorry, it's not a 16 gauge but I'm working my way through a personal slam of the gauges that I own. Next up is the 28 gauge Red Label. I've taken 2-3 with a 12 gauge, 4-5 with a 16 and now one with a 20.

He had some beautiful green in his wing feathers and that's a snowflake at my fingertip.

Nice bird. I finally get to start youth season with my son tomorrow. Then 5 more long weekends chasing birds. YeeHaw!

Joined: 28 Aug 2014 Posts: 924 Location: Eastern Tennessee

Not logged on for almost 2 months (been real busy with work & child sporting events). Today is day 2 of season 2 here in Iowa. Been real quite both days even though I know many are in area. Wondering if I'm experiencing the gobble lull period. Never taken season 2, usually do 3 & 4, but spring seems early this year so trying it now.

Member Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 1863 Location: Wisconsin

My hunt was pretty anticlimactic considering all of the preparation for a fifteen minute hunt, but the story is worth telling. Here is a draft:

I met the Dean at the land I had access to mid afternoon and we suited up and walked to the edge of a forty acre bowl where we ended the season last year, close enough to hear the bottom but not close enough to be seen on the chance that birds were below the edge we approached.

I pulled out the slate and buffed it a bit and sent some soft yelps down the hill that were answered by a hen that made the bird she was with gobble, then a jake shock gobbled near the true gobble. What a disappointment that was. There's no way a jake gobbles in the presence of a grown Tom so we concluded that they were both Jakes. When we got a look at them about thirty minutes later one was slender and the other was huge. The genetics of this isolated spot are such that the largest two birds I ever killed came from these woods, and the Deans only bird killed here was a jake that must have weighed eighteen or nineteen pounds several years ago.

We left a big bird in that bowl last year and hoped he would be there this season, but the spot is compact enough that if the big bird was still there that no other bird would dare gobble. We slipped out of there after the birds fed off and stopped by the owners house to check in and find out what he saw on his trail cams. He had pictures of the jakes and hens but no Tom.

The Dean had a spot in his pocket and we set off to the house, dropped off my car, and get a look at the layout for the morning hunt. He showed me where he sat that morning and described what transpired, pointing to the ridge where he had his encounter with a group of gobblers. We eased out of there to the house with a plan for the next morning and enjoyed good fellowship and some hopp therapy before retiring early.

We decided that we wanted to be on the ridge with the gobblers at five thirty and when we parked the truck it was 5:25. We had a hike across the bowl and a climb up the ridge and find a big fat tree so we we pushing it pretty hard to get there. We picked out a good tree a hundred and fifty yards up the ridge spine from a saddle where he wanted to be because my mountain hunting experience won't let me get closer before day to a ridge saddle before the trees have leafed out, and wouldn't you know it as soon as we picked our tree and settled in my lower GI told me I wouldn't be sitting there long if I didn't want to soil myself.

I eased back up the ridge away from the saddle about forty yards to do my business and no sooner than my britches were down did a bird gobble between the set up tree and the saddle but off the peak of the spine. There I was, pinned down, bare butted, grinning while trying my best to force the issue and wondering if I could make it back to the set up tree without being seen. I had no choice as I had no calls with me and my face net and gloves where in the vest that I had slipped out of to answer the call of nature.

I slipped back down to the setup and started buffing my slate and getting my mouth yelper out when a different bird gobbled a hundred yards out and on the opposite side of the ridge as the first bird. I was still afraid that the first bird had seen my privates because he didn't answer the second bird when I did some tree yelps with the slate. The second bird gobbled again and the first bird gobbled on the ground a hundred yards in front of us.

There was a trail running down the ridge spine and we were ten yards off of it. Sitting shoulder to shoulder on his left side, a Spainiard of a ten gauge double on his knees, I cutt yelped a bit louder and we heard birds gobbling farther down the ridge away from us. "There he is in full strut coming up the trail" whispered the Dean and I cut my eyes to the spot only to see the edge of his fan behind a tree forty yards away. He stepped out onto the trail moving left to right and went into a full strut again. When he eased out of strut I said "shoot him."

"I don't have a shot" was the Deans reply and I saw the sapling ten feet in front of him that must be in his way. "Kill him quick" was what I think I said just before he started leaning into me, shouldering me out of his way for a shot clear of a pattern destroying obstacle. While the shoulder shoving was going on the bird turned into a full strut and lifted into a half strut and from an angle he touched off that ten bore.

I could tell that bird was down for good and told him to take the gun and go put his foot on his head until the lights went out; no sense chasing a flopping bird down the steep side of a ridge when you don't have to. The Tom was a respectable two year old satellite bird who did what he was told and caved to the advice of his lessor head. The Dean was pleased, and I hopped in the car for home arriving home twenty eight hours after beginning that road trip, no less satisfied from the effort as the man who pulled the trigger. As I write this twenty four hours after the 28, that bird's thighs are in the crockpot for a slow cook that I will finish as an upland porcini vegetable soup this evening. Life is good and I am very grateful. Wink

Reno

Joined: 28 Aug 2014 Posts: 924 Location: Eastern Tennessee

Today is day 4 of season 2 (tomorrow) is last day. I've had 3 hens visit me but not 1 Jake or tom. Been wet and windy all season, but at least the ticks aren't bad!