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

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

Starting the discussion because my fall outings were cancelled due to illness or conflicts, maybe that's why I'm earlier with this thread than years past. I had a fabulous season last year and can't remember which stories I told or are still in development, but I'll share this one because its still a draft of a hunt that haunts me to this day. Reno

Driftless Tom

The Driftless area of Southwest Wisconsin is a wonderful place to be in the spring. Life emerges from hard winters in a slow and gentle manner and the pace of season’s change is just right; it takes over three months’ time for spring to emerge and summer to declare in this rolling land that the glaciers missed millennia ago. There are turkeys here too.

The rolling hills around Richland Center remind me of the hills from my childhood in the Piedmont as it climbs into the Southern Appalachians of northern Georgia. There are hundreds of years of difference in the settlement of these two areas but they have many things in common. Streams of cool clear water ramble downgrade in the hollows and valleys and areas that were easiest to clear of trees are now pasture and grain fields and the knobs and peaks of the hardwood hills are home to huge mature oaks, hickories, ash, and maple trees and sustainable populations of deer and turkey with an occasional bear thrown in for measure.

An invite to hunt spring gobblers in this area is not to be taken lightly and I jumped at the chance to see new territory and meet new turkeys in hopes of taking one home after a successful hunt. My host is a partner in the ownership of landlocked hills surrounded by agricultural fields on a section surrounded by paved roads. The property is in the middle of this section and they have an easement with utilities run to an Amish-built log cabin that is a marvel of craftsmanship.

We arrived the afternoon before the hunt to settle in and listen to the hollows behind the cabin at dusk with hope to make a bird gobble so we’d have a bead on his location and could make a plan to hunt him in the morning. I stepped off the back porch and got the barred owls going with some cackling and hail notes and we heard a gobble in response. As the bird continued to gobble every few minutes until the sun set, we spent the next hour looking at maps and making our plans.

I had on most of my clothes at dawn the next morning while we waited on the bird to gobble and set off after him when at last we knew that he had flown down and where. He was in a field on the top of a ridge across the hollow where we began the day and in which we were travelling to get closer, and he continued to gobble as we worked our way around the back and to the top of the rise on the other side of the bowl. When we got to his elevation we set up and I did some calling to see if the bird would respond. To my mouth yelpers the bird said nothing in return but he continued to gobble and move down the ridge towards a point that was four hundred yards away in front of us. We couldn’t get there fast enough to get ahead of him and we had to set up quickly when he gobbled at the point that was now a hundred fifty yards in front of us.

He gobbled at the point for five or so minutes and I continued to call to him even though he wouldn’t respond to me. Because he continued to gobble I was confident that at least I wasn’t scaring him. When he turned around and headed back towards his roost and back the way he came down the ridge we slipped up to the point in hopes that he might come back to see the hen he had called up to that strutting zone near his roost tree, but he wouldn’t budge. My host saw a bird strutting down the top of an adjacent ridge and we realized that it wasn’t the bird we were hunting. When our gobbler was at the point the other tom was close by and respected our bird’s territory like they had already settled a dispute earlier this spring; determining dominance between these two birds was a crap shoot at that point.

My host thought that our gobbler had joined up with the other one and headed down the adjoining ridge so we picked up and moved around the point and headed towards a spot in the field above the roost where our bird had started the day. There was a promising-looking dead elm tree at the edge of the field near the roost spot that we checked out for mushrooms, and we spent a few minutes chatting and digging through the underbrush in search of morels. We then took a stroll farther down the ridge to call off its other side to see if the gobblers had dropped off the top to work their way down to a lowland loafing spot where they liked to spend the middle of the day. The spot that I called from was over two hundred yards away from where we fungus hunted and when we back tracked to the spot above the roost we flushed a bird whose coloration was dark enough to be a gobbler but seemed to move too fast for a heavy bird.

We had a date in an hour with a lawnmower repairman that was scheduled to pick up the cabin’s riding mower and as it was a fifteen minute walk, we decided to stay where we were and take advantage of this high listening spot to hear the bird if he gobbled again. When I woke up I asked my buddy if he had heard anything. When he said he hadn’t I asked him if he heard me snore and he said that he had. We continued to listen and were rewarded with a faint gobble as we were getting ready to hike back to the cabin for our meeting and lunch. My host knew the direction where the bird was and we headed back towards the cabin.

While we were walking I suggested that it might be a good idea to get a more specific idea of where the bird was and we decided to locate him before we ate lunch. We made it to a hayfield that had a ground blind erected in its center and when we got to the farthest edge of the field we heard the bird gobble ahead of us and across a paved road. We were three hundred yards from the road and thought that if he had come this far that just maybe he would come back. We closed the distance 100 yards and found a good calling spot and this time he answered my mouth yelping. Before we left we both called at the same time to sound like two hens in hope that when we could rejoin the hunt that the bird would be located where we had called from.

The cabin was too far away to hear the bird if he gobbled but we managed our tasks as quickly as we could and when we had gotten done we drove the truck around the section perimeter to where the gobbler was, hoping to get a better understand of where he was and how we might hunt him. When we stopped at an old house place on the road near where we had heard him gobble last, he gobbled good when I called to him. He was one hundred fifty yards up a ridge in front of us. I decided that the best way to hunt the bird was to circle him from the road and get up there with him. My buddy decided not to join me and instead dropped me off at the road and returned to the property to sit in the ground blind located in the alfalfa field middle. We both had smartphones so we could text one another with updates.

It took me a good thirty minutes to slip above where the bird had last gobbled and for my host to make it to the ground blind. I let out some soft yelps from the old box in case a hen was with the gobbler and heard nothing but I wasn’t surprised when I heard a gobble from across the road I had just crossed myself. I texted my buddy to see if he had heard him and he said the bird was on his side of the road and located yards away from where we had both called to him before lunch and chores. Five minutes later, he texted me that the bird had entered the alfalfa field where his blind was located. I told him I was on my way and set out to cross the road again and head back to the property.

When I got back to the spot where we had both called from before lunch, I tried to make the bird gobble with a crow call. When he didn’t I used my mouth yelper to send a rising set of yelps followed by some cutting like the calls I had made that he had responded to earlier. Nothing. I texted my buddy to ask if the bird was still in the field and he said that he thought that the bird had made it to the hollow across the field. I eased up to the edge of the field and sent some soft yelps across it to the hollow. Nothing. I texted my buddy and told him to leave the blind and hit the hollow at its closest juncture which would be over a hundred yards from where I hoped to enter it. I walked halfway across the field to where it started to fall off the high point and stopped to listen. I could see my buddy getting his gear out of the blind in the field two hundred yards to my right and I was quite unprepared for what would immediately happen to me, that it would be a tale to tell and make me smile for years.

The field I was standing in was rolling land that curved around the hollow in front of me and had a stand of alfalfa/ orchard grass mix that at knee high was ready for its first cut of the year. When I stepped forward to continue my path to the hollow a commotion erupted behind me. Had such an event ever happened to me before I might have reacted differently or been prepared to move fast enough to kill a bird flushed from under my feet, and it both pains and delights me because I train to mount and shoot targets from a low gun that are moving a high rates of speed year round in preparation for just such a time as this. As I turned I saw aflutter an animal ten feet away and two feet from my stride marks in the tall hay doing its best to put distance between it and me. It took him several strides to add space and maybe it was his wings stretched out on either side trying to push down on the hay to get airborne that fooled my powers of recognition. When that red head popped up in front of his body at twenty feet it dawned on me that it was the gobbler. He was an elephant of a turkey and not making good purchase on the task at hand. It should have been a chip shot for me because he was most assuredly in range and not a difficult target as he started to lift at twenty yards, head held high. After all, I was standing in an open field and there was nothing but aromatic air between me and he.

It was three thirty in the afternoon and we were pooped; my gun was slung over my shoulder on a sling and I was wearing a vest of equipment that weighed over twenty pounds on my back that my knees had been unhappy about for the last three hours. I’ve played that picture over in my mind many times since and what I see is a trophy of a Tom running dead away from me and using his wings as paddles across the top of the hay as he tried his best to go fast enough to lift his big butt off the ground. He was so big and heavy that when he finally took off he couldn’t get over the tree line eighty yards in front of me and had to veer left to get more altitude and try again. As he went broadside to me I saw his beard and the size of his head. He was a monster whose size encourages thoughts of ten gauge guns and massive loads of very large shot.

My host and I texted a time or two over the next week with the shoulda, woulda, couldas of the hunt and he made a subsequent trip only to get whipped again. I sent him pictures and a short tale of a bird I killed in the meantime, sharing that I had called in two birds and that had he been with me he could have shot the other. He let on that hunting this bird was getting personal, so we made a plan to try him again on the last day of the season and I know that I’ll daydream about seeing that bird again but I don’t think I can take another ten foot encounter. I smile very time I think about that old bird and I thank him for providing yet another humiliating lesson against which a lifetime of woodsmanship will be measured every time I think about it. That old bird also renewed my respect for the challenge of killing a wild Tom after using the new technique of fanning gobblers had lessened the same.

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

To me spring turkey is the Daytona of hunting. You start the new season off with your best game (Dnr schedules hunting seasons April - March here).

Filled my 2 tag limit. Last year I stalk hunted my bird in the 4th season, never done that before. I got within 8 feet of a group of bird great story. That bird was about 20-22 pounds. Rolled down the edge of the hill he was on and into the river. Had to race him down until he got caught in an edde.

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

I'm shot out of shells for my 3" rainy day gun, my Browning BPS synthetic. It took a few years to shoot this batch because I felt the need to do some 2.75/12, 16, and 28 gauge hunting in the last few years. Double checking my inventory and I'm down to one shell and will have to start over with something else.

Anyone shot and patterned recent new loads and what did you think about them? You Florida folks don't have long till the spring season so I'm hoping you are ahead of me.
Reno

I shoot the Winchester 2 3/4 1 1/4 oz 6 pheasant loads at 1330 fps kills them dead.
My teen age son shots Win long beard XR 3 inch #5 they are pretty impressive also.
I patterned all the 3" and 3 1/2 loads through the old turkey gun and the 2 3/4 in Pheasant loads always patterned best out of my shotgun choke combo. However I don't shoot turkeys at extreme ranges if I can't get them inside 40 yards they win and I hunt them another day.

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

40 yards is my limit too. I wish folks and shell manufacturers would stop touting shooting distances beyond that. Reno

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

My season is looking bleak due to conflicts and time restraints, so I'm counting on you guys and gals to share. Anyone planning to hunt a new subspecies?

Reno

Joined: 11 Dec 2015 Posts: 83 Location: Upstate, SC

Our season dates in SC have changed for this year. The season on private land opens on March 20th statewide and WMA lands open April 1st. The season closes on May 5th with a 3 gobbler season limit, reduced from 5 in years past. I am really looking forward to the season as I have not hunted turkey in close to ten years. My 16 year old son is excited to go and I cannot wait to take him. Youth days are March 12-13. We will be out there.

I have the next several weeks to work up a solid 16 ga turkey load. I will be using nickel plated #6 shot. I am thinking 1 or 1-1/8oz of shot should be plenty.

Does anyone have a tight shooting load they recommend?

Two Barrels

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

Joined: 07 Aug 2013 Posts: 163 Location: Utah

This time of year, the break between upland game hunting and Spring Turkey season, is rough. For me it is time to plan the years hunts. I have to decide where, when and what I want to hunt this coming Fall. In Utah is is time to put in our application for our big game draws.

It also time to start collecting shed antlers and do a little turkey spotting. The wife and I have been out hiking the last couple of weekends and we are seeing lots of turkeys. They seem to be wintering well.

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.

click for full image

and another bird flying up

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

It was asked about subspecies adventures, I would love to do that. Unfortunately the only private properties I have access to hunt on (Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, & North Carolina) don't offer much in the way of subspecies. I might get invited to hunt in Nebraska in 2017 which could open the door to a Merriam, but not sure as Eastern seem to still be dominate in the eastern part of the state.

Joined: 07 Aug 2013 Posts: 163 Location: Utah

Here is Utah we are supposed to have Rios and few pockets of Merriams. I think the reality is we have lots of mutts/hybreds.

Many have said that my photo of the turkey flying up is a Merriam but it is hundreds of miles from those isolated pockets of Merriams. The photo was taken in an area that is squarely in the middle of an area that is supposed to be Rios. The birds in the flock where that photo was taken show indications of both sub species.

Last year I killed this bird with all the earmarks of a Rio a few hundred yards from that roost.

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

Merriams have pure white feather tips and those in your pictures are buff. Crosses of merriams and eastern look similar to a Rio and I think the birds you photographed look like that subspecies. By the way, those shots of roosting birds are very nice! I live the way the wing feathers are flexed and the curvature too. The merriams I have killed were in the NODAK badlands. Reno

Joined: 23 Sep 2008 Posts: 28 Location: Clinton County PA

Very cool pictures. I really like that first one.

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

Commiseration: lost one of my favorite turkey hunting buddies to heart disease a few weeks ago. He was the sweet young hen counterpart to my sassy old hen and we called a few nice birds together. He was as long legged as Charles Nicolaus and hard to keep up with. He started slowing down to my speed but died before he got there. He could run a slate call better than Joe Drake and loved for the turkey woods. Grateful to have known him. Reno

Reno, it's tough losing a hunting buddy regardless if two or four legged.
SB, one of the best photos of a turkey I've seen. Marvelous. Gil
PS: In an effort to be further impractical, I ordered 20 3" .410 hulls in brass from RMC and reloading kit on Oct. 27th and they arrived last Friday. As soon as the oversized OSC's arrive, I will start loading for my single-shot turkey gun. As far as practicality goes regarding turkey hunting, it flies out of the window of my truck the moment I pass a Publix or KFC on the way to the hunt.