Official 2019 Wild Turkey Thread

A good laugh was had, from a recent Meateater podcast. A guest was asked if turkeys move in any specific pattern during the day, his answer..."not really, they're like Roombas with feathers".
 
I have two jakes coming in and out of shooting range but they appear cautious as there is still a gobble that appears to be closing the distance. I may regret not taking one of these jakes, but I checked my game cam footage just before sunrise and it has a tom coming by in the morning almost daily. Based on how these jakes are acting, I’d say there is something lurking
 
Lots of gobbling this morning... perfect opening morning, crisp, bright and calm. No indication of a gobbler in the woodlot that I am hunting, but I have permission to hunt the Bush where there were five or six toms sounding off... will head over there next.
 
First spot was a bust... second spot had 3 big toms, 3 jakes... all in full strut, with 6 hens, but there was no way to get to them without spooking them, will go back this afternoon and give them a go. I'm in a pretty hardwood bush now, along a drainage ditch opposite a corn field and have hens clucking and a gobbler sounding off... gotta go...
 
hoytcanon said:
First spot was a bust... second spot had 3 big toms, 3 jakes... all in full strut, with 6 hens, but there was no way to get to them without spooking them, will go back this afternoon and give them a go. I'm in a pretty hardwood bush now, along a drainage ditch opposite a corn field and have hens clucking and a gobbler sounding off... gotta go...
Click to expand...

Get one of those
 
Got my turkey at 730 am i was out there for half an hour and called in a jake from across the field about 600 yards away dropped him with my mossberg 500 shooting Winchester long beard xr out of a carlsons choke hope you guys have good luck out there I’ll post some pics later
 
Ah...what the heck, I'll go first... No gobbles, no action till 8:30. Saw a hen 300 yards out in the neighbour's field. Called for a bit in very short intervals, she came right by my popup with boyfriend in tow. Thirty-five yard shot, Win Longbeard XR in #5.
21.8 lbs, 8" beard, 3/4" spurs.

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It was really quiet this morning, heard a few distant gobbles, but nothing like what I have been seeing and hearing. At about 9:30 I moved from the trail I was watching to check the field. There was a tom and 5 hens about 350 yards away leaving the field in the opposite direction, then a second tom followed a minute or two later. I waited a few minutes trying to decide what to do, then made a couple of calls. One of the toms came back into the field immediately. For the next hour he wandered closer while I clucked quietly. I had a jake decoy and a fan from a jake I shot last year in the field beside me, but the tom was in no hurry, he was still at least 200 yards away working along the opposite side of the field. Eventually he worked his way into the long grass that borders the field and runs into a creek in a few yards.

Since it was almost 10:30 I decided to try something different, so I slowly made my way to the jake fan and picked it up to see how close I could get walking. The tom had come back to the edge of the field by then, but just started strutting when he saw my fan. I walked slowly stopping every so often to peak around the fan. The tom let me get to about 100 yards before he went back into the tall grass along the creek, at which point I started to walk faster. I got to the edge of the field about 50 yards to the right of where I last saw the tom, but just as I got there I saw a tom start to display right across the creek from me at about 50 yards. I got to the long grass and stuck the post for the fan into the ground and hid behind it. There were 3 hens near a pile of slash, and the tom was barely visible through the pile sticks, but he turned around immediately and came to see who was on the other side of the creek. One round of 3" 4's and 6's was all she wrote.

Weighed 19.4 lbs, not huge, but I'll take it.



 
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Morning hunt was a bust. Snuck in like a ninja, feeling good that we never spooked anything from the roost (normally we do). We decided to hit our best go to spot to compensate for our general lack of scouting so far. 50% of all our birds were taken in a 25m circle of this spot. 830 comes and goes, and not a peep. Used all of our best and worst calls, crow, nothing. Silence. Like someone came down the day before and took them all.

We decided to packer up and go for walk to see if we can locate anything in adjacent areas. We get to the edge of our property and at the corner of two fields over, there's the strutting bastard working in front of two live hens. We dropped our hen decoy where he could see it, probably 250m from him, and set up on the fence line that he would have to travel to get it. Our locator call gets answered and so we wait. and wait. and wait. Nothing. we move back to see if we can see him and there he was...gone.

We pack it in for good this time. We have several 100 acre plots we can hunt in a 1600 block of land, so we decide to just go for a drive around the entire area, and spot all kinds of turkey on the fields we don't have permission for. We spot one local guy working his lawn and ask him if he has seen many turkey around lately, and he says: Yeah, I see them, when they are there. Sometimes they are not there and I don't see them. When they are there, they are there (not pointing anywhere in particular), and when they are not they are not. Good luck fellas." He was very kind, and I don't think he meant his advice to be as futile as it sounded.

We link up with a cattle farmer who did give us permission to hunt, and asked us to shoot the coyotes if we see them (thats a win), and he says lately they have all been out in the afternoon coming onto his place and moving over to the woods (where we can hunt) late in the day. So tomorrow, its going to be an afternoon hunt.

Congrats to the guys who landed a bird on opening day!
 
Got my bird at 07.45, a near double google then 10 seconds of Fighting Purr, the a couple double goobles and silent.

Two mature toms were coming straight at me, at around 12 yards they stop, had them there for at least 30 seconds trying to pinpoint the noise,

The Ravin barked and with these new blades i bought, the arrow hit the base of the neck, so deadly, the neck was holding by almost nothing.

The Ravin R20 i called it from now on the silent killer. I was a cool hunt.

Tomorow i will get is friend.
 
I bagged a nice Tom this morning after passing on a couple persistent jakes who kept hanging around the decoy. I nailed him with my 16ga Sauer drilling. I am actively trying to check off as many boxes with gun in a quest to prove one gun can do almost everything.

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