Ontario spring turkey 2016

I find they are gobbling way more now than the first two weeks of the season. Breeding is still under way as I watched a tom breed a hen this morning. It has been a quiet year but they are starting to become more vocal with this warmer weather. I think it is going to get real good for the rest of the season. Can't say I have ever heard of or witnessed a "fade" later in the season, I too find they usually get more vocal later in the season in the search for more receptive hens.
 
Well I guess I stand corrected! My opening day tom only gobbled when he got into shotgun range and the one I harvested earlier this week didn't gobble at all. My brother will be happy to hear this as he's out there right now and hasn't heard anything since 6:30 am.
 
First 10 days of the season other than a gobble or two on the roost that was that. 5:30 in the afternoon was another story for the same birds. What I have learned after 20 years of chasing these birds is when you think you have them figured, ie head across the road to greener pastures, is when they do things you would never expect. Personal experience is the bigger the bird the less they gobble as the hens tend to naturally gravitate to them so they just don't have to spend hours gobbling to attract them
 
Only reason I can think of birds going quiet is due to hunting pressure, if pressured they could get quiet. It has been a quiet year overall for me, seems like when it's warmer out over night they are fired up in the morning but when it's cool so are they. This past Thursday I invited a buddy out to try to get him a tom, not a peep off the roost, once on the ground I fired up 2 gobblers, one in each direction, by 6:10 he put a nice tom on the ground and it turns out we had two jakes roosted closer to us who never made a peep but were strutting for 4 hens. Yesterday was quiet as well with only a few gobbles, then today (warm over night) they where fired up on the roost and for a good hour after fly down. When I backed out they were still with the hens. This was all on different properties, I try to rotate properties and rarely go to spots back to back, all depends on what I come up with after scouting.
 
Update: The hens did not feed my way. They piked off into the woods and I haven't seen them since.

Also, when I said under the roost, I meant it - there is turkey crap on my blind. :/
 
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I agree thy are gobbling hard this week. I think we are about two weeks behind last year with the weather and breeding. Hens are sitting on eggs and toms are roosting alone. If you put in the time thy will show up . good luck guys.get after them
 
My 13 yo daughter and I have been putting in the time (30 hours in total so far this season, 6 hours on the ground this morning, my ass is still numb) and we still haven't seen a Tom...heard gobbling once 10 days ago(across the road, maybe a km away)....hens within spitting distance practically every time however! One of these days I figure the boys will show up and she will get a shot. She says she isn't getting discouraged but I know she is a bit...I'm about ready to spray-paint a Canada goose's head red and let'er loose ;)

Cool thing is, on our 12 min drive home today we spotted 3 indigo buntings, one Sandhill crane, and had a coyote run across the road in front of us! Mother Nature is awesome even if she doesn't always cooperate with our plans.
 
Just a suggestion for guys using dekes right now...... I have had success late season by continuing the calling and dropping the dekes...... Or going from the Jake / hen setup down to a lonely hen......

I got lucky and gotvmybsecond bird (another Jake) thursday...... Completely incidental...... Brought my 870 out garlic picking and heard a few birds coming in and hid behind a large rock..... Lol..... They weren't even concerned with my pick bucket..... Lol
 
I've never seen a year with toms as henned up as this year. Been talking with quite a few other lads in this general area and almost everyone is saying the same thing. I've got one more tag to fill, hopefully the birds cooperate this week. My first bird was solid.
 
swinginberrys said:
I've never seen a year with toms as henned up as this year. Been talking with quite a few other lads in this general area and almost everyone is saying the same thing. I've got one more tag to fill, hopefully the birds cooperate this week. My first bird was solid.
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I have had the same experience so far. I hope it improves as I only have two full hunting days left (thanks to no Sunday gun hunting) and whatever I can squeeze out of evening hunts in between.

Nice bird!
 
So I did get into a bit of action yesterday,
Moved fields and found a Tom strutting with 2 jakes and 2 hens
The hens wondered off the jakes stayed put and the Tom.....
He would gobble when I call and strut....
Then he just walked off in the other direction
 
I'm now tagged out. I took my 13 your old nephew out with me and I'm very glad I did because we were covered in turkeys! We had at least 7 toms and a few jakes in and around us. There was more gobbling and fighting then I've ever experienced in such a small area. There was a group of toms on a neighbouring property that couldnt handle hearing this early morning commotion from a distance and came running in from the other field and passed us to the left of our blind, where a shot couldnt be had. Well one thing led to another and we never really had a good shot on any of the birds we saw. After sitting tight for about 5 hours, I decided if a bird wasnt going to come to us, we would go to them. With wind and terrain in our favour, we made our way out of the bush, creeped up over a hill and got to about 35-40 yards on a Jake before he sensed the danger. As he started to run, I put my duck hunting skills to the test and shot him from the hip. As he flew away, I thought the worst and quickly started thinking about a thread posted on here not long ago about how crap wingshooting is with a pistol grip. My nephew, however, was confident about my shot. As we walked back into the bush close to the bird's point of entry, my nephew spotted the jake as he flapped his wings his finally few times. Go figure, I can miss a bird perfectly lined up for a shot, but I can somehow drop a bird with a perfect headshot on the fly from the hip. I was pretty amazed to see that not a single pellet hit the bird below the neck.

As for the bird, he's nothing to brag about. Definitely the smallest bird I've ever harvested. So I basically went from the biggest bird I'll likely ever shoot (or see for that matter) to a jake that was a little more then 15lbs lighter then the first bird. Talk about two extremes! I guess now I can see for myself if there is truely a difference in the taste of meat from an old bird to the more tender juvenile.
 
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If I see a bird shy off the decoys I will consider not using them but I usually have a strutter in the mix so I am used to less dominant birds shying off. One thing I have found in the late season is a breeding pair. Put your strutter, tail lowered, over a hen on the ground and watch the show. Or another trick is decoy them to death. My nephew's first bird was a 25lber I had been hunting off and on for a couple weeks. Always with hens with him all day long. Had no less than 7 decoys including two breeding pairs in the mix. That bugger hit the ground with 4 hens and came running at full strut to 2 yds and commenced to trash the spread. Boy got his bird and the experience of a lifetime to boot.

If they are decoy shy pull them or sometimes back way off on the calling. One or two to let them know you are there but no more. I cannot stress enough this time of year to get out early especially with a full moon. My days start at 3:00 AM these days. Give them what they want but don't be shocked that a bird will ignore you for a week and come running for no apparent reason on day 7. that's turkey hunting. Good luck!!
 
Earlier this season I got a Tom and the setup I used was a hen in the breeding position with the Jake decoy over top of the hen. The Tom wandered over then charged in once he saw what was going on.

I started out Friday morning with a Jake and two hens. All I got was putts from the hens that saw the spread. Then I was trying the lone hen this weekend with nothing happening. Turkeys just do what they want I guess.

I'm usually in the field by 0415 for morning hunts.
 
4n2t0 said:
You think they gobble more now than opening week? Hmmm, that's not what I have experienced, interesting. I feel when breeding slows; birds go quiet. I think some call it "the fade". Like you said though, every bird's different.
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Opening week I only heard some gobbles on the roost. Dead quiet the rest of the day, with several of us seeing birds sneaking along fence lines. Walking around with a crow call got no response either. Last week I went out with my dad on another property and we we're hearing gobbles as we walked into the field. Got to the edge of the hardwoods where the blind was set up and the gobbler was close! He was noisy for awhile then two hens came out onto the field, one towards the decoys and my dad one towards me. Shortly after the gobbler came out to the field edge and watched the hens who eventually headed away from us. Had another hen hang out in the green field beside the corn field later on.

I went back on my own a few days later no gobbling as I walked out. Got set up and did some yelps with a slate and got a gobble! He was close again. Within 5 minutes (5:50am) the two hens came out onto the field with the gobbler close behind, again just 5 yards out from the treeline. He started to strut and I saw the fan of a jake then he must've seen my tom decoy and he folded up his feathers and turned like he was going to run back into the woods so I shot, didn't seem to phase him so shot twice more and he was gone into the woods! Paced off about 50 yards, saw his footprints in the mud, not a feather on the ground! I am just beside myself how could I miss clean like that? I had just put on a Hi-Viz tri-viz universal sight on my shotgun which was pretty well bang on at 20 yards, and I know my ammo/choke combo is good to 50 yards. Without testing the new sight at 50 I very well could have been aiming way off. So much for technology I probably woulda had him with a plain old bead!

Well if he was decoy shy before he sure will be from now on in!
 
They seem to gobble here until 8am for the most part. Soon as the crows start squawking the turkeys start to gobble. Had a tom come in the other day from about 300 yards. He gobbled at my soft yelps then everytime the live hen would answer me he would gobble again. He hung up at 75 yards and slowly walked away after 30 minutes of my decoys not following him. I know the neighbours have these birds spooked a bit, As I can hear them calling and flash lights waving around before daylight.

trying no decoy this morning, setting up in the hardwoods on his travel route to the field.
 
Well, I guess the sign in sheet doesn't always work. I got to the farm at 0430 this morning and signed myself into field #3. I get out and set up in a well treed face row. About fifteen minutes later, I noticed headlights at the shop where the sign in sheet is. Later, directly accross the field from me I see someone skulk in, setup a blind and a hen decoy. Now, I knew he had no idea I was there, but I also didn't want to be shot at so I ended up moving. Of course I had to wait for the four male turkey's to move enough that they couldn't see me get up. I did learn something, I know that less hens are around and there are now five male birds on the property. I also got to watch the dominant Tom breed a hen and a few of the Toms and Jakes have a scrap. Two of the Toms in the group have sizeable beards which means one of them has arrived since Saturday.
 
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