Rainy days, fields and gobblers

drdi · 04-28-2008, 05:10 PM

Today was the first day of this season that I had to hunt in rain. Temps had dropped alot and it was down in the lower 40's with steady rain. I decided to park my bottom in one of my favorite spots overlooking a field. I built a homemade ground blind there and had one of those porta-roof jobbies over my head. Sweet! Being soaked from the walk in and tired from this weekend, I wasn't much in the mood for "run and gun" so I just decided to spend the whole morning there. I don't hunt with decoys often, but I put out 3 hens and a jake.

Over the course of the morning I saw 3 hens and 7 or 8 jakes. 2 of the hens and a gang of 7 jakes would not come near my decoys and fed way out in the field. One hen fed right among my decoys for about 20 minutes and she brought with her a jake. I practiced pointing my gun at him, but never took the safety off. "I'll hunt you next year little fellow", I thought.

As the morning wore on and turkeys were coming in and out of the field, I got to thinking. I cannot recall one rainy day hunt (and there have been many over the years) when I have set up overlooking a field where I have seen a mature gobbler. Tons of hens and jakes in the wet fields, but no gobblers.

Anyone else experience this? Why do you think this is?

mohunter82 · 04-28-2008, 06:00 PM

i'm not sure about you but around here 7 jakes is a bad sign. especially when they are running together. with 7 of them they can work together to run off any mature gobbler they want.

drdi · 04-28-2008, 06:47 PM

Quote:

ORIGINAL: mohunter82

i'm not sure about you but around here 7 jakes is a bad sign. especially when they are running together. with 7 of them they can work together to run off any mature gobbler they want.

Yeah, tell me about it. As you can tell we had a REALLY good hatch last year. LOL! Should make for a fun 2009 season, but in the meantime ...................

I saw one of the big boys strutting in front of a bunch of hens at 7:30 tonight. Right in front of the usual roost area. I have to work tomorrow, but if things go as planned, I might be able to sneak out tomorrow a.m. for the first 2 hours of the morning hunt. I'm really just gearing up for thiscoming weekend 'cause I have 3 days off in a row. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!