mouthcaller

Swamp and HHU

It's been a decent year so far. I don't think I'm being greedy but the limit in my state is 4 and I'll keep after them until they quit gobbling, the season ends, or I kill two more. My passion is turkey hunting and I go every chance I have because I love playing the game with them. If I can kill two more great. If not I'm OK with it. The fun is in the chase, but don't get me wrong - I love the thrill of pulling that trigger baby.

SwampCollie

And thats all good and great... but at least you have gotten to hunt and have a place to hunt. Can you imagine sitting out a season because you don't have a place to go?

HOGHUNTINGUNLIMITED

NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "We don't need no flocking name" just pulled ahead with 2 birds......... They're way up there now! We can still get em if we get some more big birds! I have a feeling, If I get another.... It's not going to beat mine, so I don't think I can help the team anymore.

HOGHUNTINGUNLIMITED

Actually... It's not as bad as I thought One more nice tom will put us back in the lead!

mouthcaller

You live in Virginia don't you. Is there no public land there to hunt? Until about 1990 I only hunted on public land because there was very little private land in my area that had turkeys. Public hunting now in West Tennessee is the best its ever been.

If you want to drive over here I'll take you. No joke.

mouthcaller

Slipped out this morning to our club that borders the river for a quick hunt. The Mississippi is high and backing up in the lower part of the property. Thank goodness for 4-wheel drive 4-wheelers because I had to go nearly 1/2 mile through water up past the floorboards of the Grizzly.

Heard two turkeys gobbling on an island across the oxbow. Finally heard another one still on the roost near where I parked the four-wheeler so I took off. Turns out he was only about 150 yards from the four-wheeler, which proves to me that not all turkeys are spooked by a four-wheeler (the second one I killed was roosted less than 100 yards from where Peter and I parked a couple weeks ago).

Slipped in pretty close and sat down. He immediately answered my soft yelps and clucks. Then I heard a Jake between me and him calking and trying to gobble. Not liking this too much now. Then I heard a couple hens yelp when the turkey would gobble and I really didn't like the situation. Predictibly he pitched down after 3 or 4 more roost gobblesand never made another sound. I found him later in the morning strutting with the hens in a privately owned field we don't have permission to hunt.

Though the hens spoiled my hunt I suppose it was good to see the hens still with the gobblers because that means to me that the breeding season isn't as far along as I initially thought. When all the hens get bred and don't come to him or stay with him very long the gobbling will pick up again. That gives me hope that I may be able to catch a love-sick gobbler in a lonely mood at some point in the near future.

Heard another turkey gobbling in the distance and by the time I figured out the turkey I first set-up on wasn't coming this second one quit gobbling. I found him strutting by himself in the middle of a big field on the south end of the property but he was too far to call at and I needed to go anyway. I will remember this bird on the next trip and maybe I can get between him and where he wants to go now that I know that.

doall hunter

Yea swamp. He or we will take you. But I can start to tell that the season slowin' down a bit though. But if you want to make the drive and all of that I bet dad, and maybe I, can make plans w/ you.

Anyway I'm hoping for a killer weekend. Dad got to go on an absolute beautiful morning. Maybe I'll ge the chance too.

SwampCollie

I don't mean to come off as sarcastic, so please bear that in mind here, but yes, I have thought of that... and it has not even remotely tempted me. If I wanted to be shot again (I did say AGAIN) then I'd just do it myself. No need to get all done up and wander off and let some jackass do it for me. I've got some nickle plated 5s in the back of my head from thatidiot who likes to shoot low doves in public fields on opening day. It has left an extremely bad taste in my mouth about hunting public ground within a mile of anyone else. And I was just a kid when that happened.... I think I was 13.

I know good and well that not all public land is like this, and I'm 100 times more likely to be killed on the commute there then by gunfire from a hunter, but the issue is that public land in this part of the world gets absolutely hammered. And if people treated it like their own instead of like 'public land' then it would be worth doing. But until people stop shooting at birds from golf carts (my father watched it himself last weekend... two hunters tried a bird six times from 75 yards with lead #4s and never cut a feather), I'll go fishing or try and slip in with a friend one morning. I'll find a lease sooner or later. Color me a control freak when it comes to hunting.... the bird I roost tonight will be the bird I hunt tomorrow... not the bird that someone else beats me to in the morning.... hunting that way is not fun for me.... and I'm not going to do it. Thats part of the reason I like blind laws for waterfowl hunting so much.

I appreciate the invite, but I can hardly afford to get to work and back, nevermind Tennessee. I've fallen on quite a bit of hard luck in the last five months, and it has put a permanent change in me right down to the core of who I am.

fl.huntress

hey guys i'm back...and birdless sorry to say.
getting out of florida was great but the huntin' was HARD....they were still henned up bigger than crap.
i hunted this flippin' MONSTER gobbler almost every morning and every evening.....his gobble made the woods shake....the other two with him were probably good 2yr olds but this one was the macdaddy of all turkeys....on the last evening i finally figured him out and he showed himself 10yds from where i was...he needed to take two or three more steps for me to have a clear shot but he took 1 step, saw my decoy, and RAN AWAY!!
i'm still sick over it...the locals said to keep the decoys home but i figured one feeding hen wuoldn't do anything...WRONG!! still kickin' myself in the butt....this bird was every bit the trophy i thought he'd be and a part of me is thankful because at least i did get to see him and it confirmed the fact that he was a throphy but a part of me wishes that i hadn't see him...it kinda makes it worse.
anyways, my season is officially over....unless i get a bug up my butt and drive back to sc saturday and do an evening hunt and come back sunday for work but that's probably not going to happen....it'd be kinda silly to waste all that gas for a couple hours of huntin'.
and i've got my 2 birds here, one of them was my first doublebeard, so i've had a great season but if i change my mind i'll let y'all know.
now the end of turkey season depression kicks in......wiping tears.

i'll be checkin' in on y'all so make sure you keep killin 'turkeys.

pinsapex7

Not sure but so far, not so good. I know tomorrow is only my fourth day out but usually tagged at least one longbeard by now. Trying to helpout the team score but just not seeing the birds for some reason. I hunt from dawn till noon not really moving a whole lot from place to place because that usually just spooks the birds from I have come to learn. Well good luck team and hopefully the next time I will post a pic with a freshly arrowed bird.