BIG DONNIE BRASCO

One stinkin Jake at 35 yards for almost an hour. Let him walk since I have 2 more weekends to look for another Tom.

Zim

Slammer afternoon hunt. Repositioned blind. Hunted from 3 PM to 8 PM. Nonstop action. 6 hens, 5 mature gobblers. 3 of the hens came right in to my decoys. The toms came one at a time, 2 got within 60 yards, 3 came within 50. The last one locked up on my decoys for 45 minutes and only left 10 minutes before sunset. He would not come closer than 52 yards. I am not comfortable at that yardage so I passed. I repositioned our blind to the favored travel lanes and set decoy 25 yards back of where I expect toms to come from. So if one won't come closer than 60 yards, he'll still be in my range. Toms were gobbling all over all evening up to sunset. Looking forward to an electric last morning.

Zim

Bet you guys are tired of hearing about my unproductive hunts! Haha. Well that ended at 8:30 am this morning. Put the hammer down on a nice mature double bearded Tom. Took some sleuth work as these over pressured toms kept eyeballing my decoys and avoiding them by 60-70 yards. So I set only one up today, with my blind between the timber edge and the deke. Two mature toms and a jake once again showed and tried to skirt my deke, but I cut one off at 43 yards. Photos and measurements to follow.

About time, huh? Will be back at it next weekend. I expect to take another one at this dependable honey hole. One tag left.

Mottz

Sweet deal Zim! Cant wait to see the pics

superstrutter

Good going Zim. Hurry up and send the pic and measurements. Sounds like a nice bird and a great hunt.

Zim

Wisconsin public land has been very good to me! Got his numbers posted on score thread. He was my heaviest bird ever at 25 1/2#. I thought he felt big while toting him back to jeep. Now I know why I previously had always limited my shots to 30 yards.......He got a lot of shot in the breast. 43 Yards is too far for me.

The rules look like they state to post photos of spurs & beards but I don't see where anyone does that. I posted all of mine just in case.

Supposed to get very hot next weekend mid 80's, but I'm planning on returning to fill my 6th season tag. Season ends May 27th. I love southern Wisconsin.

Topgun 3006

Geez ZIM, I wonder what that bird would have weighed if you had let him grow up, LOL! Good going! My season has sucked over here and I'm going to have to try real hard in the last ten days not to eat tag soup this year! Did your bird make any noise or come in silent? The birds over here have been ridiculously quiet this season with all the lousy weather we're having.

Zim

Topgun,

Good thing I like a challenge, because these late season toms are sooooo wary decoys have actually become a liability. We had many hens come right in on the Zink Avians, but ALL the toms locked up on them, then after 10-15 minutes altered their routes into cover to stay ~50-70 yards away. Even when I did not call. This was not simply coincidence. 8 out of 8 displayed this behavior. In fact Sunday/Monday took the cake. Never had 3 toms, all eyeballing my deke together, without racing each other to get there first. Not this time!

I feel it's gotten to the point where I have no chance for a close head shot unless I go without any decoys. I know where they love to hang out. Seen those 8 in 8 hours in an area about 300 yards x 45 yards. I know I can just stick my blind up there and one will just wander in for a 30 yard or less shot. I may try the jake mounting the hen setup for the hell of it, but otherwise no dekes anymore.

As for gobbling, it has really been hit and miss. Sunday evening they were going nuts all over the timber every direction, up to sunset 8 PM! The following Monday morning the weather was once again gorgeous, but virtually no gobbling anywhere! Mine came in totally silent along with his two buddies. I do believe one of them had gobbled once about a half hour earlier. Overall the gobbling this season has been good. One odd thing though, is I never had any gobblers strut at any of my Zink Avians the entire season, at any of the 3 properties I hunted. One partially fanned twice for just seconds, if you count that, before he moved directly away from me.

Never seen such defensive behavior before. I did observe definitely more hunters this year than last few.

superstrutter

Awesome bird. That's one reason why I very rarely use decoys. Now go get another one.

superstrutter

Guys, I did some averaging. We have killed some really nice birds this season. We may not win this thing, but I think we'll end up doing pretty good. Our best bird per hunter average is 70.720 for 6 birds. That's pretty dang good. Our total average for 14 birds is 65.077. That's also pretty dang good. Congrats to everyone who has taken a bird or birds. Who all is still hunting?