Went out to that new property this morning before work. No luck. There were hens roosted there but no toms. The land owner had been seeing them strut in there. May have to keep checking it. The only gobbles I heard were almost a mile away on the next section.. Hopefully with the hens there, the toms will be in there at some point.

I am sure that one is hanging around there somewhere. Good luck!

Thanks swampbuster.. I have a few places in mind and hopefully I will be able to give some great reports..

I agree with swampbuster jepcho.. If the hens are there the toms are nearby.. Also keep in mind that some toms will not gobble at all and suddenly just show up !!
That is what happened with me on my last 4 birds.. i never gave up on them because I knew that they were there..

When do get to start hunting Phil?

Monday May 4th!!! I can hardly wait! I am supposed to work Sunday night just before my vacation and with doubled up crews i can not get a swap. So the key word here is supposed to.. I am laughing right now because i have waited a whole year for this day to come along again and nothing is going to change that one.. It runs until June 6th I believe I will have to check that date to make sure though.. But it is during the first week of June as well. So i have a full month to get it done.. Also one area I hunt in has a gated road I will have to wait on until the second or third week of the season to get in there.. That will add another almost 50 miles of field.. LOL That should help me if I need it... I know the area very well too.. I am quite confident I can add at least one bird to our score and will be hoping for 2 ..

Good luck to you! Hope you enjoy your season and get a big bird for the team!

I am hoping to as well. Our birds did surely take a hit from our rash of snow storms this winter.. But, this fella will be hunting hard for those birds!! Also most of my hunting area will be made of this stuff!! With the total area of field once they open the road up being 83 miles of it.. I should be able to help us out!!



I can hardly wait to hit the field.. It is completely different than what most of you folks hunt in and around..

Most of this has a road either running beside it or on one side or the other.. So I will setup roughly 75 yards in the woods and wait them out. In part because this place gets so busy with vehicles..

I just checked what has been posted for total scores so far and we are behind by 106 points.. I am hoping someone we have not heard from is still hunting and can help us out with a bird as well as myself. It is going to take us a quite a lot to win this thing.. I have PMed those we have not heard from for a while to see how they are doing and also asked them to check in with us.. We need all our team players in this.. I am not throwing in the towel as we know from last year anything can happen.. Good luck everyone out there hunting..

Bird #1

I arrived with my friends that host me for my hunting on Sunday afternoon. After a nice meal we did some scouting. Definitely less birds in the area than previous years but found some to work on during my trip. Decided the first spot I would hunt was a known strut zone on a field edge.

Monday morning came early since I knew a lot of the trees were barely leafed out. Any birds roosting near the field would spot me if I didn't go in early. Got settled on a cool morning and awaited that first gobble. It came at 5:28 am behind me and across the road in another one of my favorite spots. I sat tight and was rewarded with some gobbles about 100-120 yds from me. A hen yelped closer and I figured I was in good shape. At about six, a tom, jake, and hen pitched out in the field about 75 yards from me. Strange thing was, this tom never gobbled on the roost. The bird I had heard continued to gobble some on the ground and he had a jake with him. The 3 birds worked away from me towards a hard bend in the field. No too long after, the jake from the woods joined the other 3. They worked away from me and out of site. I was scared to move since the other tom (that I hadn't seen) had gobbled about 60 yards from me in the woods. At about 7, the tom came back around the corner to check the corner of the field I was in. He hung around for a bit but would not get any closer than 125 yds. I am not sure if he had come back to my soft calling or just his routine. He worked his way around the corner again and out of site. Now I figured I had to make a move even if that other tom was still in the woods. I skirted 250 yds around the field edge and got resettled. (I saw where that other tom must have been strutting on a small ridge in the woods.) Gave a few short calls with no obvious response. At about 8, the tom came into view from around the corner. He kept closing. I was hoping he would take a few steps to his left, my right, before he got too close. At 15 yards, I finally had a clear shot and took him!

Here he is hanging with one of my Turkey Totes


Beard


Spurs

Bird #2

After a nice day with my friends and our annual steak dinner, we went scouting. Saw lots of jakes (good sign for next year) but not many toms. The farm of 1000 gobbles from last year had no toms. We did see 2 nice toms in a field I had not hunted before but was a possibility. Then we found a nice flock that had hens, jakes, and before we left, 5 longbeards. One had a pencil thin beard that I mentally said I would pass if presented the shot. Had a pretty good idea where they went to roost.

Tuesday again came early. I would have to get in early to get on these birds too. It wasn't as cool as Monday am, but I was still in 3 layers of clothes. I pushed as close as I dared and set up behind a large pine that had branches to the ground, giving me room to reposition and also blocking the birds from seeing me based on where I thought they were. At 5:26 am I was proven right in my prediction of where the group was. A cacophony of gobbles filled the air from less than 100 yds. Now I had to predict which side they might come down on. About 5:45 they began to pitch down mostly in the direction I had guessed but they basically flew straight down and didn't sail out a bit like I thought. I could see hens, toms, and jakes through the pine. Finally some birds came into view but it was hens and 3 strutting jakes. With the longbeards there, I was really surprised they were letting them strut. The hens started to move in front of me in range. A longbeard strutted on the other side of them, about 60 yards, and out of range. Then it looked like the rest might move to my left a bit closer. I could see the glowing heads of the toms through the pine tree from time to time. Then 3 hens popped out to my left at 10 yards. One saw something but thankfully no alarm putt! They slowly moved on and I was able to reposition quickly. Then a tom popped out at 15-18 yds. It was the pencil beard. I let him walk thinking that the next bird that came out with a thick beard was getting it. The pencil beard kept slowing moving by and nothing else was coming out. I began to regret my decision when a thick bearded tom popped out at 25 yards. That was all I needed! Tag filled! The crazy rest of the story was most of the birds didn't know what happened on the shot and hung around. As to not blow them out of the area I held tight. The bulk of them never got more than 120 yards from me and stayed in there for an hour. I videoed a nice tom come past at 38 yards. I finally texted one of my friends to come drive in there to run them off since they are used to farm traffic. I finally got my hands on my tom over an hour after the shot! Limbhanger!



Beard


Spurs