It opens tomorrow and runs until May 17th. I have two tags to fill in that time.

Phil, here are the approximate times of the birds I killed.

4-21-15 7:55 am
4-23-15 9:00 am
4-24-15 6:20 am

I'll get you all the pics I can also.

Great job blackheel! We may come back and win this thing again this year!!

Thank you jepcho..

I am also sending out pms to the rest of our team members we have not heard from for a while..

I am going to use a post for each bird that jepcho has entered..
This is the Merriam's posting.. Shot on 4-21 - 2015

This for the Rio/ Eastern Hybrid.. Shot on 4-24

I will update these plus add another post for the other birds thanks, Phil..

The snow is pretty much gone from here now !! Yeah !!! It has been a long winter for us up here.. Now for a little bit of eye candy to work our blood up.. It looks like decent hooks to me as well.. I am having a hard time waiting for my season to open up .. I was looking at the scoring and we still stand a decent chance at winning this contest again.. That is if 2 more of us tag a decent bird.. So hopefully one of our other members plus myself get to tag a nice tom and that should place us into the lead again! Either that or some scoring up grades.. Either way we stand a decent chance at it once again..We are currently running in the best bird per team member behind by 88 points.. If we can upgrade or have 2 of us score a couple of decent birds we will win again!! So lets get this contest won !!!! We have a great team of guys and we are running with 2 members short so we are really doing great.. Way To Go Guys !!!

My season runs from May 4th threw June 6 here.. So I should be able to nail a turkey for us !! I can hardly wait to get started.. You guys have put a lot of pressure on your captain to get it done..

Camokenny's bird .. WTG Camokenny!!!

Good luck to all our members that is still hunting out there.. We need 2 members to nail a decent turkey and we will be back in the winner's circle once again.. We can do this!!!! Either that or I get to nail a really decent bird and some upgrades! We still have a great chance at it!! Wouldn't it be great to be able to hold our team together again for another year??!!!
Lets show those other teams how we can get it done !!!

Nice pic Phil, thanks for sharing! Hope you have lots of success this spring!

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

Nice story blackheel! I know any time the turkeys are around you it is extremely hard to change your location on them.. Even when a group moves off.. That other tom spots you and you are done with.. My last 2 years of hunting up here the toms gave me the silent treat on each bird that I shot even on a miss last year the same thing silent.. Not 1 frigging peep out of those toms.. The jake would gobble no matter what it appeared but not those toms.. Anyways nice story and a nice bird!! congrats again..

Real nice story on bird #2 as well.. Sometimes you just never know what they are going to do!! I know from my scouting our bird numbers are down a lot as well. But, there is still some birds around and I am going to give it my best.. Congrats again blackheel..

Phil - I saw your post earlier. How many team members do we have that are basically MIA?

Congrats again blackheel! Nice stories and nice turkeys! What state were you hunting?

Well I will be back at them again in the morning. It will be a picture perfect morning, sunny, cool, no wind. Hopefully the birds will be fired up in the morning. Can't wait to experience Gods creation in the morning!

3 of them have not made any reports in quite some time.. Bigc870, Southernstrut56, and Talondale.. Also we came in this contest with 2 members missing and 2 assigned but never showed.. So with what we have left we are really laying the smack down.. Now if I can nail a bird or 2 it will help.. But unless I get one of those giant hardly ever heard tell of birds I am afraid we may not get the win.. But, it is not over yet and any of you that are hunting may end up upgrading a score or 2 and I could nail a nice bird.. So it is still far from over!! I know we can still win this thing!! But, it will be a battle right to the end.. I also never saw team 2 scores until I went back and looked.. We are now in 3rd place guys.. So hopefully a no report may get one?? Who knows..

Good Luck to you swampbuster!! We hope you have some great success!!

We are currently 123 points behind the first place team.. So it will be a very hard win for us to get unless some member we have not heard from happens to get a bird.. Good luck guys we still have a chance at it none the less!!

Will any of them answer a pm?

I received nothing from them.. No idea as to why? Maybe they have been quite busy or something? So I am hoping one of these guys will pop in with some good news for us.. But, as well all know from last year anything can still happen.. I do know where i saw a big tom back last week one day.. I have not seen him again but have seen 2 hens in there last night just before dark. So I believe he is still in there.. I will be trying for him early on Monday morning..

So who all is still hunting?

If I get 2 birds which will be a tough one with the amount of birds that has been showing up.. That could put us a head one the scoring with the most birds.. But, it will not help us much on the best score per hunter area and that is the one that counts.. Unless somehow I can get a monster of a bird that scores over 100.. Any upgrades will help us out though. So good luck to all that is still out there hunting !!
.

I'm still hunting. Went out before work this morning and kinda pissed myself off. Had planned for a couple weeks exactly where to sit on this property I was kinda saving. We hunted it a few weeks ago and got my dad one during 1st season but the 2 big birds were still out there. Well on my way out to the woods I had a "feeling" and suddenly decided I'd sit in a different spot 60 yards or so away. Huge mistake. The two big toms flew down about 40 yards away but through thick brush and then walked right to where I had originally planned to setup. Strutted there for a while then walked out of my life. I would have had one for sure and might have been able to fill both my Iowa tags right then. Frustrated with myself, but oh well. I'll have to get back after them I guess.

We can not predict exactly what will happen when out hunting.. We can only hope things go as planned.. I have hope Monday a decent tom will show itself.. Right now where I hunt it is like the interstate with people going fishing and others scouting for where a tom might be hanging around. With our hard winter it is going to present a tough hunt for me this year.. But, I am still confident I can get it done..
Good Luck to you jepcho...

Good luck Swampbuster!! Bust a big one!:fighting0007:

Got a slight upgrade at 1:30 today. Let me get it cleaned and get unpacked and I'll get the pics up

Here is a couple pics. I'll get the scoring up in a bit. We have merriams a ways up north and all I've ever seen where I hunt are rios. The white tips are throwing me for a loop on calling it a rio. What do yall think? Is there another way to tell?

Here is another pic....

Congrats kellyguinn! Last year in south central Kansas We shot a few birds that had a whiter than normal feathers. Didn't look like a normal Rio. Go figure,

Worked a turkey for a hour and a half this morning, but he lacked about ten or fifteen yards of being in killing range. All I could see was his head at about 50 yards. The hunt offered everything but carrying the turkey out over my shoulder. It was still a great hunt and a great morning in Gods creation!

I guess I'll call it a Rio unless someone thinks different lol

4/30/2015 1:30pm Shotgun
25 lbs
11.5" beard
1.25" right spur
1.3125" left spur

73.625 total score