Agreed, it would be nice to have the season two weeks earlier.


Oh well


-jake

I've always been able to successfully get birds throughout all of May in NY, CT and MI. My wife shot her first bird last year on May 31st.

With that said, the early season in MI this year from April 23 thru May 6 was looking great - until this week. We've got 2 snowstorms on track to hit MI, we'll see how bad the weather is and if we get any snow. Anything more than 6" and I'll probably stick to the late season of May 7-31.

Did you all get over to the other team threads and see the monster that Nicky shot? 4 beards, score is almost 100...

Season opens Friday and its suppose to be in the 20's, high winds and sleet or snow possible. This is not a good thing lol. I'll try to get out there and tough it out but not sure how much of a slow down it will put on the birds. The normal temps here should be lows in the upper 50s and highs in the upper 70s to lower 80s.

We've got about 2" of fresh snow on the ground in SW Michigan. If it sticks until tonight it's probably the perfect opportunity to take advantage of daylight savings time and visit my honeyhole this evening. I'll see how many gobbler prints I can find, last year there were 7-8 different toms in the area...

Open in Indiana 4/25.....long wait still

Weather looking great for my first hunt. I need Mississippi River level down to access my area and it is dropping now. Supposed to be sunny the next 5 days prior to the opener Monday. I will drive down there to far southern Illinois Sunday morning.

I got out Friday before the cold front hit and had a few close calls but between too many hunters and all the birds being in big groups still and then adding in the mist, 40 mph winds and then the temps dropping to the 20's it was some tough going. I did call in a few lonely hens and had a few toms sneak up on me but they would spot the decoys and head back into the bush. Had one sneak up behind the cedar tree I was using as cover and when I hit the loud box call it shock gobbled and scared me half to death lol.

We had sleet and snow move in Friday night so I headed the 3 hour drive back home to avoid being stuck out there. Well that and I am not fond of turkey hunting while wet and in 0 degree windchills lol

I did manage to call this curious doe in with a sultry yelp lol

That slick head self-identifies as a gobbler!


-Jake

No birds at my plan A spot, despite a 3/4 mile view. And what's worse not a track seen. This spot is vulnerable to high water. Will try plan B tomorrow. That spot produced last year.

On The Board
 

Rejects are on the board. Typing from the field. Had a fantastic hunt at my day two plan B. Had five Toms gobbling within 200 yards of my setup. When it got light had two jakes come in, then a half hour later 5 mature Toms harassing 7 hens. Toms were fighting big time. At first none got within 80 yards but after the hens dispersed at 10 AM two of the Toms visited my dekes. I took the bigger of the two. Returning to the car now for measurements.

Congrats!! about time j/k.

I'm heading back out in the morning but not too confident. Gonna be 96 degrees with 40 mph winds then by Saturday the winds stay in the 30's and below freezing again in the morning. I am hoping the hot day tomorrow will finally split the groups up and maybe I can catch one heading to water.

Zim da Man
 

Zim, congrats to you, no joy for me so far, I've got reservations to hunt the bombing range Saturday...I've had good luck there in the past.

My tom weighed in at 22 1/2#. I had to clean him up and go to work this afternoon but will try to post on the scoreboard tonight at hotel.

This public property I hunted has over 8,000 acres yet only two birds were registered in all of last year (one of those mine). And there’s no lottery for it. But it’s remote. I think some folks assume the high demand lottery draw properties must be best. Perceived value. But I don’t know I took mine in one hour of hunting last year, and four hours this year. Never seen another hunter or truck. No shortage of birds.

Congrats Zim!!! Way to get us on the board!!

Awesome Zim - congrats!

OK I got him entered on the score sheet page. NTWF score is 63.454. Decent size for my hunt properties. Doubt I can take a larger one. Biggest I ever took in my areas was 25#.

Scouting a park where I drew a special deer tag today. Then to Pike County tomorrow to try for another tom with tag #2.

Good luck everyone!

Got one in the fridge. For some reason, it will not let me load pictures, though. Working on it.

Congrats to our successful team members. Season opens Monday
in MO and guess who has the day off...........

Best of luck, DTC!

Got one down this evening. Toughest conditions I have ever hunted in. 19 lbs, 10" beard 3/4 and 7/8 spurs. I'll give a story and get the pics loaded when I get back in town

Three Down
 

We are doing well for so early. Nice toms Kelly & bible man. :groupwave:

I got about two more weeks then I can get in on the action!


Nice job so far


-Jake

No joy
 

No luck at the bombing range this morning. Out of 4 hunters 2 killed. These were the smallest gobblers I've ever seen, both were 2 year old birds with 7/8'' spurs and weighed approx 14 pounds apiece.

Congrats to all who have killed so far. I will be out next weekend with my grandson, then my season opens up next Monday. Here's a couple pics from my set up. It's a rigged job but I've done this ever since I started Turkey hunting and it works fine. I also have a pic of the field I usually hunt. The birds roost on all sides of this field so it's definitely one of the best spots in the area.

Here are the pictures. I guess not. I'm trying to upload them but it's not working.

So it states I can't upload pictures because a security token is missing. Does anyone know anything about that?

Haven't seen that problem before. I'll ask around and see. Are you trying to upload with a phone or on the computer?

Friday the 13th bird.

This was some of the worst conditions I have ever hunted turkeys in!!! Last Saturday we had a 0 degree windchill and this Thursday it was 101 with 60 to 70 mph winds. Nothing would respond to calls and not a single gobble was heard this whole trip. It would be more like deer hunting where I would just find a comfy spot and sit all day. While hunting in the draw to keep out of the winds I had a group of hens, jakes and 1 tom that just happened to wander by. They stayed about 65 yards away until the wind broke a tree limb off that fell down right beside the birds. They all spooked my way and would eventually start cruising by at about 30. When the Tom stopped......BOOM and he flies off! After inspection there were thin branches between him and I that I didn't notice when concentrating on the shot. Lesson Learned!! I was pretty disappointed after sitting from about 6 am till 6 pm. Our curfew is 7 pm on this public land so I decided to start out of the draw and head to the truck.

Once I got out of the draw there was smoke everywhere I looked. I had thought it was just getting cloudy while I was in the draw. There were fires north of me, West of me and South of me. Which as you can imagine is not a good combination when you throw in no 3/10 " rain in the last 6 months plus the high winds!! I got to a high vantage point to take these pictures. At least 1 of the fires is still burning and at last I heard had traveled 80+ miles and burned over 366000 acres. 4 turkey hunters got trapped. The found 3 of them alive but the other was not found till the next morning. Luckily he found a stock tank to jump in and kept splashing water on himself as the fire passed. He only ended up with 10% of his body with 2nd and 3rd degree burns. 1 firefighter had smoke inhalation and ended up having a heart attack and passed while being mediflighted and a road grater operator that was trying to create a fire brake was overcome by the fire and burned in his equipment. These winds have just now died down from the 60 and 70 mph down to around 20 to 30 which should help a little. Several cities ended up being evacuated. If yall would like to read a little about it just look up Western Oklahoma fires and there is plenty.

Friday I sat in the same draw with the same crappy conditions. I waited to make sure the fires weren't starting back up that were still smoldering around the area and instead of sitting all day I sat till 9 am then did a fire check. At noon it seemed all was good by me so I settled in for the evening. Again no turkeys talking anywhere makes it hard to sit still and around 5 pm a cold front pushed in and the temps dropped to a windchill of around 40. Since I was dressed for the 90's this created a bit of challenge lol. At 6 pm I had all I could stand. I decided to move a little further in to see if I could find a better spot for the morning.

Walking slowly while keeping my eye out I came out of the draw to the opposite side of where I had parked and there was a group of trees. While looking to the trees there was a steepish slope directly after them that led to another draw. As I passed them "crap" there is a bird looking right at me 40 yards away lol. I crouched down and took a few steps back to put a cedar tree between us and sat down against 2 saplings. Hit the box call a few times and gave a few yelps with the mouth call and nothing. (wasn't sure if it was a hen or gobbler) Waited about 15 min and stood back up to take a peek. Made a few steps and there he was. The top of the fan was just above the hill. I dropped back down and gave a few angry clucks with yelps following with the mouth call and a few min later started hearing the leaves crunching. Here came his hens. 3 hens came out from behind the cedar at 15 yards and was scratching the ground. Through cedar I could see the Tom strutting but he would not step out for nothing. Then the hens could tell something wasn't quite right and they all went on attention. After a few tense moments they put there heads back down but started walking away at a pretty good pace with the Tom in tow! I gave several clucks but every time he stopped there were branches blocking his head. He now was in full strut while trying to keep up with his ladies. I gave some hard clucks and putts finally he stopped about 30 yards away. dropped his have just enough and stuck his head up and BOOOM!! This time I made it count. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to not have them spook off when I first seen them and was very blessed to have been able to make the shot count.......after a hard lesson.

Here is a few pics of one of the fires I encountered after coming out of the draw on Thursday. This one almost got the town of Cheyenne. I waited up on the hill before heading to the town to be sure the fire was out of the towns danger zone.

Wow! Nice job guys, and way to stay smart Kelly, no turkey is worth dying for...

Congrats Kelly. You drove from OK to WY to turkey hunt?

Zim - I think he means Cheyenne OK - it's between OKC and the panhandle of TX.

I only know because my wife and daughter went to a friend's wedding in OK last year and they yanked my leg about being near Cheyenne :s2:

Finally got it to work. This is my spot for Monday morning in 6 days. Birds roosting on all 4 sides and this is the area they tend to frequent a good bit.

One of these days I will lol but for now its Cheyenne, OK. There are 2 public hunting areas out there that total over 60k acres. Albeit quite a bit of it is burnt now. Should be good for the wildlife though once all the new sprouts start showing

Good luck. That looks like an awesome strutting area.

Heck ya just plunk a blind on that ridgetop and you're in business. I bet you're tagged out by 10:30 AM when the hens head to nests.

I been snowed out a few days. Will try Thursday but still calling for another inch that night. That tag's only good until Friday but I don't like turkey hunting enough to get up at 4 AM and hike out in 24 degree weather. Will tag two more in my primo Wisconsin spot late May when it's warmed up.

Went out and set up another blind today. Season opens up tomorrow morning, and we are suppose to get 4-8 inches of snow tomorrow. Along with the 8 inches we got this past weekend. So we will see how the birds are acting.

Sightings
 

I've seen more birds in the last 4 days than I have in the last 4 weeks, I think the hens are finally on their nests.

The opener in MO sucked! I should've changed my day off but when you've got a 17 year opening day streak you don't break it. I am off Friday- Monday so hopefully I can notch a tag. Good luck team!

Mine wasn't any better. 25 degrees when I crawled into my blind. The snow that was on the ground from the last storm, was so crunchy, I think I woke up the land owners. Got to my blind, and it had blown over.... I had 1 tom gobbling from the roost about 200 yards or more behind me, across the river. He did end up coming my way when he flew down, but when he got to the tree line on the other side of the river, he wouldn't come any closer. He stayed over there gobbling for about an hour, before walking off. Then today we got 10" of snow, and its still snowing, so I didn't make it out this afternoon. I will be hunting tomorrow after work, and then I have all day Friday off, along with Saturday and Sunday.