My tag isn't good here in Michigan until Monday, the 7th, but I've been out three mornings helping two others get their birds. Opening morning on the 23rd we had two birds gobbling off and on before daylight and then for about 45 minutes until they flew down and were pretty quiet. I called a few times while they were on the roost and very sparingly after that. Finally about an hour after daylight the two birds came in quiet and headed up the hill we were on to the lone hen decoy we had by itself, as the other three decoys were below us. Pete shot the second and biggest of the two birds and he weighed 24#11oz and was the heaviest bird I have ever called in. Last Saturday/Sunday I mentored a kid and his Dad came with us because neither had turkey hunted before. We were at Fort Custer near Battle Creek and had two birds gobbling at daylight, but they were silent after coming off the roost and that was it until about 10AM when a real steady rain made us call it quits for the day. Sunday morning dawned without a cloud in the sky and it was 31degrees, just about what I like, and there was not a bird to be heard. We waited a while and then I took them down a two track for at least 3/4 of a mile and not a gobble. As we turned around to head back it was only a minute or two and a bird answered my call. We slipped about 50 yards over to the east and got set up and he came in gobbling off and on in about 15 minutes. I had the kid using my gun and the bird would not come in to the 35 yard range I like, but got close enough that I knew the gun would take him and the kid knocked him down at close to 50 yards and put an extra one in him for good measure. It was another nice two year old bird, but I didn't get any measurements on him.
This weekend I'm supposed to take the MI Speaker of the House and his boy out one day and a lady from the MI House of Representatives out the next. I hope I can have the same success I had for the other two hunters! The woods are like hunting the middle of summer this year and I'm hoping when I head north 180 miles to my cabin next week that it won't be quite as thick as it is down her in lower MI when I try to fill my tag.