RE: Team 5!!!
 

By the way, did you guys see that Ryan Tucker checked three birds for our team, with one scoring in the high 70's?! It was a double bearded bird that had close to 20" of beard.

Nice job Ryan. I don't thinkRyan posts that often, but I'd like to see some pictures or hear the story.

While I'm online,I'll addfew pictures of my entry from last year. He weighed a shade under 20#, 1-1/8" spurs, 9 & 3.75" beards, if my memory serves me. He was quite delicious.





I'm really starting to get the fever.

I really think we can win this contest.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Nice looking bird man. Season here opens April 24 through May 14. Seems like the days are getting longer the closer it gets. Good luck everyone.
Brandon

RE: Team 5!!!
 

I know and I can't wait. I haven't scouted WV yet but I plan to get out Thursday after class and see if I can get a gobbler or two to light up for me. Gonna scout another place near my home back in PA this weekend, I'm pretty sure there's quite a few birds there. And last but no least, I should get to Greene a few days before the opener. I like to go there Friday night, bust up the flocks just to call them back in quickly first thing Saturday morning. Makes for a quick hunt. I also think we have a really good team here :)

RE: Team 5!!!
 

quiksilvr , where do u hunt around pittsburgh? Im from irwin and i hunt mostly westmoreland and allegheny county , but make a trip up to mckean for a saturday hunt. we should try to get on a flock and double up for the team!@

RE: Team 5!!!
 

wow alot of us from the southwestern PA area :D

RE: Team 5!!!
 

DoubleLung - JH and I planned on getting together for a Saturday morning hunt. I'm sure you're more than welcome to join us if you like.

I've only got 4 Saturdays to hunt, and every morning until 8-8:30'ish before work. I'll be hunting on May 6 with Rybohunter from Pittsburgh. On either 5-13 or 5-20 JH and I will try to get together, on the last open date, I'll be taking out2 guys who I've been promising to turkey hunt with for 3 years now. :eek:

JH will probably have a bird or two by then in PA/WV. I'll get mine on a weekday before work. So, if you go out with us, you'll more than likely get the honors if you haven't gotten a birdby then.

I hunt mostly Fayette and Greene Counties. Do you keep a camp in McKean?

I usually have a couple off-days touse over turkey season, but I don't have any to burn this year, so if we're doing something, it has to be Saturday morning. I'm sure we'll be able to work something out, though.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Yeah we have a pretty nice cabin that my grandpap and his brothers built back in the 60s up in mckean , its 7 miles outside of kane . Saturday hunts sound good to me , just lemme know in a PM or something. I have been hunting an old bird for some time now , hopefully ill get him this yr , but ill be out of college on the 10th of may , but until then ill make it out back home on saturdays , other then that it looks like ill hunt around IUP campus on some land b4 classes.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

hey guys sorry i havent said much on here i have been so busy with school i cant hardly stand it. i get to go home this weekend though to do some scouting. hopefully i find some nice birds. it looks like the team is doing well. keep it up and ill let you know how i do once season starts on the 26. good luck!!

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Hey everyone,
Just checking in, our season started yesterday took my wife and 6 year old son out and was just planning on getting my wife her 1st bird but I brought along my shotgun just in case! So we get set up in the blind get the decoys out, the birds are just busting off all around us. Well my wife decides she wants to sit outside the blind so she can see better so I tell her to sit against the tree beside us. Now everything is good for about an hour or so until she starts getting uncomfortable sitting against the tree and decides one of the chairs in the blind might be a little better the only problem with that is with three chairs and three bodies in the little blind it makes it to hard to get into position for a shot.So being the good husband I am I take the spot by the tree and wouldn't you know 20 min later I catch movement off my right he was coming in silent, lucky for me the fence line had some cedars he had to go behind before he could cross and I was able to get around on him and make the shot. I felt bad for my wife, but, 63 points for team 5!! I told her we wouldgo back this weekend and I would'nt carry a gun, just call for her, so wewill see if she can pull it off Sat.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Nice job Okie! Our team winning is much more important than your wife getting a turkey anyway.

Just Kiddin'. Congrats man. I'm sure she'll get another chance at it before the season closes.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

bump

RE: Team 5!!!
 

I'm going stir crazy here, 17 days til the season starts. Of course, my mom's in the hospital in NY now with vascular problems. I'm going there later this week, orsooner if it turns out she needs surgery, but I'm hopingsurgery won't be necessary. If anything keeps me out of the woods on opening day, thats gonna be it. On a brighter note, I've been working on getting permission to hunt some private property here through a friend of a friend, and I'm hopefully gonna find out tomorrow if I can hunt it. Wish my mom luck, and me too.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

RI - sorry to hear about your mom , hopefully she gets better without surgery , and hope you can make it out for the opener

Im ready to go here in PA , im gonna shoot the 12 ga saturday , i got a new choke and i wanna see the difference in that , and try out those new winchester Xtended range shells with it.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

I just entered a couple local turkey pools, and I'm feeling like I might have a decent chance if I can find time to get out and zero in on a good tom. Friday morning is a scouting day. Hopefully, I can locate something noteworthy. I haven't been able to scout as much as usual to this point, but I'll make up for lost time on Friday and maybe Sunday morning.

Last year on one of the farms we hunt, I'm pretty sure there was a really good bird with multiple beards that made it throught the spring - I was examining him at about 100 yards on 32x with my 22-250 while groundhog hunting last summer. Either he had some separatedstrands at the top, or he's got a thin second beard coming out near the main plug. I was rock solid and dialed in on him, and man, I'd have bet the farm that this guy has 2 beards. Hopefully I can get a few in the spotting scope on Friday to see what I'm really working with.

The areas that I hunt produce a lot of 8-10.5" beards and .75-1.125 spurs, which will get you close to 60 points. Finding anything bigger is a really tough task, but they're there, just not as plentiful as I'd like.

JH & DL - $5 entry on the Woodlands World turkey contest - good prize package, and all the entry money is paid out as well. If you're in or aroundUniontown, stop in and sign up. They don't take debit cards for the turkey contest[:@]

DL what turkey choke did you go with?

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Quiksilver, i called in a turkey for my buddy last year and he got 3rd in the Woodlands pool. he got a free pair of rocky boots. we were kinda diappointed cause 1st was a brand new shotgun. but hey we'll take what we can get. hope to place higher this year :)

RE: Team 5!!!
 

bump

RE: Team 5!!!
 

all of ya'll still waitin on your seasons t open and im about done i got 2 tags left out of 5 .took my son out this mornin he missed he is only 9 so no biggy .

RE: Team 5!!!
 

bump

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Hey hey, just checking in. Just noticed that i got put ona team... sweet! Going out saturday morning bright and early, hopefully i will bag one right off the bat.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

got 2 longbeards on the radar that should be easy kills and 2 more that i have to scout a little more yet. now i just have to decide which one of the four is bigger. those are all in PA. getting out wednesday morning to listen for gobbles here in WV. looking pretty good for me so far.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Good work JH - I went down to my favorite farm in GreeneCountylast night, and sawa fewdifferent longbeards trailing the hens and wandering around, and I also spied apack of jakes. Lots of hens in play, though, so that should make it hard. That place is crazy - moreturkeys there than I've ever seen anywhere, but it's not as easy as you'd think to kill one there. I usually wing up doing better in places where there aren't so many stinkin' turkeys.

By the number of Jakes I've seen so far this year, last year's poult must have been pretty good.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

season starts mon.cant wait ,checking out the farm this weekend we got a chance to hunt on, the lady who owns the land says there always out in her fields

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Wow, had to go all the way to page 4 just to find this thread. How's everybody doin so far? My season doesn't start until this coming thursday in RI and I'm psyched. Unfortunately, the couple of private spots I can hunt in RI don't seem to have alot going on, but I did locate some birds on public land though... I just got off the phone with a landowner in CT who says he's got a bunch of birds on his farm this year. That season starts May 3rd or there abouts... That looks promising. Gotta tick-proof my gear and get ready!

RE: Team 5!!!
 

PA opens saturday...

RE: Team 5!!!
 

i hear ya quiksilver, i'd much rather call in a gobbler with one or two hens than one that is all henned up. The few times you get them to come in, it take forever. Wait til friday evening and get a location on the flock. Keep an eye on them until about 15-20 minutes before fly up time and run at them and bust them all up. That usually works pretty well for me. I just watch where the gobller flies to and try to get somewhere close in the AM.

WV season came in Monday and I only got out this morning so far. It was basically a scouting trip because I couldn't take my gun (too many houses). As soon as I closed my truck door a bird lit up 100 yards above me in a tree. Didn;t get to see how big he was but that was all I heard. My buddy went to another place here where we plan on hunting tomorrow. He heard at least 5 gobblers out of roost. Hopefully we'll luck into one or two of them in the morning.

I have absolutely no idea where to hunt PA on saturday and i won't be able to get out until friday evening to scout Greene. I'm really not worried though because 9 times out of 10 I bump into some birds there.
Last weekend for the junior day in PA, my dad called in a bird for my sister at our farm. Only 1/2" spurs but 9 1/4" beard. Dropped him like a rock at 57 yards with those new extended range shells. She was excited. I wanted to get her that big bird I spotted there about a month ago but he has seemed to vanish.

Hopefully we'll get some more points up soon. Good luck to all you guys

RE: Team 5!!!
 

My favorite farm has again been infiltrated by other guys. It's private ground, but I don't have exclusive permission... Anyway, there were some guys out there on saturday with NWTF stickers all over their trucks - supposedly, they were guiding a young girl (but there was no young girl around, and the one guy was carrying a shotgun). They got blanked anyway, and they now know that I'll be in there Saturday morning, so hopefully they go elsewhere. Not so happy about that.. Idid seea group of 5 longbeards together in one of the hayfields, and I spooked them out before they got anywhere near the guys that were hunting. Probably not a nice thing to do, but I do what I gotta do. LOL

At one of my other honeyholes, where I do have exclusive permission, there's at least one HOG. I caught him flippingpatties in a horse pen. He looks older than the hills, and if my eyes weren't deceiving me, he's got some major league hooks. He had a thick brush, but maybe only 8". The skin on this guy's face just hangs. He's been there for a while.

Hopefully they're in the same area. I think I'll get out on a roosting mission on Friday.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Late checkin' in here guys. Our season (wv) started Mon. I was out Mon and Tues morning and have some great areas to hunt. I was very disappointed in the number of gobbles I heard (which was NONE) although we (cousin and I ) saw birdsboth days. I could not even get them to shock-gobble at crow or owl calls before daylight and have yet to even hear a gobble. I'll be back at it again Fri or Sat. I 've lived out west the last several years and have not had a chance to spring hunt much lately although I have killed several in my life including a nice one last fall.

I can hunt them when they're quiet but it sure is not near as much fun. If anyone has any advice on different techniques to "make them talk" that would be good. take care and good luck

Some said that the proliferation of coyotes could be the reason for their silence or perhaps with the mild winter and late season their business is pretty much over.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

My season starts TOMORROW!!! I've had several bosses complain that I wouldn't be in tomorrow for some BS going on, but I'm gonna be in the woods! I'm gonna hunt on public land though because I have some birds located there, I'm hoping that I don't pull up to my spot and find a half dozen trucks there. I haven't heard any gobbling on the private land I have permission to hunt on in RI. Down side for the team is my buddy decided to take the day off and hunt too. He's never taken a bird, so I'll probably let him have the shot if it presents itself. I'll be doing the calling. I picked up my Connecticut tags yesterday and have 2 nice farms to hunt on so if I don't connect this week, that season starts Next Wednesday. I'm getting a tickle in my throat I think...may just have to call in sick next week :D

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Good luck ;)

RE: Team 5!!!
 

bump

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Well, today was an uneventful opener. I had 3 birds light up, one when I first set up at first light and started calling, he only gobbled twice and didn't respond to calls any more. 2 lit up later on to a box call but didn't come in. I'll be at it again tomorrow.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

well so much for bagginga bird this morning. me and my friend get to the farm we hunt here in WV to find two other trucks in the parking spot. we jump out of the truck and try to high tail it into the woods and they follow us the WHOLE WAY. they had five damn guys in one group. way too many. what really ticks me off is what happened next. i finally got mad and stop walking to let them pass, and they stop too. just as we all stop 2 gobblers light up. now where we hunt is RIGHT ON the PA state line. these birds were a good 200 yards across state line.

the one guy says "now hang on a minute lets see whats goin on before someone gets shot" as if he was pissed off that we were there. and he was the f'n moron with 5 guys. he says "you guys going after those birds or what?!" and my friend says "not til saturday buddy they are way across state line." he shrugs his shoulders and off they go across the line. never heard any gunshots thankfully. after they left us we heard a bird gobble on the WV side. go and set up on it and another joe ball starts owl hooting like crazy less than 150 yards from it. needless to say when it flew down it high tailed it out of there. bad day for me. [:@][:@][:@]

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Ouch JH. That's PA and WV for ya. I'm hoping that my area doesn't get invaded on the opener. I'll be highly agitated if that happens. There's one other guy that I know who hunts in there, and he and I get along and stay out of each other's way. BUT, last year, some gaggle of idiots (4 to be exact)showed up on opening day acting like they owned the place, and shot a jake off the roost. I'll be out there tonight, and if I can figure out where the toms are roosted, I'll be camped out under that tree at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow.

I swear, I don't know where all these idiots come from... If you go out on the last two weeks of the season (when I have the most luck), you can't even FIND a hunter (except for the occasional drive-by roadhunter).

Same thing with trout season. Openingday is standing-room-only. The other 300 days, there's nobody out.

I must be getting old and irritable.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

haha thats the truth about trout season. i dont go the first day anymore like i used too, to frustrating. i dont even think im going to buy a trout license this year, i probably go out twice ALL YEAR and catch a grand total of 3 or 4 trout. all for a price of $32.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Well it all starts tomorow , i got a few toms scouted out and im ready to go , the best part is we r hunting on one of my buddies small pieces of land , with a buncha birds , and not really too many people know they are there....should be a fun morning.....hopefully ill be needing that 2nd gobbler tag this yr!

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Tough luck JH, and Good luck to you DL. Day 2 here, didn't hear a thing. Had a deer sneak in to about 15 yards off to my left tho, that was cool. It blew on the way in, knew something wasnt right, but kept coming. Saw one hen while I was changing spots walking along the road in a WMA, so I tried that area with no luck... lost my cell phone in the woods to boot. After hunting today, drove to a farm in CT and got my permission slip signed for a 225 acre farm, that season opens next wednesday.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Well, had one gobbling on the roost this morning. I put out a couple of dekes as close as I dared, then set up. He flew down, hung up probably within range but out of sight and never did come to the dekes. I was set up on his right, he took off to his left (go figure). I got after him a little while later, had him shock gobble to a crow call, and I set up again. He sounded off further down the trail, practically in someones back yard so I hung back but couldnt call him in. I found a bunch of hen poop on the trail that way, so I guess thats where he was headed at flydown. If I set up on his left, it might have ended differently. Well, he's still there, and it doesnt look like that area is getting too much pressure (knock wood). Its just the 4th day of the season, and CT starts next week so I have a good few hunts to go. I won't be able to take that much time from work, but I will be out weekends and the occasional day where I just can't stand to be in the office!

RE: Team 5!!!
 

Good morning team.

We're on the board again. I took a 66 pointer on Saturday morning. Me and my friend called in a group of 4 longbeards off the roost, and took a double. From the looks of things, I took the dominant bird - a 3 year old, the other three looked like clone two-year-olds.

What a hunt! I'd guess the farm that we hunt has about 10-12 bearded birds living there, and usually they're roosted everywhere, but not Saturday. They were all together. The bad part was that we were on the opposite ridge when they started talking, and it was already daylight before they let out the first gobble. Once they all got started, it was impressive. I didn't have time to soak it in, because we were on the move.

We set up about 200 yards below them in a wooded, grassy bottom that's wide open (couldn't get any closer). I put out the Pretty Boy & Pretty Girl set, and we found a nice place where we could see. After a couple soft clucks, and a few wing flaps, we started purring and clucking on the ground. The gobblers shut off like a switch. Silence.

After about 5 minutes of that, my buddy let out a good yelp with a little cut at the end, and 4 toms hammered back - they were already halfway to us... We never made another call. They were within sight a minute later, and once they saw the pretty boy, it was all over. They came right in and surrounded it, and the bird I killed was going nose-to-nose with the decoy when my buddy says "1... 2.... BOOM" (one, two, shoot. That's the routine) We had two on the ground, and my pretty boy took the worst of it. His whole tailfan was chewedup with half of my buddy's pattern. LOL

Man, I finally broke the bank and bought the expensive decoy. We hunted with the stupid thing for 10 minutes before it gets all shot to smithereens. Hmmmph. It's not that bad really, I wanted a real fan for it anyway.

So, I'm in first place in the local turkey contest with 66 1/8 points... for now anyway... I'm sure I'll be knocked out of contention by the end of week 2.

He had 1.125 and 1.25" spurs, 10" beard and weighed 22 pounds, 6 oz. Pretty nice bird, but definitely not the resident boss. I saw them all together, and there's a tom that always travels solo, and he's a real whopper. This guy has been running with that pack of 2-year-olds for most of this spring. I knew we'd cross paths sooner or later.

The bird that I killed, when he was about 40 yards out, he jumped up onto a stump and stood there like a hawk, scowling down at those decoys for a couple seconds. Then, he leaped off the stump, hit the ground and blew up - strutting straight over to that plastic decoy, and going nose-to-nose with it. The other 3 followed right behind him.

Awesome hunt.

The rest of you guys keep plugging away, there are a lot of birds out there, and it's only a matter of time before a situation presents itself.

RE: Team 5!!!
 

I nailed one saturday morning too here in PA , heard 3 gobbles all day long , but after we got somethin to eat at about 9 and headed back out thats when it heated up , they were all around the woods , i called around 10:30 , and around 11 , i saw movement , here he came just walking in , feeding too .......at about 45 yards i let one fly with the 835 ulti mag , down he went ........

my first gobbler , 9 in beard , 1 in spurs , and 23 lbs.....

need help posting pics , it says the file is too large...

RE: Team 5!!!
 

no luck here. hunters screwed me up AGAIN on two different occassions saturday. this is getting old. but anyway im in the middle of finals week right now at WVU so i havent had time to turn around. im done thursday night so ill be able to get out more and you'll here from me then. ill elaborate more on my not so great opening day. good luck guys.

QS & DL congrats on the birds, we're really doing well. hopefully i can add to the total if i can find a bird that isnt surrounded by 3 hunters already.