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.

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. [:@][:@][:@]

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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...

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.