what a beautiful thing
06-13-2003, 03:56 AM
#1
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: palm bay fl
Posts: 4,504
what a beautiful thing
i just wanted to share
yesterday after our controlled burn, we decided to go to the river and take a looksy, well we' re sitting there and this alligator freaks, he was catching a fish, it was cool.......well not 2 sec. after that, i see a hen , and another and one more......they were across the river, hadn' t seen but one bird over there in 2 years, so it was treat.....turned out that all the lil brown bushes that were around them , were poults, 13 of them[:-].....all of them took off flying right across the river to us.....the water was glassy, gators were out and the sun was setting, and the turkeys were flying, it was just awesome....i think that was one turkey moment that i' ll always remember......what are some of ya' ll' s most memorable turkey moments, not hunting, but just while ya' lll were out scouting or just hanging out
yesterday after our controlled burn, we decided to go to the river and take a looksy, well we' re sitting there and this alligator freaks, he was catching a fish, it was cool.......well not 2 sec. after that, i see a hen , and another and one more
......they were across the river, hadn' t seen but one bird over there in 2 years, so it was treat.....turned out that all the lil brown bushes that were around them , were poults, 13 of them[:-].....all of them took off flying right across the river to us.....the water was glassy, gators were out and the sun was setting, and the turkeys were flying, it was just awesome....i think that was one turkey moment that i' ll always remember......what are some of ya' ll' s most memorable turkey moments, not hunting, but just while ya' lll were out scouting or just hanging out
06-13-2003, 08:43 AM
#3
Fork Horn
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Chagrin Falls Ohio USA
Posts: 304
RE: what a beautiful thing
Great tory Huntnma. Felt like I was there with you.
Perhaps my favorite memory is from about 4 years ago. In the area where I grew up, we never saw turkeys. I had to drive 30 minutes to find birds. Then, one spring morning, I drove down the road and was stunned at what I saw...A big old longbeard strutting for three hens. It was a beautiful site that I had been waiting to see for years. The turkeys are now thick in that area.
Perhaps my favorite memory is from about 4 years ago. In the area where I grew up, we never saw turkeys. I had to drive 30 minutes to find birds. Then, one spring morning, I drove down the road and was stunned at what I saw...A big old longbeard strutting for three hens. It was a beautiful site that I had been waiting to see for years. The turkeys are now thick in that area.
06-13-2003, 09:01 AM
#4
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location:
Posts: 500
RE: what a beautiful thing
Opening day, 2003.
I' d been scouting this particular habitat, and there were/are a ton of birds there--in the weeks before the opener, I' d seen flocks of 75, 35, 19, 6, 12 and 35 in various places around the habitat, so I knew the woods held a good number of birds. The evening before the opener, my hunting buddy and I scouted the area, and, at roost time heard a seemingly endless succession of birds flying up to roost--seemed it took 15 minutes or more for all the birds on the ground to get into the trees, there was a long span of time in which we heard wingbeats nearly continuously. Then, when it was darker and the flying had stopped, I whipped out my Song Dog and blew a few coyote wails, just to hear the toms shock-gobble, and they did. BUT that' s not my story!!
In the morning, I returned with my buddy and with my wife. He set up by the roost site, and my wife and I went to a ridge site (about a quarter to half mile away from his set up as the crow flys) to set up. This ridge is flat and open on top for a width of about 15-20 yards, and there are no trees on the ridge top itself. The ridge is probably 200 yards long, and in the shape of a crescent. To one side is a beautiful babbling brook, but the dropoff is so sharp/steep, that you can' t hear the brook babbling unless you stand right on the edge. The valley to that side is deep and open, so when you stand on the edge of the ridgetop, you can see to the bottom and across to the other side of the valley. The valley to the right is more heavily wooded, so you can' t see as far.
We set up in the dark at the end of the ridge, looking out over the open ridgetop. Behind us were trees and a small clearing, maybe 50 yards across. The valley with the babbling brook was to our left, the heavier wooded valley to our right.
Then came the dawn. A beautiful, clear, sunny, blue, golden day and the tree yelping and the gobbling began!!!
The turkeys were roosted everywhere around us!! Behind us in the woods on the other side of the 50 yard clearing, in the woods off the ridgetop to the left in front of us, in the woods off the ridgetop to the right in front of us, and seemingly everywhere else in between. And gobble they did, like fans doing the wave at a football stadium, a bunch would start gobbling behind us, then it would roll from our left, in front, to our right and back behind us. I was really enjoying the morning, but my wife, who was on her first turkey hunt, was in absolute awe. (Well, so was I. It was the absolute most spectacular morning gobbling I' d ever heard.) The toms would thunder from behind, then up the valley, down the canyon, ringing here, then there. And it went on, and on, and on. Simply glorious!! I told my wife that its the gobble that makes us want to hunt ' em, and she was getting a lifetime' s worth of gobbling in one setting.
The hens were tree yelping as well, and the cacophony was spectacular. If the toms were silent for all of 10 seconds, the hens were tree yelping to fill the void. An occasional goose would fly by, and you could envision the flight of the goose as he flew, by the gobbling wave it set off, responding to its honking. 45 minutes after the initial gobble, the toms finally had all hit the ground and settled down, and the woods reverted to their quieter, more peaceful ways, with but the occasional gobble.
My wife was greatly impressed, and still struggles for the right words (as do I) to tell everyone she knows about how spectacular that morning was. Needless to say, that was a memory for a lifetime.
(And yes, we did get turkeys that day.)
I' d been scouting this particular habitat, and there were/are a ton of birds there--in the weeks before the opener, I' d seen flocks of 75, 35, 19, 6, 12 and 35 in various places around the habitat, so I knew the woods held a good number of birds. The evening before the opener, my hunting buddy and I scouted the area, and, at roost time heard a seemingly endless succession of birds flying up to roost--seemed it took 15 minutes or more for all the birds on the ground to get into the trees, there was a long span of time in which we heard wingbeats nearly continuously. Then, when it was darker and the flying had stopped, I whipped out my Song Dog and blew a few coyote wails, just to hear the toms shock-gobble, and they did. BUT that' s not my story!!
In the morning, I returned with my buddy and with my wife. He set up by the roost site, and my wife and I went to a ridge site (about a quarter to half mile away from his set up as the crow flys) to set up. This ridge is flat and open on top for a width of about 15-20 yards, and there are no trees on the ridge top itself. The ridge is probably 200 yards long, and in the shape of a crescent. To one side is a beautiful babbling brook, but the dropoff is so sharp/steep, that you can' t hear the brook babbling unless you stand right on the edge. The valley to that side is deep and open, so when you stand on the edge of the ridgetop, you can see to the bottom and across to the other side of the valley. The valley to the right is more heavily wooded, so you can' t see as far.
We set up in the dark at the end of the ridge, looking out over the open ridgetop. Behind us were trees and a small clearing, maybe 50 yards across. The valley with the babbling brook was to our left, the heavier wooded valley to our right.
Then came the dawn. A beautiful, clear, sunny, blue, golden day and the tree yelping and the gobbling began!!!
The turkeys were roosted everywhere around us!! Behind us in the woods on the other side of the 50 yard clearing, in the woods off the ridgetop to the left in front of us, in the woods off the ridgetop to the right in front of us, and seemingly everywhere else in between. And gobble they did, like fans doing the wave at a football stadium, a bunch would start gobbling behind us, then it would roll from our left, in front, to our right and back behind us. I was really enjoying the morning, but my wife, who was on her first turkey hunt, was in absolute awe. (Well, so was I. It was the absolute most spectacular morning gobbling I' d ever heard.) The toms would thunder from behind, then up the valley, down the canyon, ringing here, then there. And it went on, and on, and on. Simply glorious!! I told my wife that its the gobble that makes us want to hunt ' em, and she was getting a lifetime' s worth of gobbling in one setting.
The hens were tree yelping as well, and the cacophony was spectacular. If the toms were silent for all of 10 seconds, the hens were tree yelping to fill the void. An occasional goose would fly by, and you could envision the flight of the goose as he flew, by the gobbling wave it set off, responding to its honking. 45 minutes after the initial gobble, the toms finally had all hit the ground and settled down, and the woods reverted to their quieter, more peaceful ways, with but the occasional gobble.
My wife was greatly impressed, and still struggles for the right words (as do I) to tell everyone she knows about how spectacular that morning was. Needless to say, that was a memory for a lifetime.
(And yes, we did get turkeys that day.)
06-13-2003, 12:47 PM
#5
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location:
Posts: 151
RE: what a beautiful thing
A few years ago, on a early Sunday morning gobbler hunt, I saw the most beautiful RED sunrise! Everything was glowing in RED light[
! It wasn' t long after that the sky darkened and it started raining very hard. It was worth getting wet just to see that sunrise. I felt like I was the only person on the planet and what a privilege that feeling is
! It wasn' t long after that the sky darkened and it started raining very hard. It was worth getting wet just to see that sunrise. I felt like I was the only person on the planet and what a privilege that feeling is
06-13-2003, 11:04 PM
#6
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: palm bay fl
Posts: 4,504
RE: what a beautiful thing
Then, one spring morning, I drove down the road and was stunned at what I saw...A big old longbeard strutting for three hens.
thanks ya' ll for sharing your stories, they are great....keep them coming
06-14-2003, 06:31 AM
#7
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: NewLowell ,Ontario ,Canada
Posts: 2,765
RE: what a beautiful thing
Scrapper and I seen something that you don' t see too often, as we setup one morning on a Old Gobbler and his Hens , we waited out to the fly down, just after we had a disturbing up roar,6:05 a truck can around the field edge beside us and blew his horn, drove 25 yds past us and the Gobbler never took off but rather shyed away to the other side of the little patch of woods. Yes Anti' s [:@] , but instead of taking into a rant , we sat it out. The birds walked out into a field, so we moved close to the feild line and tried to work them. We Low and behold the Hen ran around the Tom and squated, this happened a couple of times, then Yes ,, you guessed it,, the Tom climbed up and mating took place. Something that ya don' t see with turkeys that often. We never did get the bird , they just walked off into the next field [8D]...BT
06-14-2003, 06:15 PM
#9
Typical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: In the hills of ,West Virginia west virginia USA
Posts: 887
RE: what a beautiful thing
...mine was the Turkey,s in the tree thread i wrote about a year ago...it was locust year
and this ole oak was full of turkeys catching and eating the bugs..and this was in season
.....just could not find the turkeys until finding that ole oak tree............
and this ole oak was full of turkeys catching and eating the bugs..and this was in season
.....just could not find the turkeys until finding that ole oak tree..
..........
06-15-2003, 09:45 AM
#10
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Calif
Posts: 1,894
RE: what a beautiful thing
Ma,I' ll never forget it!!I was about 17 years old or so and managed to roost a big ole gobbler the night before!What was awesome was this ole gobbler chose to roost in a old dead digger pine that was bare as could be,not one needle on it!He was on a big ole limb that hung out over a creek bottom and a small clearing and I was able to set-up on him to where when the lightening of the day approached he was sillouted against the sky and I was able to watch him display and gobble on that limb till he finally pitched out!What even cooler was he landed right in that clearing of which I was set-up just a little below and as he popped over a little rise he was only about 10 yards from me and let out a booming gobble right in my face!!The steam actually burst out of his mouth when he gobbled as the load of # 4' s entered it!!
