Its been a tough week... 1st Rat Slayer (My son James) wanted to go with his bow. But something is out of wack and we could not get it tuned in time. We had plans for a specific farm that we hunt every year, and every year we have issues with some neighbors that hunt it with permission too..
They always try to claim certain birds, or areas... And they will drive there ATV's all over the farm if they see our truck. There was always plenty of birds and we got one or two off that farm every year despite the butt heads... Well this year we found out opening day they leased to farm to have it to themselves.
One of the other farms we hunt 5 people had permission this week
Needless to say, we spent a lot of time on the less crowded public land...
On one hunt we saw a big lone Tom hanging on a tree line out in a field so we drove around and set up about 200 yards from him and tried calling him in but he hung up on a creek. So we decided to back track to the truck and try crawling up the creek, but another hunter saw us glassing the bird and the creek and then spun his truck around and raced us to the creek and went up the creek before, and right in front of us... R/S was pretty pissed, but I said its just a turkey, let em have it and we moved on...
On another hunt I glassed qa big Tom following a drainage ditch heading for a road crossing where we couldn't hunt so I drove over there fast to keep him on our side hoping to set R/S up on the other side in a funnel when he went back the other way... But instead he did the ol "submarine" move hE JUST SUNK STRAIGHT DOWN AND HID IN THE GRASS AND DISSAPEARED. It was pretty clear he was staying there as long as we were parked there and he was down in the ditch leaving a pretty good travel path for the Rat Slayer to sneak up on him. So we discussed it for a minute and then I decided to back up the truck about 20 yards and let R/S out and them move back up to keep the bird in check and film from the truck... To my surprize the stalk went flawlessly, but the bird now named "Houdini" was no where to be found.
How he could of possibly gotten out of there with open field completly surrounding him I don't know... I can only speculate that when I backed the truck up he sprinted up the ditch and snuck out.
Then we found a couple big tom's on a point of brush extending out to a major road, we figured they would have to come down that brush back to the woods... But NOOOO... They decided to actually cross the busy road.

Then the snow and wind really picked up and the snow started sticking... We saw a couple brave Toms in an opening in some public next to a swamp.. In the blowing snow we crawled to 35 / 40 yards from them thru muck and water in the freezing blowing snow and called to get them to take a couple steps our way and they turned and walked away the other direction..
On another hunt I glassed two turkeys that I was sure were toms a long way from the road in a very open area. The only way to get at them would be to park nearly a mile from them and sneak up a very mucky and deep drainage creek... Two hours ( and a lot of soakers ) later we crawled up to it to find it was a a jake... R/S decided to pass.
Another hunt we stalked up on 3 jakes and again R/S decided to pass and wait for a Tom...
Today the rain died down a little and the sun came out ( seemed like we were cheating ) But at least we still had the wind to annoy us. We got invited to hunt a private farm that holds a ton of turkeys and decided to give it a try. The leasee whom gave us permission said that he and his kids were going on later dates and he did not want us "runing & gunning" and spooking all his birds. Agreed. He said We could use his tent blind and decoys and talked R/S into trying it... We went to a spot in a pine woods that he said "always" has a few toms around.
As we were setting up the blind we heard a Tom gobble close several times. We set up fast and got inside... Man, there ain't much room in those things..
I called and the Tom immeadiatly fired back with a double gobble... I waited a minute and hit another horny hen yelp and he gobbled back at 1/2 the distance, he must have been running in... I hit the call again and he answered from forty yards walking up the hill straight for our decoys when suddenly a large gust of wind hit the tent and made the window zipper over hang flap violently... Zoom. One gone bird!
Sure wish we would of just set up against trees like usual.
Shortly after that a tresspasser came by on an ATV and the hunt was over...
Better luck next year Rat Slayer...