Maryland 2019 Winter Turkey Season
 

I bagged this jake on Saturday, January 19, which was the last day of Maryland's three-day 2019 winter turkey season. Hey, I'll take it. It weighed 13.2 pounds and had a two-inch beard. I had set up a ground blind near some turkey tracks in the snow near the intersection of two logging roads on private land. I got to the blind about 6:30 a.m., which was nearly an hour before sunrise and a half-hour before legal shooting hours. I did hear what sounded like two gobbles from a jake around daybreak, but I did not see anything until about 10:40 a.m. I had been cold calling every couple hours with soft yelps. Then, at about 10:40 a.m., I looked out of my side blind window and saw a turkey about 150 yards away. It started to walk in a direction that would have led it far away from my blind. I then made three soft yelps with my mouth diaphragm. The bird, with another bird in tow, then changed direction and moved in the direction of my blind. Within a minute or so, it was about 35 yards in front of my blind. It passed by a tree trunk, allowing me to put the barrel of my shotgun outside the blind window undetected. At 30 yards, I put the sights on its neck and squeezed the trigger. My Mossberg 935 sent a load of 3.5" Winchester Long Beard #6's to the bird's head and neck, thus ending the hunt. I then walked over and placed a tag on the jake.

The third pic in this post is what I found in the bird when cleaning it: Acorns (germinated), corn, and what looks like fruit of an American holly.

Nice job. A winter season world be a fun season to hunt.

In my area the turkeys really bunch up in the winter and pound the available food stamps. Areas that hold turkey the rest of the year will be empty. But if you can find where they are eating in the winter you can often see 100+ birds there.

-Jake

I recall my first time hunting the winter season, which was in 2015 during its inaugural season in Maryland. I set up near a food source, which was an area with many fruits from mature female holly trees. In mid-morning, I heard a racket of noise. I mean, it was a world of noise coming through the woods and I did not know at the time what it was because I had never heard anything like it before. It sounded like a large truck rolling through the woods, but with no motor power. It turned out to be a HUGE flock of gobblers and jakes. There must have been at least 50 male turkeys in the flock. They made noise by breaking twigs, scratching leaves, and flapping their wings, but with many turkeys doing this at the same time, the noise was not recognizable until I saw the flock. I did not get a shot because one picked me out and turned around and headed the opposite direction and then they all followed. But, MAN was that exciting!

Congratulations. I hunted 2 days of the Maryland season with my dog, 1 day in Wicomico and 1 day in Kent county. Lots of sign, but no birds found. A day late, story of my life.