Maine bird down.
 

Maine bird down and the hunting has been hard with our low numbers.. I have been on vacation last week and hunted everyday and never heard a bird gobble back. Not even one time and I saw two nice toms alone but no response. This morning I saw four jakes, two jakes together one alone in different areas. Then I went and tried another area and two hens showed up with two toms and a jake in tow. I did manage to get a shot at one of the toms. That one turns out to be my heaviest tom ever. Here a big Tom normally is 18 to 20 pounds. This one had a 10 inch beard with 3/4 inch spurs weighing 23 pounds! I am quite proud of this one. But then again I am proud of getting any bird anyway..

Nice one Phil!

-Jake

well congrats to you

Thank you Jake and mrbb!

Wow that is a honker Phil. I have killed dozens of them and never hit 23 pounds. Great bird. I haven't hunted and been fishing. If I hear a gobble or see a flock I'll hunt for them but so far in the season no birds around my property.

Thank you CI but none of the birds that I have seen even today had not gobbled any. That makes for a very long hunt..

Nice Bird Phil ! Congrats !

What part of Maine are you in ? I have a house in Solon . About 10 years ago there were turkeys EVERYWHERE !
Sometimes you would have to stop the truck on the gravel road to let 100 of them cross. I couldn't figure out why there were so
many of them considering all the coyotes and fisher cats in the area. But the last couple years I hardly seen any .

a cold front came thru here last week and still cold
and it shut down all the gobbling here as well
haven';t heard one gobble now in about 5 days or so!
funny how weather makes them change how they voice things

SportsmanNH I am in Washington County near the Calais area. We had a lot of birds up here as well. Then we had a very hard winter with something like 160 inches of snow. Most of that was powdery and we lost a lot of birds. Then the bobcats also made a big rebound add that to the coyotes and everything else the turkeys had taken a big hit.. The added fall hunting season and the shooting of hens has hurt it as well..

Yes it is mrbb. Those turkeys shut right down completely.. We had 7 inches of snow this past Saturday and I was able to see two turkeys in the snowstorm. One was a hen and the other I think was a tom from the way it acted. But I really couldn’t tell as it ran behind a snow covered bush as I was leaving..

Congrats on the fine, well deserved spring tom !

Thank you Timbrhuntr..

Congrats on a great bird! When they are silent it can make for a loooong hunt. Glad you pushed on and was successful.

Yes it has been very long hunting with no gobbling. But I had seen a few and knew that they were there. I saw a group of 6 hens one day and around a quarter of a mile from them a big tom making his way towards them. But he never came in.. At least I know where he is still hanging around at and will try him again maybe Thursday morning.. Yes and thank you kellyquin

I let a young tom walk away this morning. I would guess between 16 to 17 pounds. I had worked last night and decided to try hunting for a little while. I was planning on driving a little over an hour away when I saw they had opened up a section of gated roads. So I drove up the dirt road instead. I got up to where I was planning on turning around and I see a tom run across the road. So I stopped and got out and put a shell in. As I closed the breach I hear him gobble. I couldn’t believe it as that was the first gobble that I have heard out hunting. He was down an embankment by a lake. That embankment is steep and around 50 feet down. So for the heck of it I make a couple of clucking sounds. Then I hear him gobble a couple of more times and was coming closer. So I just stood there and waited. He came right back up on that dirt road again around 25 yards of me. It was then that I realized that he wasn’t all that big and hunting season goes on here until June 6. So I let him walk away. I know that I am going to wonder if I see another bird again but I already have a nice bird anyway..