trapper T

They seem to be in the nesting phase, this past weekend the central WA birds I hunt were gobbling til about 9am, one gobbled that night on the roost and again in the morning. He was by himslef by 8:30, but as he came in silent I think I ran him off with a little too loud yelp from a box call...I seen him at about 70 yards and nothing would turn him around. By the looks of him he's seen a few jokers leaned up against a tree before....by far the largest Merriams I've seen in 8 years.

My Dad was hunting the westside and they too were gobbling all day til 1 or 2. Could only bring him into 100 yards and no farther.I think we'll be Eastern hunting this weekend gonna take a hen and a bubba Jake deke and put them in a breeding position....maybe that'll do it! Man with any luck Mother's day we'll be on a midnight run to the Tucannon...first things first though.

BrushChimp

After 5 days of hunting I found one gobbler without hens. It was some hard huntin'. A lot of Spot and Stalk and Ambsuh tactics were used. I killed a Rio and a Merriam and my dad killed a Merriam. How is everyone else doing over there? Didn't see a lot of hunters but I could tell the birds were pressured. A lot of turkeys were pushed farther backed into the woods then previous years and a lot of a toms we knew were there weren't gobbling. Seems we seen a lot of lone hens as well. I definitely believe they are starting to wind down the breeding. I hope next year we have a normal winter and it goes back to the usual hunting. The toms I hunted only gobbled on the roost then when they were with hens you could barely get them to make a peep.