I'M backkkk,...and glad to see things have not changed since my departure.
Report on my first effort of the season:
The basic summary,...I am home empty-handed again (kind of getting used to it nowadays).
The general "specifics",...LOTS of turkeys, terrible weather, too many hunters, and birds weren't "ready". We saw unbelievable numbers of turkeys, including lots of gobblers, but they were still in their winter separate flocks of hens, jakes, and mature gobblers,...and they had no interest in mingling with anybody else but their flock-mate buddies. We never saw a mature gobbler strut or show any signs of interest in breeding the entire trip (I knew going in that we might be hunting too early,...which definitely proved to be the case).
Bottom line is that old GobbleNut wasn't up to the task of killing a gobbler under the conditions at hand,...and quite honestly, did not really care to kill on under those circumstances.
I could go back at the end of this week, and probably would if I KNEW the birds were changing their attitudes, but it is just a bit too far for this old boy to go on the whim of wishful thinking. As it is, it is just another chapter to be added to my history of chasing these birds,...and another lesson learned.
For those interested, they can see the full, sordid details in the GobbleNut 2023 Journal....
