Hunt tread

[fmf]

11 days into april and I'm still seeing multiple hens with gobblers all day long.  Hopefully things will start picking up next week, I'm off work and plan to get after them pretty good!

[notsure]

We were treated to "thunder snow" last night in SE MN. Woke up to about 6" of the stuff. It should be gone by opening day (Wednesday, 4/17).

[aclawrence]

I've been in the woods the last few mornings before work and I'm getting my butt kicked. All the gobblers have hens and are still spending their time in the bottoms. They gobble in the tree and not much on the ground. My brother barely missed getting a shot this morning. He managed to get set up super close but the Gobbler worked the other way of course. I'm thinking about going in super early in the morning to a big bottom I chased a bird in a couple days ago. It's supposed to be rainy though. If it is I should be able to sneak in.


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[camotoe]

Frustrating hunt , got to check station at 4:30 first one in . Drive to the firebreak I walk in on . I'm about 1/2 mile in and a car is driving down the break . I talk with the guy and he has a handicap permit , cool . We figure out where each is hunting all good . 45 min before day break 2 l guys are coming under the oaks I'm in so I shine them . The guy keeps coming and gets to me and ask am I hunting there . So I say ya And he leaves 15 min later he's back and wants to argue that the only reason I'm hunting there is because he has a blind there . I tell him no I never saw a blind I'm hunting here because I've hunted there for years and it's in my gps . He sets up 75 yards from me and his buddie sets up 100 yards on the other side of me . Then after sun is up I see his blind 30 yards away 1 foot high of palmetto fronds? . At 8 he decides to make another blind  so at 9 I make a blind and proceed to leave the area . I  told the guy he needs a class in ethics I was in the woods an hour before him and he should of went to another spot all he wanted to says was I was hunting his spot and I should of left . Got to luv it .


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[aclawrence]

That suck camotoe.  Sorry about that.  I hunted several mornings this week and got it handed to me everyday.  Them dang birds are amazingly lucky or eerily good at avoiding people.  One morning I hear this bird start gobbling really early but it sounds like he's on the edge of a cutover.  After a quick look at the map I decide to circle on him.  This was my first time in there so everything is new.  On the way around I realize he was probably in a little finger of hardwoods that jutted out from a big bottom into the cutover.  I am sneaking along and all of a sudden I hear drumming. Yes!  I ease down and slip around onto the side of a tree and I see two turkeys walking off.  So I climb back out of the bottom get up on the edge of the cutover, attempt to shortcut through the cutover and the briars quickly won so I ease back to the woods and sneak back down where I think I'll be in front of them.  Pull off some real sneaky stuff and sit down by a tree.  Hasn't been ten seconds and he gobbles about 75 yards past me.  Dang it! Anyway he outsmarts me the rest of the morning.  Yesterday I wake up at 3:00 and get to a new gate at 4:05.  I'm accessing another new way this time extra early.  I'm going into the opposite end of the bottom to let him take his time and come right to me.  I get down in there and set up.  Take a little nap.  Wake up to rain. Put on my gear and wait for sunrise.  7:15 he starts gobbling and I'm thinking I am set up for one of the most picturesque hunts every.  He'll come strutting right to me and I'll never have to make a sound.  Well you guessed it.  This time he must have flown out of the bottom over onto a clean cutover hill.  It takes me a while to figure this out.  Finally I put on one of the sneakiest stalks I've ever done.  I've got my shotgun raised up, safety off and I peak over the hill to pull the trigger where I'm certain he is just right in front of me and I spot him on the next hill over.  I picked the wrong one and he was about 50 yds away through some brush just strutting away.  He walks off and I seize the chance to sneak back down, over, and back up onto the right spot and wait for him to return.  Of course he never does and I never see him again!  Once I got up there I understood what he was doing up there and I'll know for next time.  He was on top of the world there and I'm sure he was strutting and drying off from the rain.  I think I had a perfect plan going in to the far end of the bottom and will probably do the same thing next time but if it's wet or I hear him up there on top again I'll know what to do.  I'm calling this bird Bob Ross because his view from up there where he was strutting looked like a Bob Ross painting.  I'm going to get that rascal this coming week.  I hope he's a just a huge old gobbler!

[camotoe]

Nice sounds like a fun hunt, hope u get bob ross he's got skills like that gobbler .


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[zelmo1]

Keep hammerin guys 

[aclawrence]

here a pano view from the cutover hilltop where Bob Ross was. It's a pretty good little drop off everywhere right in front. All the different greens of the treetops were so pretty up there.


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[aclawrence]

I'm going after Bob Ross again in the morning. It's been crazy windy here all day but the wind is going to just about completely lay down by 6 in the morning. I'm not sure if I should go to the bottom or the cutover on the hilltop. If I do start on the hilltop and he comes up I'll be good and by accessing on the new side now I can do a sprint and get in front of him if he goes back up the bottom like the other day.  I don't know. I kind of feel like they'll be in the bottom tomorrow. Any thoughts from you guys?


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[camotoe]

Thoughts - shoot him in the head ? sounds like u got a good game plan .


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[aclawrence]

I'm on top of the cutover hill now. Glad I bought the Gobbler chair last night or I wouldn't have had anywhere to sit up here. The bottom is all fogged in and the owls are hooting like crazy. I believe it's real owls this time.

Well Bob Ross wasn't gobbling down in the bottom today. I did get on a turkey in some hardwoods nearby and almost got it done until two guys snuck in on me. The bird was fired up and double gobbling. All of a sudden I hear a hen cut behind me then it did the exact same cut about three more times in a row. I see the two guys and wave at them and they turned and left. The Gobbler never said another word after that.

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[camotoe]

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[camotoe]

Just outside the managment area I'm hunting


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[camotoe]

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[camotoe]

There where 2 gobblers also one was smoke phase , pretty cool


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