Eggshell's sporadic hunt log

[JeffC]

Awesome story, excitement and frustration, just makes it all that more special when it all comes together!

[GobbleNut]

...I saluted and sulked my way home, embarrassed and mad at myself. This is what happens when you get old, fat and senile. 

This comment reminds me of somebody else. Let me think who it might be...  Uhh, oh yeah...ME!   

[eggshell]

My hunting has been like my reporting, sporadic. I haven't spent a lot of time hunting as our birds are just not very actively gobbling. I can not pull myself to deer-stand hunt turkeys. My buddies have tagged out and done it by sitting on fields or travel lanes in blinds, that's deer hunting not turkey hunting to me. I actually got in a heated debate with my best friend the other evening. We can now hunt all day in Ohio and he wanted to go with me for an evening hunt. We slipped up to a filed to see if any birds were in it and he plops down and states, "we need to just sit here for the next couple hours", I sat for about 30 minutes and said lets go I am not doing this. His reply was you better do it or you may not kill a bird and I sniped back, fine I'll eat my tag before I deer hunt a gobbler. I know I am probably rubbing someone wrong with these comments, but I am not judging just sharing how I choose to hunt. I hunt turkeys to engage with them and call back and forth, that is the intrigue of this sport to me.

I have only set up on two gobblers in the last 4 days and didn't hunt two of those days. Both gobblers answered a couple times off the roost and then went silent and disappeared. I have actively worked two birds all season. I have heard as many as 10-12 on a given morning but they will not work. I set up one morning and ended up 75 yards from a gobbler. He flew down right out and front of me and would not answer a single call, just took off like a jet in the opposite direction gobbling all the way. I guess I must be sounding like and old hag hen and not a sweet young babe. Back to Ky today, so far those boys have been more willing to dance. Sooner or later I hope to find a lonely old gobbler that will play. It seems like old times when many mornings were met with silence. Back then it was because there weren't many birds, now they are just being a pain in the Butt. I guess I have been spoiled over the last few years with a bounty. This is the first time in many many years I still have a tag open in the second week of my home state season.

[JeffC]

Hunt the way YOU want! Props to you sir!! 

[eggshell]

ok this is how my season has been going. I only had about an hour to hour and half to hunt today. I went to my cousins farm and an old bird I call Rufus sounded off. I got to him with a good set up point and at the first call he was right back at me. Steadily the gobbles got closer and closer and I pre-positioned the gun at the last gobble as he was about to step in sight. Then silence and I am looking for movement and then the next gobble is going away, the next is further. There's a filed below me and I head there to get ahead of him. Then he gobbles on around the ridge and is barely audible. That makes him close to my cousins house. As I work my way down the hill the gobbles grow fainter and so I go to the truck and think I will drive up the road and try another approach. As I drive by my cousin's house I see a hen in the driveway and my gobbler strutting in her yard. I just laugh and go home

[eggshell]

Back to Ky today for our final try of spring 2024 in Ky. A very quiet day. Got on one gobbling bird early and set my buddy up ahead of me as he had not filled a Ky tag yet. The bird spent probably 15-20 minutes in range and he could never see a shot. We left northern Ky and headed south only to find more silence, but of course we seen multiple strutters in fields on private farms. We met up for a chat with a certain good looking G.O.A.T.S. team member then headed home. Now to fill my Ohio tag.

[eggshell]

Monday MAy 6th. Heard 3-4 birds on the roost then silence. None would answer a single call. Went to another spot and heard a crappy gobble and set up. Called in a gobbling hen, yup a gobbling hen. She stood right in front of us and gobbled 15 steps away....yup that's my 2024 season. This is truly uncanny, as I heard 25 gobblers on these two areas preseason and only 1 has been killed. Now it's like they are all gone and the ones left are too lazy to breed. I think they are all just like old drunks, wake up and go sit at the turkey bar all day. I am getting tired and behind on work at home, and I am going to start cutting my mornings down to a first two hr hunt and go home. Tag soup for Ohio may be on the menu. I am really indifferent as I have been very blessed with success in the past. I think it's probably been 30 years since I eat tag soup at home. In my old age and physical abilities I just don't go after them like I used to, but I still have fun for the most part. I got 10 days to find a stupid one.

[JeffC]

Keep at it ES, do it for the FUN and enjoyment of being out there in Gods beautiful creation!! Thanks for keeping us up to date.

[GobbleNut]

In my old age and physical abilities I just don't go after them like I used to, but I still have fun for the most part.

Having the same thoughts the last couple of years.  As much as I love spring gobbler hunting, I just don't have the same drive I had up until just a couple of years ago. ...Still enjoy the time I am out there to the fullest, but it's just not as important to keep pushing myself to the limit...both physically and mentally...as it used to be to fill those tags.

[eggshell]

last night was severe storms and hard rain the last two days. A non hunting day. I made a token effort and listened but no gobbles so I came home and hooked up the brush hog on the tractor and serviced all the drive train and ready to mows some fields when it dries up. Was able to mow all the yards. Got some gardening to do as well. Rain forecast tonight and all day tomorrow, so I may sit out tomorrow. I am losing interest fast as work is piling up behind me. I appreciate the encouragement from everyone, but the drive just isn't there like it used to be. I have not even stayed out past 10 but one or two mornings. I do find it frustrating when I can't get birds to at least work and duel with me, but I am a long way from desperate or disappointed. If I end up eating my tag I am ok with that. I have had a lot of good exercise and fun. I actually could most likely fill my tag tomorrow if I wanted. MY buddy has a long beard on his game camera every day for the last week at the same times in the morning and evening. He has a blind set up right at the spot and he offered me the chance to go and sit in it and probably get a shot at that bird. There were two and he let his Grandson shoot one. I told him I would eat my tag before I done that. That is not my game. 

[eggshell]

Well sometimes when everything stupid thing you can imagine goes wrong something stupid right balances the scales. I thought this morning would be a good morning and I never heard a gobbler. I saw 3 hens and a jake in a field and they were just milling around. I was home and doing chores by 8:30 am and contemplating whether I would be hanging an empty tag for Ohio 2024 spring. Something that had not happened for probably 30 years.

About 3:00 PM my daughter calls from South Dakota and she's trying to learn how to play the trumpet I gave her from my NWTF elite raffle win. She is not getting much sound from it and is not sure what to expect. I have the Bent CReek wingbone call in my truck and I tell her to hold on and I'd go play it for her to hear. I am not good on it, but been practicing. So I do my best string of yelps and I think I hear a gobble. I make another call and this time it's clear as a bell a bird answers from my back woods. I tell her a turkey just answered and I got to go kill it. I rush in and grab my gun and put on my vest and as I go out the door a gobble rings from the woods and this one is a lot closer. I rush up the the bench above the house, as that is their normal travel lane. I barely make the 250-300 yards before he is coming around the bench. I make one call on the wingbone and he cuts me off, but he's below me and I fear I won't get a good shooting lane. So I turn my head and throw a call up hill with my mouth call and he cuts that off and he's 75 - 80 yards dead in front of me. I hear him drumming then I see him working across in front of me to where I threw the call. As he clears a big poplar tree he stops and I cut loose a load of #5s and he is down. These birds have give me fits all spring and then bingo, a gift. That what's great about living right in the turkey woods. This is the third time I have killed a later season gobbler in the valley around the house here after I had given up other areas. I typically leave these birds alone, but keep them as a final trump card. Myself and my wife's cousin are the only ones that will get to hunt them. He was 20 pounds 5ounces, 1 1/8 and 1" spurs and 10 1/8" beard. A point less than my Ky bird, so no team upgrade, but a nice bird. 

[GobbleNut]

Congrats, Dana.  Those last-minute gobblers sure go a long way towards making a guy feel better about all the things that have gone wrong all season long! 

[JeffC]

Awesome story ES, Congrats on a fine Tom! Hope your daughter is successful.