Season starts and Field Reports

[squidd]

Getting some good opportunities and now you're dialed in for some flopping!!

[Kygobblergetter]

Got it done in Indiana yesterday morning. Awesome hunt but unfortunately one broken spur kept him from being an upgrade.





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[wvhoyt19]

Finally punched a WV tag this morning. Helped call in a bird for a good buddy on mine on opening day. Tuesday and Wednesday was dead quiet. This morning was s different story as we struck several birds. This gobbler is a memorable one as i started turning my strikers. This is Bubinga and i was running it on slate. Off to Montana soon to chase those Merriams. Congrats to everyone on a fine season!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[squidd]

Nicely done Gents!!

A few more hunts left for me in GA and WY.

[Zobo]

Finally punched a WV tag this morning. Helped call in a bird for a good buddy on mine on opening day. Tuesday and Wednesday was dead quiet. This morning was s different story as we struck several birds. This gobbler is a memorable one as i started turning my strikers. This is Bubinga and i was running it on slate. Off to Montana soon to chase those Merriams. Congrats to everyone on a fine season!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Way to go, i'll put you up on the boards! 

[wvhoyt19]

Awesome morning in WV! This bird hammered since flydown. We weren't able to get him to break to our side and noticed he was on the backside of the ridge. My son and I made a move and when he got onto the point, we were waiting in him. Couldn't be more happier for my son!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ruination]

Finally punched a WV tag this morning. Helped call in a bird for a good buddy on mine on opening day. Tuesday and Wednesday was dead quiet. This morning was s different story as we struck several birds. This gobbler is a memorable one as i started turning my strikers. This is Bubinga and i was running it on slate. Off to Montana soon to chase those Merriams. Congrats to everyone on a fine season!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Congrats!  Was a really nice morning to have to go to work and then have wind all weekend.

[squidd]

Has to be cool listening to them in the hills!!  Nicely done!!

[Zobo]

Awesome morning in WV! This bird hammered since flydown. We weren't able to get him to break to our side and noticed he was on the backside of the ridge. My son and I made a move and when he got onto the point, we were waiting in him. Couldn't be more happier for my son!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Awesome picture! What a great way to spend time with your son,  as good as it gets right there, congratulations!!!

[dzsmith]

Probably it for me this year . I mentioned earlier no intentions on traveling due to a school I'm in at work. I'm very content to have taken 2 birds at home on public, in the limited amount of time I had to hunt. I haven't been hardly at all the last 2-3 weeks even when I could have because I failed a test at work and really needed to be locked in. But the the times I have gone evenings or just to listen ... it's pretty evident they are done here . It's really slowed down.... Not many folks at the gates which is unusual because pressure has gone up exponentially.... Unfortunately not seeing people is as big of a con as seeing them ... it means there ain't nothing gobbling .... They've moved there gravel popping elsewhere ...I have a little time off the last week of the season so I plan to make a hunt or 2 with some friends at their places .... We've been getting a good bit of rain here and up until this point it's been a dry spring in the hills .... There are hens nesting now , have been for a few weeks actually so I hope they keep can keep em incubated ... no burning going on this spring for the most part ... many of the areas burned in the previous 5 years . So hopefully a good hatch ensues. Good luck to Yal... I know some of Yal are just now getting hot and heavy into it

[Tomtom97]

Finished my slam with a double!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[squidd]

You are definitely on birds this year!!

Looks like snow in the background as well!!

[Kygobblergetter]

Kentucky bonus bird yesterday. Not an upgrade but this is very heavily hunted public and fairly late in to the season. Found him mid morning and got very aggressive closing the distance. Finally called him around a fallen log at 25 yards.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ruination]

Had a wild day.

The weather was garbage last weekend, blowing 15+ and raining one day and 25+ the next.  Not yet desperate enough to try and hunt that so spent time with the family after coming home from NJ.

But the weather report on Monday was just perfect.  0 wind.  climbing barometer.  50F.  Had to hunt, so decided to give it a shot before work.

Being a Monday and 1.5 weeks of season had already passed I did not think I would have much competition at gates so slept in and arrived at 4:30.  This piece has been one of my favorites to hunt over the years but over the last few it has been bad experience after bad experience, which really bums me out.  I waited to 5 to see if someone was going to try and share, which I would just leave.  No one showed so I went to the spot to listen.

5:20, a few minutes before gobbletime, here comes an illegal UTV down the public land forest road.  Parks right next to me.  I ask him what the F he thinks he is doing and he is breaking the law.  He ignores me, and runs into the woods.  I am guessing he planned to be out by the time DNR started working to take a call...I am pretty confident the UTV was still there when/if DNR showed up.  The year prior I had a guy drive about over my hen decoy when he wanted to park in the meadow I was working a gobbler into.  Countless people having to hunt there despite multiple people already being there.  The list is endless and sadly I may not go back anytime soon. 

Anyways, I know where he's headed so I go the opposite direction.

6am - within 100 of a couple birds on the roost, they seem interested.  6:15 here comes a guy trying to sound like an elephant walking through the woods.  Birds shut up.  I leave.  Sure enough someone has parked next to me at the gate.

Hop in the truck, 10 miles to E, closest gas station is 5 miles away.  Go get a quick couple of gallons of gas.  Drive around looking for an open gate, crazy packed for a Monday...Crazy packed for opening day 4 years ago.

Decide to go to one of my favorites, sure someone would be there, but it's way out of the way and a PIA to hunt, so sometimes it gets overlooked.  Well, its open.  Feeling a little better I hop out of the truck and suit up.  Walk about 50 yards and a gobbler hammers on private across the street.  Gobblers sound off 200 yards to my right.  Gobblers sound off 400 yards in front of me to them.

I carefully ease my way to the gobblers on the right, pretty easy to do with the thick undergrowth coming up and find a spot to set up in.  Give some light yelping.  Gobble- Gobble.  Two turkeys About 75 yards apart from one another about 150 out.  Then a hen starts yelping.  I work the birds for a bit, they were responsive, but not moving far.  The birds 400 yards away are now 300 and I am wondering if I am going to do a tree shuffle.

I decide since there's at least one hen, I would try and rile her up.  Long, sharp cutting sequence...and one of the gobblers just hammers the whole time.  I end it with a few soft yelps away from them.  Gobbler hammers 2 more times directly at me, goes quiet, and I just know he is coming.  Couple minutes, SPIT...Gobble!.  On top of me to my left.  Shift my gun to a tiny opening I think I will be able to see him through.  Up ops a red head, boom goes the dynamite.

Just a large sense of relief to watch him flip over backwards stone dead.

Amazing how quick an outlook on a day can change.  Also amazing how many people were out turkey hunting on a Monday in that area.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

[ruination]

Pics

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk