Getting Excited

[Ontgunner]

We have had a few nice mornings as of late and thought I would go out and check to see what was going on. Heard my first gobble of 2011 and watched a couple toms trying to decide if they should strut or not. Good to see and hear, looking forward to getting started.

[boggszilla]

I'm headed south tomorrow to check some spots out.

[Bamastrutter]

Hopefully the birds on my property will start to fire up here pretty soon. Good luck guys.

[BigHooks]

Bama I've got birds gobbling behind my house on the ridge. But the funny thing is I allways go to the the lease to hunt. But this year I'll be hunting here at home when I get in from work each day. That's going to be fun. That's going to be a new experience for me I have allways hunted field birds on the lease not mountain birds.

[xarcher]

Leaving for northern AL on April 1.  Hunting mountain birds for 5 days.  Sounds like the birds in your back yard BigHooks.  Not sure if you have ever hunted them, but mountain birds are 10 times tougher than farm birds.  It just seems they are more likely to hang up on a bench instead of commit to a call.  I hunt farm birds here in PA and for the most part that is an ambush hunt.  I am able to scout hard and for the most part know where they want to go.  Since I don't live in AL, I can't scout and must truly hunt for them.  But being forced to do that has made me a better HUNTER. 

Some one will break the ice soon.  Lots of season left. 

[BigHooks]

No Xarcher I haven't ever hunted them, as far as I know they have never been pressured. I'd say I'm getting ready to experience something I have never done. On our lease I known alot about the birds I hunt. 95% of the time I know were they are an were there going, an were they are going to enter the field. But this is going to be a new experience hopefully a good one..Johnny...                 

[xarcher]

No Xarcher I haven't ever hunted them, as far as I know they have never been pressured. I'd say I'm getting ready to experience something I have never done. On our lease I known alot about the birds I hunt. 95% of the time I know were they are an were there going, an were they are going to enter the field. But this is going to be a new experience hopefully a good one..Johnny...                 

In spite of all the people and videos that show someone calling in a bird, I am convinced that gobblers have a place they want to go and the real trick is getting ahead of them.  Strutting zone, water hole, food source, who really knows.  Scouting just lets you know where they want to go and scouting farm birds is fairly easy.  Just watch from 500 yards away.  If you see birds in a field often enough, just sit on it and sooner or later they will stroll through.  Not so easy to watch mountain birds from 500 yards away.  See the problem?  Need to spend a lot of time on the ground with those mountain birds.  Follow the scratchings and get in front of them.  Obviously hunting birds that are not pressured helps alot.  Good luck.   

[bigwayne17]

Check this link for the bird we are goin after next saturday on youth day.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wxxuDMPrNI

[makova]

Nice bird!! Our youth day is this week!  I think i am more pumped then my two kids! good luck, how old is you son?

[Ontgunner]

Looks good, best of luck with him

[bigwayne17]

Nice bird!! Our youth day is this week!  I think i am more pumped then my two kids! good luck, how old is you son?

Me and my wife are still just practicing.....

I'll be take my little buddy who is 15 this year. I'll have to find another one next year and until my wife and I get good enough to have one of our own.

[makova]

LOL!!   I have four, only two young enough for youth day. 11yr son and 12 daughter, this will be thier second year out hunting turkeys. We have  had no luck yet, but this will be our year.

good luck
mike

[ThicketThrasher]

Last Saturday was youth day in Tennessee and me and my daughter Maggie  headed out early. We went to one of the only "easy" places that I have to hunt here in the NF of Upper east Tennessee. We got there way to early, a hour before first light. We climbed up a holler and set up on the side of the holler hoping we were close to some roosting birds. At daybreak, I hooted twice and we heard absolutely nothing, then a little after fist light I scratched out a couple of tree yelps and thought I heard a gobble back towards the truck, about 400 yards away. My daughter has way better hearing than me so i was relying on her for distance and direction. The bird was gobbling a little on his own but seemed to get fired up after a fly down cackle from me. After that barrage of gobbles, he shut up. I heard a hen yelping in the same direction as the gobbler but that was it for about an hour. Nothing. Thinking that the birds had moved across the branch and up on the other side, Maggie and I decided to go back to the branch and up on the other ridge to see if we could locate them. Walking back down the holler, I was calling just a bit but nothing was answering. At the very bottom of the holler, we were slipping around the side of the ridge when I came upon a rise and stuck my head up and right in front of me was a hen who looked as surprised to see me as i was to see her. I immediately sat down in the middle of the trail and pulled Maggie down with me. I let out a excited cackle just hoping that the hen thought I was an odd looking turkey. At that moment, we were surprised and shaken by a thunderous gobble from 30 yards away just behind the hen. We were in the worst possible place imaginable to kill a bird. There was one giant Hemlock tree there and we scooted uo against it. I told Maggie to point the gun at the little rise and when the Gobbler came over it, to pour it to him. But he didn't, instead he hopped up in the laurel bushes in full strut, walked right by us at 20 yards gobbling his head off. The laurel thicket did not offer a shot as we could only get glimpses of him. I'm not sure how a turkey can get through a laurel thicket in full strut but they can. He walked around us and came out above us, still gobbling his head off. We slid around to the other side of the tree, and I instructed Maggie that now he would be coming down the trail towards us and the she was to pepper his head when he came around the bend. But he never did. Instead there were 6 hens that popped out of the laurel and the gobbler, trailing them all, came out about 50 yards away. They fed around for about 30 min. just a few yards out of gun range. We were in the wide open and could not move. So instead we got to watch and listen to a pretty cool sight. I tried every call I knew, but he was content with his hens and wasn't about to walk down there to me. My daughter and I were both very excited and after they fed on out the ridge, we actually tried to go up the ridge and go around them to cut them off but we never saw or heard them again. I feel it was a successful hunt even though we didn't get him. We know where he lives now.

[Ontgunner]

Man that sure sounded exciting. And they wonder why we spend so much time in the woods.