Eggshells huunt log

[eggshell]

I'm in fishing mode now. Turkey season is all but done, I actually get into my fishing just as much. Here's this evenings catch:

I am going one lastr morning tomorrow in Ky and then done until May 15th in SD

[GobbleNut]

Bring some of those babies to SD when you come!  I see a fish fry on the horizon!   

[eggshell]

Went back to Ky yesterday and found more of the same. My buddy and I split the farm. He heard 1 bird on his side that gobbled 4 times and shut up. I heard about three off property then moved to a new spot and soon as I got to my listening spot a utility crew moved in with heavy equipment at the head of the valley and you couldn't hear anything. We gave up at 10:00 and started cruising and talking to people looking for future permissions, but no go. So Kentucky 2022 is over and another year of disappointment. I am just about to give up on KY. as I have not killed a bird there in three years (one year was the covid lock out). It just went from a great place to a pit hole in a heartbeat. There are less birds, but wayyyyyy more idiots. I am not trying to start a new discussion or argument, but it all went south when we were confronted with a group of social media video producers three years ago in our public honey hole area. It went from moderate hunting pressure to Disney world in the woods in one year. There were idiots literally camping in the woods where turkeys roosted. Two years later they are all gone, but so are the turkeys. I think they literally harassed the birds into leaving. The locals even agree the birds are all moved off the public onto nearby private. The good news is they will someday be back. In the mean time we have found some new areas, but they just aren't as good. So I will keep tabs on when that happens and pray there are no more assaults. The new farm has turned out to be a hit and miss farm, but birds are in the area. In summary the only reason I am eating Ky tag soup is because, I blew the two opportunities I had with bad set ups. So in the end it's on me.

I am done in Ohio as well with my one tag filled. I may hunt a day or two with others, but not much. As I said, I am in fishing mode now in Ohio. I have one last turkey opportunity left next week in South Dakota and hooking up with the infamous Gobblenut and Happy. I am excited to sit down with these gentlemen and sharing war stories, if I find turkeys to hunt that will be a great bonus. It is also our annual trip to spend a week with our daughter, a SD resident, and that has a higher priority then the gobblers in reality. So it has been a spring of frustration, but still the best of  times. Just being out in the woods is a gift it's self....

Gobbenut, not sure I can get the fish there in good shape with 4 days of travel before we could eat them. I will think on it. However, I can assure you I am bringing some sweet tree necter

[GobbleNut]

    Really looking forward to our upcoming get-together!

[Happy]

Won't be long gentlemen. Looking forward to it and hopefully we can show a few of them loudmouth, girly sounding merriams what's up in the process.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[eggshell]

Packing the car up today, hitting the road tomorrow for South Dakaota. Won't be on the forum for 10 days or more.

[eggshell]

May 12-14, traveling to SD and visiting with our daughter. Saw several birds along the way including two road kill gobblers which in hind site I should have tagged one 

May 15 - Arrived in the Black Hills and met up with Gobblenut at the hunt base. Got moved in and said our howdy dudies. Learned that birds were pretty hard to find and that Happy was in camp but hard at the hunt. (side note here, that youngun is hard core turkey chaser and we wondered what happened to him at times. He stayed in the woods before daylight to dark). We took a ride and looked at some areas and tried to roost some birds with no luck. Gobblenut confessed about his miss that morning and we all consoled him ( is laughing consoling?) Back at camp we settled in and planned for the next day.

May 16 - Everyone headed to predetermined spots. I had some private land that joined National forest and headed there. At the first stop it was silence. About 2 hrs after daylight I moved down the mountain and heard a gobble soon as I got out of the car. I set up withh high hopes and the first call got a response. The next response was from hens. Thay all met in front of me and took off for a party in other parts. I never heard another gobble and headed back to camp for lunch and to see what my wife and daughter were up to. That evening I went with the family for a steak dinner.

May 17 - At daylight I was sitting in what I thought was the gobblers bedroom but it was silence. However, across the road 3 gobblers were welcoming the day. So off the mountain and across the raod I go. I spent two hours playing  a game of torment. Call and gobbler answers, set up and get two responses then the next gobble is farther away. Done this three times with two different gobblers. Then the original bird sounds off and is lighting it up. So back across the road and huff and puff up the Mt and get set up. He comes to 60 yards 5 times and stalls and each time moves up the mt and I move ahead. Finally I realize he's going over the peak and I know the road swing around, so down to the car and up the road to the gate I go. Soon as I get out he gobbles and dangit, he's literally 75 yards from the car and he walks right through the gap just above the car. and out into the open where he bust me...morning over. On the way back to camp I decide to cut across the area on a dirt forest road. As I come around a curve I see a recognizable shape of a strutting gobbler in the road. I pull up 30 yards from them (6 long beards and 1 hen) and watch. I get out to see what they do and they just walk off the road 30 yards and resume business. I could have legally shot one as I had walked well off the right of way, but I did not want a gobbler that way. That night I sit in his return path and all I see is 5 hens. In our planning I marked the 6 gobblers for Gobblenut and his buddy to chase and I returned to the old runner. I had heard 4 other birds in that area.

May18- I have high hopes but the mountain is silent and in 5 hrs I cannot strike a bird. So I go back to camp and change into tourist mode and take off with the wife and daughter for a day. That evening I rush out for the last two hrs and see if I can get on the old runner. Soon as I get to my spot I think they will be around. I look and there they are, two long beards. I can barely get set up but I do. Then here he is right in front of me, but he stops and I know he sees me. I am studying the distance and the possibility he is about to depart. I give in to temptation and lower the boom. I  know it is the outside limit of my range but I feel it's a good shot. I squeeze off a round and he runs up the mounntain unharmed. What the "H" happened....I have contracted Gobblenut disease! I guess I flinched and combine that with a longer then usual shot and it spells MISS. I had pretty disapointed now.

May 19 - I only have about three hrs and I have to get back to help the family pack up and head back to my daughter's place in Pierre. Sure enough a couple birds open up, including the one I missed. I have one of them working and he's just across a swell from me and slowly strutting in when hens open up down the Mt. and away he goes. I follow, but all he'll do is answer and stay in his spot. the hens keep leading him away and finally I salute him and head back to camp...Black Hills 2022 is over. I had a great time and I encountered Elk, Deer and mountain lions on my hunt. It was awesome to meet Gobblennut (JIm) and Happy (Nick) and share stories and hunt time. Jim and I have been cyber-buddies for around 15 years on two forums and traded things, but never met. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing camp with him and Dick. We are indeed cut from the same cloth.

I will add this side note: I was greatly disappointed in my expectations for this hunt. We literally drove hundreds of miles of roads to find a hand full of gobblers to hunt. If I did not have local friends with private ground it would have been even worse. There simply does not seem to be a very good concentration of birds in the Areas we hunted. I woulld even say they are sparse. After all the stories and pictures over the years, I did expect more. Sure we found a few birds to hunt, but in all my turkey adventures this is one of the sparsest populations I have ever hunted. Maybe it was just a poor year, but I think we all expected more

[GobbleNut]

I have contracted Gobblenut disease!

"GobbleNut Disease"...   I hope that term doesn't catch on here,...but somehow I think it might.   

I will add this side note: I was greatly disappointed in my expectations for this hunt. We literally drove hundreds of miles of roads to find a hand full of gobblers to hunt. If I did not have local friends with private ground it would have been even worse. There simply does not seem to be a very good concentration of birds in the Areas we hunted. I woulld even say they are sparse. After all the stories and pictures over the years, I did expect more. Sure we found a few birds to hunt, but in all my turkey adventures this is one of the sparsest populations I have ever hunted. Maybe it was just a poor year, but I think we all expected more

Prefacing this comment with the recognition that each of the three of us had opportunities to tag a gobbler, I, too, was shocked at the apparent lack of turkeys we found on this hunt,..especially after all the hype we have heard over the years.  There are likely places in the Hills that have concentrations of turkeys that are away from the private properties and huntable, but we covered a huge area of great looking turkey habitat without finding one of them.  (Again, it should be noted for anybody that might be headed up that way that the locals seem to think the turkey population has dropped off considerably in the last couple of years) 

My single word of advice,...take it or leave it,... for anybody headed up there "blind" is to seek as much information as you can from other sources before doing so.  I did a little of that, but I also assumed there were enough turkeys scattered over the entire forest area that we would have no trouble finding birds to hunt.  That was most definitely an erroneous assumption!  There is a LOT of country in the Black Hills of South Dakota that appears by the evidence we found to not have turkeys in it,...and the ones we did find were invariably associated with private lands and close to residences (and there are a LOT of residences up there) such that it was difficult to hunt them,...especially for folks like us that do not like to push the limits in hunting in situations like that.