Taunto’s 2017 hunting log (Kill #5, Vet Hunt, Youth Hunt Sucess)

[TauntoHawk]

Figured One thread is better than posting several so I'll sum up my Nebraska trip, youth weekend, my PA hunts, a wounded warrior hunt in NY and my NY weekends. Hopefully there are more pics of dead birds than scenery or turkey calls.

Got the chance to take my first turkey hunting Road Trip, I have hunted PA and NY for years and MD once for a season but never loaded up the truck and hunted anything besides our Easterns in the typical forest and farm land of the north East. So I was very much looking forward to chasing Merriams in a habitat not like anything I had ever hunted before.

My main turkey hunting buddy had an acquaintance he met while working out west a few months that had taken up residence in Nebraska and had ties to some ranchers in the area. Not a turkey hunter be he said if we ever came out he'd put us up at his house and at least give us the names and address of a few guys we could talk to about land access. We were going to hunt on the Niobrara River system south east of Merriman NE about 60 miles west of Valentine and had public land picked as back up.

The plan for this hunt was to leave my house in PA Thursday after work and drive through the entire night and reach our destination roughly 24hrs later to check with the first rancher on the list and hopefully roost and sleep before Saturdays Opener, hunt for 2.5 days and leave mid Monday so we could both be home again after driving through the night again by Tuesday afternoon as we both had to work Wednesday morning.  By the end of the trip we were gone from my home door to door 120hrs, had driven 55hrs of the 120 for 3400 miles.   

We hunted a little public to fill the gaps between when we could met some of the ranchers and see about access, the ranchers we did make contact with face to face were all very nice and all of them were open to the idea of allowing us to turkey hunt either for free or a moderate trespass fee. We did spend more time than anticipated on making contacts and getting access but in the long run it made more sense to give up some hunt time this year for future seasons of hunting. Our weather was amazing for how unpredictable northern Nebraska can be in the spring, although they had snow not a week earlier and again after we left we had sunshine all 3 days, enough to give me some sunburn on my face and neck (used to hunting in the shade of timber I guess). Hunting had its own couple of road blocks and as the places we got access to were river bottom properties and there was not always easy road access to both sides and the River was simply running too fast and high for wading across. We left a lot of birds on the opposite sides of the river unable to cross with the birds too far inland on the other side or just plain unwilling to fly the river to us with the amount of hens the birds maintained throughout the course of the day (some might have seen my post about inflatable kayaks and I believe we will take one with next season).

Birds seemed still very winter flocked and when we found them it was in large groups, the tactic of the weekend seemed to be get a visual, find direction of travel, get in front, and try and bend them into gun range by calling to the hens. Peeling strutting Toms away from large harems just wasn't working for us and boy can these birds cover ground. The dominant birds in the flocks eluded us but I was able to peel two fringe birds off of flocks to my first two merriam down with the 20. Beautiful birds, and beautiful scenery and the flocks certainly were fun to watch. My first bird came from a flock that had what we counted as 16 mature toms strutting at one time.

For guys thinking about public land we found birds within minutes of getting out of the truck by doing little more than looking for trees next to water on OnX maps. The terrain was a bit tougher though instead of cattle pastures it was filled with bluffs, and steep gorges that made things tough to cover ground or even get to birds you could hear.

Up Next: PA Youth Hunt public land

[TauntoHawk]

First bird 22.5lbs 9in beard 1&1/16th spurs

Second 19.4lbs 8 & 4.75in beards, rounded 5/8th spurs so just a youngster but had a beautiful? colors

Shed and deadhead scores

My kind of bouquet

Opening evening sunset

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[TauntoHawk]

They might have many trees but they grow a few big ones

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[TauntoHawk]

PA Youth Day, I have a passion for Youth Hunters. I value my early years of hunting for starting the fire but wish I had a mentor early on most of my youth was spent just running around the woods chasing critters more than learning woodsmanship and hunting skills.
I try and line up a kid every year but this year it was the first I had a family member. My oldest Nephew was 12 it would be his first turkey hunt although he shot a nice doe back in October with me. Due to Soccer conflict we didn't have time to travel for hunting and only until 10am. I do not have any private access in the area we live so without a few hours of travel we would have to hunt a small public area. I scouted it a few times and it was always holding a flock of birds; the flock was mainly hanging on the fringe of private but I was optimistic they could be worked.

Roosted the birds with an owl hoot night before roosted on private but could get within 200yds and stay well on the public. We got in good, it was overcast but birds started gobbling at 5:50 let them warm up a little sounded like 2-3 birds. Floated some yelps their way and got immediate responses from at least 5. Unfortunately birds got heated on the limb, flew down and went quiet for a few minutes and started working toward their way toward a private field. Got a hen all torqued and started to peel her our way, she came fast and I thought for sure she would have a follower or two but nope single hen walked right in no friends. 



Up Next: PA Opening Day with my Dad on family ground

[taylorjones20]

Awesome

[mgm1955]

 

[WiLL B]

Congrats on Nebraska! Looking forward to hearing about your rest of season

[hobbes]

Looks like you had a great hunt.  Congrats on your first two western birds.

[TauntoHawk]

Do not have a lot of private access in PA and public can be a bit crowded for my liking on the opener. Its been pretty much tradition for my father and I to drive up to his brothers 3hrs north and hunt at least 1 day usually the opener each year. Got up to my uncle's place late Friday night after a long day of work and into bed at midnight. Forecast called for rain overnight hanging into the morning but woke up to it dry as a bone out so it must have skirted us south. With no scouting or roosting my father and I planned to split for the first hour of the morning to hear and cover more ground. I went to the top of the mountain to listen while he went to a primary roosting area. Every bird I heard start up sounded a million miles away but one bird gobbling keeps nagging on me as maybe closer than I first thought, it had that sound as if it was echoing off the opposing mountain more than originating from there and that there was a chance it was coming from low on the same hill as I was on. So by 5:45 I thought I had nothing to lose and found myself quickly dropping down one bench at a time listening from each one for just a few moments. Just as I was about to turn back up hill hearing nothing a crow flew over and got him to shock, he still sounded faint but there was no way a crow by me was going to get a bird on the other hill to shock at least not as likely, I thought there's a little hollow down there to the right filled with pines that would muffle even a close gobble. I cut to the next bench above the hollow and hit the owl call he responded giving me a bead on direction but not distance. I kept moving down stopping just under the lip now 3/4 of the way down the mountain and into the pines I believed he was roosted in. Hit the owl again and he triple gobbled from less than a 100yds and I could tell he was on the ground. Its truly amazing how in just 80yds a slight break in the hill how his gobble went from faint to thundering. I knelt behind a tree and scanned the woods for a decent set up nothing jumped out, in front of me was a bit too open and the sides were too thick so I let out a soft yelp to check his temp with the first turkey call of the morning and a light switch came on in the dark pines as a head turned white and seemed to glow not 90yds down the old logging road, he gobbled and walked across the road and behind a rise. A few more yelp series and he fired at each one but continued on his line working just behind the rise  up hill and away at a slight angle from me. I dug into my vest for a favorite of mine, an SS scratch box. That must have tugged on his heart in all the right ways because I could immediately tell he had spun around to gobble my directed and was closely followed by the early morning air being filled with the sounds of the spit and drum dance as he slowing spun and strutted around a fell tree and over the rise. He continued along in strut only stopping to gobble my direction and crane his neck in searching for the hen. Once he cleared a big pine and was in the wheel house of my 20ga I ended the show at 6:08am.

The mountain never stack in stature to some of the farm country and river bottom birds I've taken but I was worked up a good bit more than with the average bird as these mountain birds are always a little more special to me coming from the land I learned to hunt on. Standing there with the turkey after the shot I had time to reflect on just the area of the woods this had taken place. The tree I had kneeled behind was mere feet from one my grandfather who passed this past year favorite spots to sit for deer I could still see the flat slate rock that he had wedged into the ground on top a old log as a seat. The turkey had roosted in cluster of old giant maples one of which was home to the first wooden tree stand I ever helped him build and the same location where I took my first ever deer with an old single shot 30-30 he had passed down through my father and then to me.

It was a great way to open our season and I now have 1 more PA tag and 2 for NY for the Month of May.

Got two more birds worked up for my dad by 7:30 but before were really got close set up a neighbor on a 4 wheeler got between us and the woods went quiet the rest of the day.


Next hunt: maybe a weekday morning before work on some public this week but for sure I have a Wounded Warrior Hunt in NY this weekend so praying for good weather

[surehuntsalot]

congrats on a great hunt

[WiLL B]

Real Nice!! Congrats!!

[SteelerFan]

Way to go!!!   

[wcerin]

Awesome post. Congrats!!

[TauntoHawk]

Thanks guys, finding time to chase turkeys is tough with work, a home, two small kids under the age of 3 I've got two days a week where I don't have to drop the kids off at Daycare and can hunt before work. Have to be at the office by 8:30-9am and only place to hunt birds in my area is public about 35-40min from work. So its a tough day to get up at 4:15 just to hunt fly down and about 25min before I have to hike out change work 8+ hours go home and take care of homes chores, yard, and have enough energy to play with the kids but I've been pushing through and until I punch that second PA tag im not gonna waste any of my 2 available days a week.

Yesterday was the first one, went where i had my nephew out for youth season. almost to my spot I had a guy crashing in behind me but he did turn around once i hit him with the flashlight to let him know someone was already on the ridge. Got nestled in a bird started gobbling directly down the hill on private about where I expected but after about his 5th gobble a volley erupted directly overhead. I had gotten a bit to close to what I think were all Jakes couldn't see them all but the ones I could see were all jakes pretty much right above me with a few more behind. One was roosted less than 20yds away and eye balled me just enough that I couldn't call or move I was just too exposed to his position. The longbeard was hot but I really couldn't work him until the jakes flew down and of course they stayed on the limb a bit late so by the time they got ready to pitch the longbeard had been down for 10min working away through some private fields and the jakes just flew off the ridge down the whole hill side to him. I got a few gobbles as they worked away but the wind picked up and I could no longer hear them so off to work I went.

[tha bugman]

pics are awesome!  Congrats!  Love seeing the little ones getting out and experiencing the outdoors!