I've not been around for a year or so. Lot's of new folks around since the early days of this forum, but I still recognize a few folks. While I'm not getting in the out of state hunts that I used to, I'm still chasing this glorious bird and killing a few along the way. I've not had a chance to make it back home to Southern IL to hunt Easterns since 2015, but I'm making due with Merriam's.
The following is a copy and paste of my 2018 season and will be followed up with 2019:
2018 MT Turkey
The opening day was spent with my teenage kids in the snow without much success.
I got out one morning during the week with a friend who had one day to hunt before he had to go out of town for a couple weeks. I had a tom roosted that gave us the slip after gobbling and drumming from above us for 30 minutes, but we found a jake that strutted into the call on our way out to the truck that my friend was all too happy to kill.
The following week I had to make a work trip to the eastern part of the state, so I drove my personal rig and stayed a couple extra days to hunt. The riverbottom country wasn't going to be much of an option, so I tried out some new country in two locations that resulted in nothing more than an early morning collision with a deer. I had a moose try to run over me back in September 2017, the moose survived just fine............the deer wasn't so lucky.
I took a buddy that is new to turkeys on the following weekend for a two day hunt. We found a few birds, but all the toms were on neighboring private land and I couldn't pull them onto public land.
I had to spend the next week and a half or so either working or on family/fatherly/grandfatherly duties, so I had to cancel on a Colorado buddy that was meeting me in the South Dakota Black Hills. I thought for a little while there that I may need to abandon the rest of the season.
Work slowed down and family duties were under control, so I took some comp time to chase turkeys. On May 7 I found a tom on the opposite side of a canyon at 10 AM. I got wet to my knees trying to cross the swollen creek, but had the bird strutting, gobbling, drumming, and flopping on his back at 27 yards by 11 AM.
Antelope bucks preparing to cross the road.
My youngest son and I got on a tom the following day, but after 3 hours of moving on him multiple times I could not get him to close. We left him with plans to find him on the next weekend.
On May 10, I called in 5 young birds that I believe had a 2 year old in the mix, but they all had short beards and I wasn't planning to fill a tag with a jake. I roosted a bird that evening and was on him the next morning, May 11, but he pitched down off the mountain with 5 hens to a field well below us. I kept tabs on them from the treeline while trying to stay dry during the occasional rain shower and moved on them three times before he finally started losing his 5 hens. He followed a curious hen into 32 yards at 10 AM.
My son and I were supposed to hunt on Saturday, but teenagers don't always have the same priorities as we do. Since he wasn't going, I took my buddy that was new to turkeys. We hiked in and found the bird that my son and I had tried to kill on the 8th. The bird pulled the same maneuvers on us from the same locations. However, at about 8:30 AM a hen that he'd apparently been following decided that she didn't appreciate my smart mouth. I moved back and kept pouring it on and he strutted right in behind her. But...............my buddy being new to the game didn't capitalize on the opportunity and moved at just the wrong time and the game ended quickly with the hen spooking and the tom racing off behind her not really knowing why.
I didn't know if they'd play the next morning, but knew they probably wouldn't go far since the hen likely had a nest close by. The next day started pretty slow with him gobbling two times from the roost then going quiet for an hour. We were about to hike out to the truck to drive to another bird that we had heard when he just gobbled on his own. I positioned my buddy and moved behind him again. He didn't let the second opportunity go by. He let the hen walk past at 35 yards and when the tom's fan appeared he was waiting for his head to appear.
I hunted a new location on the following Tuesday and Wednesday of the last week with a friend (same friend that killed the jake). We stayed in an old hunting cabin of someone he knew and hunted adjoining state land. The plan was for my buddy to get first shot since I had two toms and he only had a jake, but the one bird that came in showed up from a direction that I hadn't expected. Luckily he gobbled just over the rise giving me time to shift my gun in his direction before he showed up on top of me. If I didn't kill him, no one was going to, so I bit the bullet and killed my third tom of 2018 late in the evening of May 15th.
Montana traffic jam:
I did get my son out mid day on the last Saturday of the season, but we could not find a bird. We should have hunted the last day early morning before church and then that evening, but..............teenagers and their priorities.
I had a good season in 18 even though it started slow and my out of state travel was down to none (although filling multiple MT licenses requires its fair share of travel).
I also became a grandfather during March of 2018
