MattRaymond
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2015
- Messages
- 183
- Reaction score
- 50
Hello Gents,
So far so good in the turkey woods this spring. Opening day was April 27th...my birthday...I took the day off from work and did my traditional opening day hunt with my buddy who taught me how to hunt turkeys. He's a co-worker and a bit of a mentor, so our opening day hunts usually consist of him calling the shots and locating and calling the birds. He's only a few years older than me and when we hunt together, I generally take the roll of "little brother" and go with the flow.
I've been hunting turkeys since 2011, and over all have become pretty successful at it. I started notching my "LynchBox" for every bird I've taken with it....17 notches and counting.
So back to hunting...I pull tags in CT for both private and public land. I like to keep my options open and that also allows me to harvest 5 birds total...2 Public, 3 private. We started off on public land and had zero action at two locations. My buddy had stuff to do mid morning so we split up around 7:30. I took the day off, so planned on hunting as much as I could. At the 3rd spot I checked, I ran into a loud mouthed hen that once I got her worked up, she didn't stop yelping, clucking, and cutting for about 30mins. She walked in to about 20 feet from me. I let her wander off and decided to switch spots...with all that racket...if there was a gobbler around, he would have come by just to shut her up!
Stopped over at my final spot around 9:30...lots of sign around and the leaves had been all torn up. Must have had a decent group roosted nearby and fly down was probably impressive. Based on the scratchings, I figured there was a decent group of birds, and also figured they'd probably be Jakes. Last year, at this spot, I was beaten multiple times by a very old, woods wise Gobbler...very humbling season last year. I decided to cold call from the end of a finger ridge....nothing, except for Pileated Woodpeckers and Ravens. I sat there for awhile with no response, so around 10:30, decided to get up and push a little deeper over the edge of the rim. As I easing up, I caugh some movement about 60 yards out, a group of 6-8 turkeys, heading my way...probably to my earlier calling. They are just kind wandering over silently. I'm pretty sure they saw me standing there...I stopped and slowly crept down against a tree, with a tree between me and them. The lead bird was looking hard in my direction and I gave a few purrs on the 'ol mouth call...they continued in my direction. So the lead bird approached to about 25 yards and craned his neck for a better view. Once he did that, I could see his 6 inch beard and glowing red head clearly in the bright, vibrant sunlight...it was getting late in the day, and my birthday, so I decided, in that instant, to blow out my Red,White, and Blue candle atop a beautiful Bronze iridesent cake.
So far so good in the turkey woods this spring. Opening day was April 27th...my birthday...I took the day off from work and did my traditional opening day hunt with my buddy who taught me how to hunt turkeys. He's a co-worker and a bit of a mentor, so our opening day hunts usually consist of him calling the shots and locating and calling the birds. He's only a few years older than me and when we hunt together, I generally take the roll of "little brother" and go with the flow.
I've been hunting turkeys since 2011, and over all have become pretty successful at it. I started notching my "LynchBox" for every bird I've taken with it....17 notches and counting.
So back to hunting...I pull tags in CT for both private and public land. I like to keep my options open and that also allows me to harvest 5 birds total...2 Public, 3 private. We started off on public land and had zero action at two locations. My buddy had stuff to do mid morning so we split up around 7:30. I took the day off, so planned on hunting as much as I could. At the 3rd spot I checked, I ran into a loud mouthed hen that once I got her worked up, she didn't stop yelping, clucking, and cutting for about 30mins. She walked in to about 20 feet from me. I let her wander off and decided to switch spots...with all that racket...if there was a gobbler around, he would have come by just to shut her up!
Stopped over at my final spot around 9:30...lots of sign around and the leaves had been all torn up. Must have had a decent group roosted nearby and fly down was probably impressive. Based on the scratchings, I figured there was a decent group of birds, and also figured they'd probably be Jakes. Last year, at this spot, I was beaten multiple times by a very old, woods wise Gobbler...very humbling season last year. I decided to cold call from the end of a finger ridge....nothing, except for Pileated Woodpeckers and Ravens. I sat there for awhile with no response, so around 10:30, decided to get up and push a little deeper over the edge of the rim. As I easing up, I caugh some movement about 60 yards out, a group of 6-8 turkeys, heading my way...probably to my earlier calling. They are just kind wandering over silently. I'm pretty sure they saw me standing there...I stopped and slowly crept down against a tree, with a tree between me and them. The lead bird was looking hard in my direction and I gave a few purrs on the 'ol mouth call...they continued in my direction. So the lead bird approached to about 25 yards and craned his neck for a better view. Once he did that, I could see his 6 inch beard and glowing red head clearly in the bright, vibrant sunlight...it was getting late in the day, and my birthday, so I decided, in that instant, to blow out my Red,White, and Blue candle atop a beautiful Bronze iridesent cake.
