Hey griz, thanks for the tip, unfornately I didn't see until today and my seasons are over. :cry:
Well, no turkey for me... :cry:
Friday the wife didn't sleep so I drove her to work (RN, works 12's at the hospital) Friday night so I didn't get home until almost 8:00pm. I wanted to do some calling earlier to call some toms in to roost closer since I've had no luck roosting them. But, after one short call, 4 deer walked into my new clover plot I was sitting next to. Two bucks and two does, one carrying twins insides by the looks of it, w-i-d-e load... They grazed past me about 15 yards infront of me before finally making there way out of the grass, long after shooting and roosting time.
Saturday morning I got up at 4:15am and went out. There was a tom over yonder a bit on the neighbors, but nothing close. I called until 7:00am and then packed up to go pick up the wife from work. I got home around 8:30 and talked to a bow turkey hunter that was on the neighbors at 9:00am on my way back out and he said at 7:30am a jake came up looking for me but I had already left.... :roll: Figures... I set up in a different spot and as soon as I struck the slate, gobbles, 3 or more toms. I thought they were coming in, actually they might have, I felt them very close, but the brush was really thick. Only my decoys head was sticking up above the weeds. My heart raced as I heard branch after branch break coming towards me from a stand of trees. I waited, purred, waited, clucked softly, waited waited silent for 30 minutes, nothing. I relaxed and was silent until noon came around and then headed in for lunch. When i got up I looked down and saw dried mud around the end of my barrel on the bottom side. I opened the breech to unload and looked down the barrel, completely plugged with dried mud. :eek: I know when I loaded the shotgun before entering the timber the barrel was clear because I always check but somewhere along the line it found some mud. Very very scarry. I needed to do better at looking at the barrel when I set down, and probably always will now. That shook me up a bit as close as I was to shooting! Then Saturday night I called around 6:00pm sporadically, every 30 minutes or so, hoping to pull the toms closer to roost.
Sunday morning I got up at 4:30am and headed out, set up, and as sat there letting the outdoors calm down from my rustling the gobbles started. One from behind me my east timber, two beside me across the creek on my timber, and a couple across the fense. All were less than 100 yards. I called very very softly and at 6:10am, BOOOOM. From over across the hill.... The toms stayed silent and then started gobbling again on their own around 6:45am so I started calling again. At 7:00am, BOOOOM. From over across the hill again.... The toms started gobbling again around 7:30am but were all farther west now. The one behind me slipped into the creek just out of my sight (found fresh tracks in the mud when inspecting the creek later in the morning) and I assume the other two toms on my place also headed west. I don't know where the toms were that were being shot, or where they were coming from, but I don't think they were the ones I was calling. But there are alot of hens with the toms I was calling also. The bow hunter I talked to also said that as many as 15 hens at one time would come into his setup of decoys. He said no tom or jake came in, which didn't matter, with 30 hen eyes looking around he wouldn't be able to draw anyway he said.
He said he was getting ready to draw on a big tom earlier in the day and the tom took off and right behind was a coyote, running mach 4, turned, grabbed his decoy off the rod, and carried it 10 yards before realizing it was rubber and spitting it out. The coyote looked at the rubber decoy on the ground just long enough for the bow hunter to give the coyote a broad head through the chest.
All in all I'm happy with the season. This was the first year I've had turkeys on my place, and I wasn't expecting that. I spent the first half of the season travelling all over multiple counties to find turkeys when I had them right under my nose.... But there is bit of disappointment having another tag go unfilled. But next year I can get a $1 landowner tag and hunt my place instead of a $23 state tag. :grin:
Oh, and I bought some hs strut "tone trough" mouth calls and am figuring them out. Next year I won't be a slate only caller. I'll also use my new box call and add in some mouth calls. Live and learn!
later,
scruffy
