Ben's semi-live 2025 hunt thread

[TheBenHoyle]

I had the official first outing of my season 2025-2026 on Saturday. I was a little bummed that I didn't get a chance to close out my prior season with a coyote hunt but February was just too busy.

But I have a game camera that needed a new antenna and a new piece of public I wanted to scout for an Early May turkey hunt, so I drove out to my dad's house and picked him up.

We spent most of Saturday driving out to the public hunting area where I have my camera. I hadn't received any pics since I moved it in late January and I was pretty sure I had broken the antenna. So Dad and I hiked in and found the camera and replaced the camera. I also had to replace the batteries. It was a beautiful day and the hike was nice. I checked the pics I had missed and there was some deer activity but no turkeys. Although I think the turkeys show up in April when the hens get broody. It is smack dab in the middle of good nesting habitat.

After that, we drove to another public hunting area that I had never been to. It was supposed to be a 30 minute drive, but we missed a turn and had to back track and then we saw about 20 swans feeding in a field and stopped to put our binoculars on them. In the process we missed another turn and ended up driving about 5 miles down the road and had to back track a bit. I think it took us more like an hour to make the drive.

We pulled in to the first parking area and immediately saw a bald eagle riding the thermals above us. While we were watching that one, we realized there were about 5 of them up in the air.

We hiked in about 400-500 yards in to the hardwoods, skirting an ag field to the north. It was nice and open under the canopy and there was a highpoint to the south that we were thinking about heading up to see the overview, when all of a sudden we heard a turkey. We stopped still and just stared as a hen appeared from the direction of the highpoint. She walked right up to about 5 feet from us and just kinda milled about. We took a bunch of pictures and really enjoyed the encounter.




I felt like we had seen enough of this part of the property and so we backed out and went around to another parking area to check out what looked like a clearing on ONX.

I probably should have paid attention to the topo lines, because that clearing was a bald at the top of a bluff that required us to gain about 120 feet in elevation. I don't think there's much chance I would want to hunt on top of the bluff, but it was a nice view.

All in all it was a great day with my dad and raised my hopes for a good hunt in a new place.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Sunday night here. I just have to make it through work tomorrow and then I will be on my way out to my parents' house to sleep so I can get up before the dawn Tuesday to try to get a turkey. I have to come home Tuesday night for a band concert for my youngest and then I can hunt Wednesday if I don't get it done on Tuesday. It is a lot of driving back and forth but I feel good about my chances. I'll be hunting the same woods where I got a turkey 2 years ago and have taken 3 deer out of. Here's hoping that I get lucky and the turkeys are in the neighborhood and not across the creek on property I can't hunt.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Well I had two nice days of spring woods hunting, but ultimately no turkeys.

Tuesday was super windy and I thought maybe I heard turkeys, but I also thought maybe I was just trying to make distorted goose sounds into turkey sounds. Like I said it was super windy and I couldn't be sure of any sounds really.

I saw two raccoons walking along near me and then later I saw two raccoons harassing a third raccoon in the top of a tree.

I saw about 6 deer wandering through the woods. and I saw a hen in a hay field about 300 yards northwest of me. Quickly lost sight of it and then about 45 minutes it or a different hen popped out of the treelike on my right as if it had come straight towards me from where I had seen it before. Sadly, it saw me before I saw it and it slid back into the woods.

Wednesday was very calm and I could hear everything in the woods for about a 1/2 mile all around. I could hear the chickens in the farm yard and the dogs out barking. I heard geese and I heard sand hill cranes. I did not hear any turkeys.

I saw at least 6 deer, but possibly a dozen or more. It was hard to tell if they were the same deer recirculating or if they were new to the scene.

At one point I saw a raccoon walking up a game trail towards me I got to see him stop, get nervous, back track two steps and then waddle run back the way he came. He was a fat boy.

In general, I had a nice time but it is disappointing that there was so little turkey action. I have hunted this area often over the past 7 years and I know that this general neighborhood has upwards of 50 turkeys, but something must have pushed them to the north or south. Hard to say, but it didn't work in my favor this time.

Next opportunity will be the weekend after Easter on some public land that I have hunted before. Hopefully I can make that trip work out with some fresh turkey meat.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

I have a 3rd season turkey tag for some public land near my parents house in NW IL. As soon as work is done I'm on the road west. Hopefully I can get into place before sunset to roost a bird.

I have hunted this piece a few times so I feel pretty good about my chances. I'll be out there Saturday and Sunday trying to make it happen. If I can seal the deal early enough I will run over to another piece of public near by that I have a tag for next season. do some low-intensity scouting in the afternoon.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Super tired on a Sunday night, but I want to get this update in before my super busy week starts.

I was able to roost a couple of gobblers Friday night and it fit in with the plan I had in my head for Saturday morning. I hustled back to my parents house and got to bed just in time time to get about 4 hours of sleep before I had to get up and put that plan into action.

Pull into the parking spot and my plan is shot to shit. There is already a car there and the way it is parked I think it is likely that hunter is back in the spot I was planning on.

Even if that hunter wasn't in my exact spot, I had no idea where they would be so I audible and went to a different spot that I hunted last year. I is a field edge, and there is a great hide spot under a gnarly box elder tree.

I set up a full strut tomorrow decoy and a hen on the ground decoy and sat back to wait. I was rewarded with gobbles in every direction and at 6:15 I had heard three different shots, but none of the gobbles were getting anywhere near me.

I did have a great look at a hen who walked through my set up.

I was steadfast in my hope that an 11 o'clock bird would swing by, but by 11:30 I was ready to pack it up and do a little bit of scouting the south edge of the field for potential tree stand hunting in the fall.

By the time I got back to my car, there was someone hanging out by there car right where there had been a car in the pre-dawn. I chatted that guy up. Nice guy, he had roosted a bird on the east side of the property and then someone else managed to get there first so his morning hadn't worked out real well either. Unlike me, he was planning on hunting all 5 days of this season. I only had Saturday and Sunday.

I wished him luck and headed back to my parents, where I had lunch, took a nap and then inspected the items that would be offered at the annual fireman's auction on Sunday.

By 6 I was headed back west to be in place to roost a bird for Sunday morning. I was hoping that my Saturday morning plan would work out but I did not hear and gobblers in that area. I walked back to me car just before full dark and managed to hear one gobble in the general direction of where I had hunted that morning. That was enough to get me to decide to head back to that spot on Sunday.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

At that point, I was ready to hit the road so I could get back to my parents' house and get right to sleep, but as I was shutting my back hatch a car pulled in.

Guy asked if I had heard any gobbles and I told him I had only heard the one. I asked him if he was hunting this season o this public property. He said no, he just lives in the area and was out enjoying the sunset and driving around.

He had hunted this property many times in the past and shared a bunch of things that had worked for him in the past. He was a really nice guy and he had a lot of knowledge to share so we talked a bunch.He told me that he doesn't use decoys much and he likes to be mobile. He'll still hunt through the woods and strike up gobblers and then just sit and let them come to him. loved hearing that he had been successful in doing that, because I am not always patient enough to just sit and stare at a decoy.

One cool thing that happened was as we were talking I saw a shooting star. Gotta love the night sky out in the country...

Anyway, great talk but by the time I got in the car to head home I figured I would have just enough time to get 4 hours of sleep. again.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Sunday morning I got to the spot and set up in the same spot with the same decoys. I had considered not bothering with decoys, but I have seen decoys work before so I figure better safe than sorry.

Sun starts coming up and I hit the jackpot. I have gobblers all around me and a lot of them are close.

I tried to be sparse with the calling, hoping that birds would come my way. and by about 7 I felt like I had two that were coming from the east (behind me). They were close and I thought for sure I would see them enter the field any moment. But then they stopped gobbling and I assumed they drifted off to the south or something.

by 8 I was getting antsy. This was my last day and I wasn't hearing gobbles. I thought about still hunting the woods around me and decided I would rather do that and be unsuccessful than sit on my ass and be unsuccessful.

And then I started hearing gobbles about 500-600 yards east of me, down in a wooded draw. Game on. I grabbed my decoys and hid them and then grabbed my backpack and my shotgun and headed to the southeast corner of the field.

There is a meandering grassy lane on the ridge top with big gnarly oaks in the middle and a near impenetrable wall of cedars on each side. I slowly worked my way east making soft calls and listening for gobbles. I was hearing them, but they sounded far off still. I kept going until the grassy path pretty much ended. I tried yelping with my mouth call with a few cutts at the end and Boom big gobbles and they sounded like they were only 80-100 yards away on the other side of the cedars.

I got down on my hands and knees thinking I could crawl through and set up on the other side, but I could only go about 10 yards and I would need to go another 20-30 to get through.

I decided to back track and try to come into the draw from the bottom or more like the side where there were any cedars. So now I would be about 150 yards northwest of the gobblers. I tried me yelp/cutt call and the gobblers fired up but the seemed further away than I anticipated.

At this point I am tired and sweaty and almost ready to give up, but I decided I would re-circle back to the meandering grassy path and see if maybe the toms had come through the cedars. I got back up there and stopped behind a big gnarly oak and threw out the yelp/cutt and BAM they were close.

I sunk to the ground and got into a shooting position peeking around the tree and waited. It didn't take long. That last call from me had them fired up and they were gobbling over and over as they came closer and closer. It was so loud but I couldn't see them until they were about 10 yards away. But they were behind enough random saplings that I had to wait for one of them to step into an opening.

Finally the one on the left gave me a shot, which is good because I think the one on the right was starting to get nervous about the unusual lump at the base of the oak.



That's how he was laying when I walked up on him. He was less than 10 yards when I pulled the trigger. Sadly I took out 3 of his tail feathers.



22 pounds of turkey with a 9" beard and 1" spurs. Picture taken with a timer and a thorny sapling.



Perfect sunlight for a gratuitous plumage closeup.
This hunt meant so much to me. I have hunted this public property 4 years now and have had a lot of encounters, but this is the first turkey I have taken there. I love turkey hunting more than any other type of hunting and this hunt was a rollercoaster of emotions. I love that it involved a bit of cat and mouse and that I was able to get such a strong reaction to my calling. I really have to give credit to the guy I talked to the night before. He gave me the confidence to get up and try something and it worked.

I have one more tag for some public land next weekend, but there are some complications so I might not get a chance to to hunt it. We'll have to see how it goes this week, whether the complications clear up.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

The verdict is in. My buddy who was going to hunt with me this weekend has to work and can't make it. I have my niece's graduation on Sunday so I will only have Saturday to try to get it done.

I'm headed out west right after work to see if I can roost a bird tonight and then I'll stay at my parents so I can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

What an excellent hunt. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a turkey to bring home.

I was honestly not expecting much. First time hunting a new piece and absolutely no turkey noises at roost time Friday night...

But I decided that this would be a bit of a mobile hunt where I would explore and get to know the place a little better.

I heard no gobbles as the sun rose and I was pretty bummed, but I stayed on task and decided to get to the ridge top and work my way back to the back corner of the property in hopes that the turkeys were too far away for me to hear them.

I would move about 100-150 yards and then call and listen and then move. At about 7:30 I was on a little trail that cut off to the north at a T intersection. I was about 30-40 yards down standing by a big cherry tree and I did a little calling and I heard a gobble back towards the main trail.

I thought it was further away than it ended up being, so I turned back that way and hike about 15 yards looking for a good set up and then I heard a very close gobble. I was in the middle of the path with no good cover other than a slight bank and some shrubs. I just sank down with my eyes on the T intersection. Didn't think to put my face mask on or my gloves. Sure enough, in seconds he was in the open and he busted me way faster than I could get a shot off and he was gone.

It was a very exciting encounter, but I decided to look for other turkeys to play with. I kept heading east and found a dead head and some mushrooms.



I think someone else found that before me. It was placed right next to the tail of a log.



I was tempted to take these Oyster mushrooms, but the poison ivy growing on the same tree made me think that would be a bad idea.

I ended up getting into a could other gobblers but they were on private land and just weren't fired up enough to come my way. If I could have gotten closer I think they would have played, but I was stuck where I was.

I ended up exploring until about 30 minutes before the end of my legal hunting time and I decided to go to the other parking lot to see if I could hear any responses over there.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

The other parking lot was just a curiosity, not something I expected much from. It has a trail that leads directly up at least 100 feet vertical gain to a bald bluff top. Took a look to the west to check in on our Hunt Talk friends over in Iowa, but I couldn't see anyone out hunting...

then I walked back to the north to the treeline and creed just to see if I would get any distant responses. all of a sudden I hear a racket and putts and cutts and about 30 yards west of me a turkey takes off and flies away... Have no idea if it was a hen or a tom, but with 2 minutes left in my legal hunting time I watched that turkey escape.

And then looking over that way I noticed this hole in the ground about to swallow up a poor little cherry sapling.



At first I thought it was like a recent sink hole, but from the other angle I could see that there was like an entrance to a cave of sorts at the bottom.



You don't find things like that everyday.

Essentially my spring turkey season is over. I have my niece's graduation ceremony to go to tomorrow so my only other option would be to take time off work to hunt on Wednesday, which would be hard to do. We are very shorthanded right now, so the work would just pile up even deeper.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Since I felt like I was so close to sealing the deal on Saturday and I am a glutton for punishment, I woke up super early and drove the 2 hours 20 minutes over to the public land I have a tag for and gave it one more try.

I pulled in to the parking lot just a few minutes before legal shooting light. My plan was to hike east to the top of the bluff and then listen for gobbles and try to get in close.

I get out of the car and there are gobbles to the west. So it's off to the west I go. I was a little uncertain of the terrain so I made a guess at where I thought the bird was and I found a good hide. We spent the next hour or so playing call and response. I think he was getting close but then the squirrels started an aerial gymnastics show right over my head and the gobbles drifted off. Then I managed to pull him back in.

I thought he was going to come around the corner any moment and then he got quiet and time passed, so I snuck back and tried to circle around above to see if I could come in at him from the other direction. And of course, I hear him gobbling again lower than I had been. SO back down the hill I creep but before I could pinpoint him he got quiet and unresponsive.

I had limited time and I felt like I had goofed this opportunity up, so I decided to do a loop to the west and see if there were an other responsive birds. There weren't. But I had a nice hike and saw a part of the property that I hadn't explored yet.

As I was looping back around to the car I got a couple more gobbles from that same bird, but I was out of time. I think if I had the whole morning I could have made a better play on him.

All in all I had an exciting morning and I think I understand that property way better. I will definitely be back out there with a bow in the fall and I'll put in for a turkey tag out there next spring for sure.

And now the long wait until October 1...