Family Man's 2024 hunt log

[jeremy.b]

Figured I'd kick this thread off properly this year (instead of waiting till mid-elk season again!)

Previous year's logs:

• 2023 Log
• 2021 Recap & 2022 season log
• 2020 Season Log
• 2019 Season Log
• 2018 Season Log

The weird time dialation thing that happens with kids continues to accellerate. The youngest will be graduating college tomorrow at this rate...

At any rate, we had a fairly quiet winter in our neck of the woods. Caleb, myself, my SiL Joy and Brian snuck a weekend shed hunting trip at the end of February in our groups whitetail spot.

We found a few sheds.

Then we got to go get Caleb stitched up after he stabbed himself in the forearm during lunch on our 2nd day.

Gotta give the kid some credit; he couldn't have done a better job at missing major tendons, veins etc. And while he was less than thrilled at the event, he also hiked out the 2 1/2 miles and 800 ft of elevation to get back to camp.

 

[jeremy.b]

Turkey season is upon us now and our youth season started Monday.

I was able to secure different access into an area of public ground close to the house. The access we used last year was lost due to a land sale. This spot was where Caleb shot his bird the 2nd to last day of season last year and the new access cut of close to a mile off the hike in.

Early last week I wandered back into the spot at daylight and located a number of birds.

Plan was simple for the youth season: sneak in a couple before-school hunts this week and hit it hard over the coming weekend.

Wednesday we headed out, parked and right at the truck had 3+ birds lighting up, but on private. We hiked into the public, located 2 more birds, and since we started a bit later than we should have, scrambled to get a setup done.

I called a couple times, the birds responded right away, and then I could tell they had flown down. They hammered a couple times and were on their way.

After a couple minutes and the birds, who of course decided to follow their own script, not ours, came out into the opening to our left, well behind the mess of brush there in our setup. They stood over there gobbling a fair bit, but eventually moved off without us getting an opportunity.

We covered some ground but weren't able to strike a bird before Caleb needed to head to school and me to work. Was a beautiful morning though!

 

[Wildabeest]

Scars are tattoos with better stories. Looking forward to following the adventures.

 

[jeremy.b]

Last night I ran back into the spot and found at least 2 birds roosted in the same (ish) spot where they were on Wednesday. I picked out a (hopefully) better setup spot in the dark.

We headed out (earlier) this morning, got to the setup and got all settled in. I didn't snag a pic of the spot, but we were all of 40 yds from Wednesday's spot across the skid road.

I snuck away a bit and called hard for a few minutes to get everything's attention in the area. Both birds we were setup to cover responded multiple times a long with at least 4 other birds roosted on a private ridge above the truck.

I hustled back to the setup and after a bit we could tell the birds flew down, and then we heard the hens with them...

We waited without calling a bit to see if they would come our way but they seemed to have locked up with the hens and they were not moving. I hit the call a bit and the hens started cutting and yelping back super aggressively, which I gladly kept calling back at them just as aggressively trying to draw them over.

That went on for a few minutes and they came to probably 60 yards, but we had no view of them and I layed off the calls hoping they'd close the distance. No luck and before long the hens now sounded quite a ways off.

After a few more minutes the hens got louder again and I spotted them on the ridge above us. They stood up there yelping and kee kee'ing, clearly trying to draw out the rude hen (me). Within a minute or two then both gobblers came out strutting between us and the hens, on the edge of range and behind some brush. We got a good look at both birds, 2 jakes. Just as fast as they showed up, all of the birds turned and walked back out of sight.

We waited for a good little bit without much more coming from either the hens. Finally the jakes fired off on their own, which made me think the hens might have ditched them.

Caleb and I talked our options: relocate and try to draw them to a new spot, stay put and try to bring them back a 2nd time, or bail and try again over the weekend. Caleb wanted to stay put and try our setup again, so decision made.

I called lightly and the jakes were responding now. After a bit I caught movement BEHIND us in the timber slash. Both jakes worked our way and closed to ~35 yards. Things were looking good, until the birds turned around and wandered off just out of sight again...

We swung Caleb around and were able to get him setup facing behind us through a hole in the tree we were tucked into. I hit the call again, jakes responded, AGAIN. We caught sight of them at ~45 yards out, and they were taking a good line right into Calebs shooting lane and well within range.

This time all the peices of the puzzle fell in place, the birds came right into the lane, Caleb waited until they separated well and dropped the hammer on the back jake! Man that kid knows how to wait for his shots, another proud dad moment!

We cleaned the bird, back to the house, Caleb made it to school and now I can turn my attention to a very full week of regular season next week.

We have 5 folks planning to come up next week, plus myself, potentially my wife Hope (unless she tags out her first trip out again!) and my buddy Josh will join us as well. I'll get in a bit of scouting this weekend so we have spots to spread parties around.

Going to be eventful!

 

[jeremy.b]

Spent the 2nd half of yesterday scouting a new spot. Hike way in to check a basin where I found a ton of turkey nesting sign a couple years ago during elk season. Got a distant gobble, so it probably holds a few birds.

Its NOT the easiest place to get to, so it'll take someone else dedicated to a spring turkey death march to go in there with me .

Thing is, we probably don't need to go that far. On the way out I jumped 2 toms and had a 3rd gobbling his head off, lots of sign everywhere too.

Opener is tomorrow, and we've already had a couple curve balls. Andy & fam won't be able to join us next weekend, and our youngest started running a fever today, so I'll be hunting solo tomorrow (my wife was planning to join me but now gets to stay home with sicky).

 

[jeremy.b]

Took half a day off on Monday. Honestly not much to report. Only heard a few gobbles, made a move on two birds but neither showed any interest. One for sure had hens and I couldn't get them riled up enough to drag the tom in with them either.

The highlight of the morning was getting back to my truck and finding 7 jakes standing 20 yards from my truck and aunt & uncles place.

Yesterday my wife and I snuck in a mid-morning hunt. We went to the chunk of ground where Caleb got his bird last week. We struck a single gobble from what sounded like a jake and eventually bumped another group of jakes as we worked our way out of the spot. We did find a nice little whitetail shed that I'll take the boys back in to try to match up.

 

[jeremy.b]

This morning I hit the spot I scouted on Saturday. Right at first light I got a response from a few gobblers on private ground. I moved deeper into the public and turned up two different gobblers. One only sounded off a couple times and definitely had hens, the other was gobbling like crazy and seemed to be alone. I setup just around the corner maybe 100 yards from where he was roosted and called a bit, and he was super responsive.

After a bit I could tell he had pitched down and started moving off. We were in the middle of a large clearcut and so I carefully climbed up the ridge between us trying to get the lay of the land, and from what I could tell he was working up the side of the same ridge away from me.

I put the ridge between me and him and worked to close distance. He kept gobbling on his own so I didn't touch the calls.

I came underneath a saddle where it seemed like he was staged up at. I eased up, getting closer and closer. Turned out he hadn't made it to the saddle quite yet so I was able to get up to where I could see into the saddle and have a shot in range.

I could hear the bird spitting and drumming just over the edge of the ridge (and he definitely was alone). I didn't even bother to sit down or call, but just pulled the gun up and waited. Only took a couple minutes and he popped out into my view, and like that my first tag was filled!

It was a beautiful morning too!

I think we got spoiled last year, we had lots of birds that were REALLY responsive to calling early in the season. This year it's been the complete opposite so far. Lots of season left though so we'll see how it pans out over the next few weeks.

 

[kansasdad]

Turkey ninja skeeeelz!

Congratulations

 

[jeremy.b]

Phewww... Survived 4 days straight of 3-4 AM wake up calls... I get that some of yall do that regularly, good deal, I'm personally not used to it!

I had really hoped that my observation of birds not being responsive to calls would be disproven over the course of the weekend hunting with friends and family over a longer time period.

Unfortunately I was sadly disappointed. Birds when they would respond, didn't continue to respond past a handful of gobbles, and all but a couple birds refused to come in to the calls.

Thursday 4/18 & Friday 4/19

In the afternoon of Thursday my SiL Joy and husband Brian made it to our place. We did a quick round of checking their new 20ga and sight setup and took a trip out to the spot I hunted on Monday to roost birds. We located one bird relatively near to our access, and two way further back in the area.

We headed in first thing, it was COLD and fairly breezy that morning. We relocated the bird near our access and moved in to setup. He was gobbling up a storm on the limb, but as soon as he hit the ground he gobbled 3 times and moved off. We never got another peep out of him afterwards.

We started moving deeper into the area stopping on the ridge where we had put the other birds to bed the night before. We stopped to call, but not response. As we started back up the logging road to get over the next basin, rounded the next corner and jumped 4 birds hanging out all of 100 yards above where we had just called. They had to have heard us, but had not at all responded. Off the flew and we shook our head and got over to the next drainage to listen for a bit.

Eventually we heard a bird a LONG way off even deeper into the area. Brian and I looked at each other, Brian's like "Call". I call, bird responds. We both sigh (we REALLY don't love going much deeper into the spot). Brian: "Call again". I call, bird responds, off we go to the next ridge.

We sit for a bit, and just as I'm getting up to try to strike the bird he gobbles on his own, over on the NEXT ridge at least another 1/2 mile in. None of us are thrilled. I call a couple times and the bird responds each time, Brian mutters "Damn it" and starts marching. We work our way up on top of the ridge. We're high enough now that we lost most of our wind protection and its really hard to hear anything. We call, we wait, no more response from that bird. Either we misjudged his location and the wind made it impossible for him to hear, OR he just moved off out of hearing range, OR he just turned into a pumpkin and clammed up...

Either way I needed to head back to the house to meet up with my buddy Mike who was on his way so we headed back keeping to the main ridge over the entire area we hunted hoping to strike or hear something on the way back. Just as we were getting ready to drop back to the truck Brian spots a bird WAY down, RIGHT below where we had jumped the birds on the logging road. He and Joy split off to go after it and I head out. I have my wife come pick me up so Joy and Brian can use my truck to get back to our place whenever they get done.

I get home, meet up with Mike and eventually get a text from Brian 'Well we just messed that one up '

Then 4 minutes later "Just kidding! She just shot a long beard. Its also banded".

The whole thing is a bit fuzzy on my part but here's my best effort at recounting their adventure (hopefully I don't mess it up TOO bad):

After we split up Brian and Joy moved down to where they saw the bird, but didn't get any response. They settled in on the road to take a break, relaxing for a bit. Brian called once, nothing. 10 or so minutes go by, Brian calls again and bam, a bird fires off 45 yards down the road! They scramble to get into position, and the bird(s)? (seemingly) move off (hence the we screwed up text).

Brian is able to get eyes back on the birds and they had NOT moved off, calls a bit and they close distance again. There is some more scrambling, Joy gets lined up on one of the birds as he's strutting. He drops strut and down he goes!

I started hand loading TSS a while back and managed to dial in a reduced 20ga load that was good to at least 50 yds out of Hope and Brian's 20ga and chokes.

Well after they ranged the shot (after the fact of course) it turned out to be a full 53 yards. None of us plan on shooting past 40, but in the heat of the moment that goes out the window and that work with TSS paid off!

Brian and Joy made it back to our place, we called the band in and left a message. I reached out to my buddy Josh and made plans for Brian, myself, Mike and Josh to head out the next morning.

 

[jeremy.b]

Saturday 4/20 & Sunday 4/21

Brian Mike and I meet up with Josh and head into a different area (one where we got into birds a few times last year). We make it to the gate, jump out of the truck and the wind is RIPPING over the area. Like couldn't hear a bird 60 yds away ripping.

We have a quick discussion, we know where we hunted the day before is well protected from that wind direction, we jump back in the trucks and go over there. Wind is MUCH better and we work into the area. We strike a bird on the roost on the far ridge above where Joy had gotten hers the day before and move into position and get Mike and Josh setup. They are shooters for the day as both Brian and I have our first tags filled.

I drop back a ways calling and the bird keeps hammering on the limb. But history repeats itself and as soon as he hits the ground he clams up and moves off. Yesterday I was fairly aggressive with the one on the roost, with this one I was a bit more moderate until he clammed up, hell I dunno what they want to hear...

Anyway we moved over onto the top of that sub ridge (the same one where we heard the distant bird the day before) and waited to see if anything would pipe up. After at least 30 minutes (and some good natured banter involving Jeremy's death marches) we hear a bird over the NEXT ridge... We take a little different approach and work over to it carefully eased up on the ridge, but can't get another response from the bird. I call hard over the NEXT basin and get a couple different responses down in it and even further out, all thankfully MUCH lower in elevation than the prior day's boondoggle bird and well out of the wind. We settle in a bit to try to get a better feel for their location when Josh spots a tom strutting with a hen down on a logging road across the basin. We work out an approach and head over.

The plan is to work down the far ridge and see if we can drop in on where the bird is strutting or near by. We get closer and closer and do get a response, and are able to drop off the back of the ridge and slide into position just on the back-side of where the bird was strutting. We get Mike setup as main shooter and Josh setup to cover another angle. We call... and call... and nothing. We do that for a good 20 minutes but no luck.

Brian grabs Mike and they ease ahead on the logging roads eventually getting a response from further down in the valley. Unfortunately we're setting RIGHT on the edge of the private/public line, so we decide to relocate a bit and just call at this bird a bunch. He responds occasionally, and we keep at it for the better part of an hour off-and-on. Finally Brian and I agree we just need to bail since that bird isn't moving. We grab a snack, pack up and start hiking over on a skid trail to climb back up on the ridge where we spotted the strutter from.

We keep calling (because who knows) and a bird hammers back a ways UP the draw from us, seemingly on the same skid road we're on. We scrabble and get Josh and Mike along with Brian moved into position to setup on that upper bird. I drop back and call hard, getting some good responses from the bird above us AND from the bird that was down on private. Now BOTH birds are going. The bird on public really isn't moving, but the bird on private has closed distance. I'm the only one in a position to cover that direction so I settle next to a tiny little fir tree in the shade and keep hammering away on the call HOPING the upper bird breaks free.

Before long Brian starts calling too (he knows the lower bird is on the move) and him and I call against each other. The upper bird seems to be moving higher and possibly closer, and the lower bird is 100% on his way to our setup. I can tell he's made it off private now and is walking the same skid road we did. I cut off the calling, and Brian, who 100% knows what is about to go down (he told the guys that I was going to get that other bird 10 minutes before this) keeps calling away. I hear the bird spitting and drumming as he's working the skid road and I'm read when he pops into view. He passes my first little shooting window, I adjust to the next one, he walks through it in full strut, then drops out of strut and I touch off Hope's 20ga. Down he goes and I start cutting and making noise to hopefully keep the other bird from getting too spooked. I run down, grab my bird and keep calling as I go.

Unfortunately that was enough for the upper bird to clam up and move off. The guys break cover and come over to give me a hard time and grab some pictures (I wasn't supposed to be shooter!) Of course we all agree SOMEONE had to have shot that bird and no other person was in a spot to do it. Every single one of us would have done the same thing had the positions been reversed, but we all agree that rib jabbing would ALSO be expected.

So my 2nd tag was filled and I'm done carrying a gun for the spring. This bird was ALSO banded, all of 36 numbers off from the band on Joy's bird!

Bird cleaned, strapped into the pack we try to go relocate the upper bird. We do strike him once, way up on the ridge above us. We circle around and get where we HOPE to be above him, but get no response again. We climb out to a higher set of logging roads and get back to the ridge where Joy had gotten her bird. We do strike a single response on that ridge but get fooled by the direction and think it was in the next draw. Well after moving closer we get a response back DOWN the draw and ridge. Josh and Brian decide to head after them and Mike and I continue to head out (I wanted to get my bird taken care of).

Mike and I do get a bird to strike once on our way out but no other response after that and couldn't find him. Brian and Josh get close to the bird(s) they found, but similar problems, the birds clam up and no luck getting anything else of out of them.

All said and done Mike and I covered 11+ miles that day and Josh and Brian had to be close to 13 miles. It was a pretty big day, at least while chasing turkeys! We take care of my bird, smoke a meatloaf and a couple turkey's worth of breasts from Joy and Brian's birds (because Brian brought his with them so I'd smoke it for him ).

We were all a bit wiped out from the day so Mike, Briand and I made plans to try a short hunt near our place the next morning where Caleb had gotten his bird.

Sunday morning we make the "long" 4 minute drive and head in to the spot. Unfortunately the wind had now changed direction from the day before but not lessened in intensity and it isn't helping out at all. We do the best we can and hike through the area. We do hear a gobble twice, but can never get a response to our calls to get a better location. Calling it a hunt after only 2 hrs we head back to the house. Mike's had a good time and is content with his adventure, even though "I stole his bird" and decides to pack up and head back home. Brian & Joy stick around for breakfast and lunch and eventually pack up and head home as well.

Now my attention turns to helping my wife fill her tag and Josh with filling his two tags.

I also will be mentoring a couple new adult onset hunters, getting them a starting point on learning the ropes of calling, finding hunting spots and how to chase turkeys in the mountains. Helping those guys should be quite a bit less hands-on, mostly focused on getting them a good set of basics to build on. Hopefully the birds are more responsive for THEM than they have been so far for my crew and I!

 

[jeremy.b]

Turkey ninja skeeeelz!

Congratulations

Funny you should say that exact phrase. A random smart-A comment I made a couple years ago about hiding in the shadows like a ninja birthed my buddy Andy getting this tattoo:

 

[Lostinthewoods]

Beautiful birds!

 

[duckhunt]

Great stuff