The Season has Begun!

[Shadowrider]

Ok, of the guys that checked in, it stacks up like this:

DKO- 3/24 FL
Droptine- 3/24 GA?
blacky- 3/31 SC
River Rat- 4/2 AR
Mountain Boomer- 4/2 AR
Chambo- 4/7 IL
Shadowrider- 4/7 TX
Canadian Turkey Hunter- 4/10 TX
Leanwolf- 4/15 ID
Kirkl- 4/15 WA?
Beards-n-Spurs- 4/23 MO
engman99- 4/25 IN

Looks like DKO and Droptine need to fess up with their opener reports!!

 

[Chambo]

Shadow,

The first guy that enters a bird will be throwing his dollar away.

I am waiting till the last day to enter a bird.

If I can get one.

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Chambo

IF IT WAS EASY EVERYBODY WOULD BE DOING IT !!!

QUITTERS NEVER WIN AND WINNERS NEVER QUIT
http://www.hunttalk.com

 

[DKO]

i got a chance to get out and hunt some this weekend. the property we hunt is lease land and is strickly controlled by biologists who this year wouldnt allow us to hunt after 1:00 pm. Myself and two friends arrived fri. afternoon to roost some birds, we did find three different groups of birds and felt pretty good about the a.m. hunt.I talked to other guys in camp and things had been quiet not much talking going on! fri. a.m. The first hunt found J.IV and i together in a blind about 40yrds from a huge hardwood swamp and about 300 yrds from a cyress head. in a strand of oaks with lush green pastures on either side.The morning was a cool 42 degrees and foggy ,foggy, foggy.The first bird blew-off gobbling from the roost right a day break 150yrds or so in a point from the hardwood swamp, the next thing i hear is another bird way off in the distance gobbling from the cyress head and he's hot! the frist bird shut-up when he hit the ground and we never saw or heard him again.The second bird from the pasture came 250 yrds across a pasture just to lock-up 50yrds from us behind a thin row of palmettos and he was struttin back'n forth and everytime i hit the call he blew-up in a gobble, we could see him but couldnt shoot him! this went on for a least thirty minutes( no kidding, as frustarting as exciting ) he just wouldnt commit or come in but put on quite the show!.The next thing i hear is the hellicopter sound of hens flying in from the hardwoods and landed right smack in our decoys , i talked to one of them for a few minutes and told her to get her boyfriend

anyway she did and then they all moved off

.After a very exciting morning with alot of action we decided to slip a swamp finger to another pasture, about 300 yrds from where we were origanally set up,when i saw a hen run from the field edge into the swamp so i started to call lightly and wham another gobbler blew-up 150yrds or so in front of us in the swamp, being noisy in the swamp ( like dan says trying to sneak through a bag of potato chips with swim fins on )

we decided to get on the fied edge on move closer to him.We get about what i think is about 60yrd from him and quickly set up one hen decoy and started calling once again he blew-up in a gobble.The next thing i see is a hen about 15yrds to my left and shes comming right at us, well she stopped about 10 feet from me and headed into the swamp whew! close call but we didnt get busted! anyway i could hear him in there just couldnt see them.The last attempt cam when we moved another 50yrds ,we are now at the end of the strand we where hunting and its about 100yrd wide i knew he was still in there and gobbling back at me with almost every call and this is about 10:30 am now.The very last set-up i called and i see him come running to the swamp edge from inside and he gets about thirty yrds from me and all i can see is his head bobbing around looking for the hen ,then like they do he disappeared into no where !! gone ! i was calling for J.IV so i wasnt in a position to shoot him and he couldnt see him! and he didnt respond anymore after that! we called it a day! and started scouting more areas.Sat. night we roosted two birds one we knew was a nice gobbler! we decided to let one of our buds hunt him and set-him up and told him where to go and basically what to do, this guy is 43yrs old and never killed a turkey! so we wanted him to do it alone.As luck would have it first light had hens in front of him and minutes later here comes a "jake" and hes blood is pumpin and hes contemplating shooting when a huge gobbler lands and blows-up in a gobble and is about to kick some arse when virgil hammered him! he was about 19lbs witha 10in beard and 1 /8 in spurs! great bird!!! the best was watching and listening to this 43yr old kid tell his story! i didnt kill a bird nor did J.IV but the season is not over yet and only just begun! we did have alot of action and a very exciting hunt as well as a success story for someone who deserved a nice bird!

sorry for being so winded on this but i had to take ya ther as best i could!

I wish everyone good luck and hope your opening day is as enjoyable as ours was!

more stories and photos to come! you aint gettin my dollar that easy!

any clues as to why them birds wouldnt commit or come in ?????? maybe i did need one of them arkie55 secret weapons?!?!?! any tips or hints or ideas when that situation occurs would be helpful thanks!


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[This message has been edited by DKO (edited 03-27-2001).]

[This message has been edited by DKO (edited 03-27-2001).]

 

[Mountain Boomer]

O' Man what a hunt DKO! Now you have me all excited. I can't wait until Monday mourning. I have been scouting and not hearing much. It is still getting down into the mid 30s at night. I guess it is a little to chilly for them.

When a bird hangs up like that on me I like to be silent. I will just sit there for 30-45 minutes and see what happens. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

 

[canadian turkey hunter]

great story DKO and you said correctly my friend you can have a great hunt with lots o' memories without ever harvesting a bird!

 

[RiverRat]

DKO, thats a great story for an exciting hunt!! I believe you have now got me officially excited and ready for this coming Monday. Good luck for the rest of the season.

 

[Ithaca 37]

DKO, Thanks for the story!

 

[trapperjer1]

My season in Wi. is from 5/2-5/6. It's going to be tough waiting for my season,with you guys telling all your hunts. I was driving on some back roads yesterday,while I was waiting for concrete to set up when I saw 2 toms. One was all white on his back the rest of him was normal colored.

 

[Moosie]

DKO AWSOME STORY!!!

HEY Shadow..... Is Wylee and Me off that list ?!!?!? We used to be on it Is it becuse I haven't been to the Turkey section in about 2 months.... You have to excuse me.. I was hunting turkeys in the rest of the forum

From the 15th (OPENER) I will be in the Turkey and Bear section almost daily!!!!!

 

[ShadowRider]

Who's Moosie?

OK, we'll be looking for you guys, as well as your hunting reports. Good luck on those bruins and birds, just don't get em mixed up! SR