Icebreaker Jake... hoping for a Tom before my hunt is done

Man it's been one helluva hunt for me and my bro (3 days straight so far) this season. We thought from past years that we had our properties and the birds all figured out... but as fate would have it, not so much.

We've only been able to roost single hens and jakes so far - all by sheer dumb luck - one of which is pictured below. :-) The birds are completely silent - and i mean completely.
We've been able to get 2 different jakes to sound off early morning and late night, but the toms haven't cracked their beaks even once yet.

We're out before 5am and not back til 7-8pm. We've stalked the 800 acres of properties from one end to the other and all we've seen for the most part are old scratchings and scat.

Getting this jake this morning was purely luck as i was hiking across a couple of massive, soupy fields in the near dawn, about 10 minutes behind schedule. Looking towards the imminent sunrise, i see this blob in a tree, backlit by the dawn, right at the edge of the field i'm walking. Turkey. Facing me, and i'm visible.

I curse - of course - and try to figure out what to do... my decision was to set up at the end of the field with a spruce between me and his roost and at least get a chance to observe a fly-down since i havent got to this season. I set up my peg blinds and settled in just before he shot to the ground like a bullet - i never got to see or even hear it. lol

I let out a few calls and he never answers. I figure he's off and away after seeing me earlier. I take a few swigs of my coffee and nearly lose a mouthful as he lets out a wicked gobble about 100 yards to my left. He curls in behind the bramble i'm set up in and proceeds to gobble his butt off at every sound i make for 20 minutes, but won't come back around. I end up crawling through thistles, burrs, cow & turkey crap, water and more to get out to the field, around the old log building you see in the pic and back into a different bunch of thistles and burrs to get a shot at him. By the time i relocated, he was walking off into a cedar bush disinterested with the 'hen' who wouldn't come to him.

I panic and go into my first frantic bout of calling ever. I'm not a good/confident caller and don't rely on it much. But this time it played out well, i turned him around and pulled him from 90 yds to 10 yds and blasted him pretty good with the 20 ga Weatherby.

https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/...09998138_n.jpg

Good job to all the successful hunters so far, and good luck to the rest! :thumbup:

Edit: to correct distance, i paced out the shot afterwards and i'd managed to call him into just 10 yards.

Great story and congrats!!

Beauty bird

All those burrs will just make him taste better. Congrats on this bird good luck with the next.

I too can't figure out what is wrong in Valley this spring, I haven't heard a single 'gobble' yet and neither have a few other hunters. I figure it must be the cold/wet. Usually this time of the year everything is dry and the birds are very active.

Jakes are better meat, young and moist !!

Congrats, at least your out hunting !!

You worked a bit for that one. Congratulations and good luck on getting the big guy with tag #2. Lots of vocal activity in this area, maybe you guys are a week or two behind and things will pick up soon.

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Originally Posted by MikePal

Congrats, at least your out hunting !!

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This is true. Tomorrow is my last of 5 days off for turkey hunting. It's been tough but once again we have some epic tales.

Even if I get nothing else it's been great.

Nice Bird and Gun too!

Congrats on a fine bird mister. :)

You worked hard for it and hard work paid off. More than this bird, you gained new experience!

Good job turning him around and working him in. All the thistles, burrs and bullsh,,,, cow crap make for great fireside hunting tales for years to come. Congrats on a successful hunt.

A few properties around here that I hunt are dead silent as well. Right up till season flocks of birds, mayhem in the morning while scouting and now not a sound. Have had a coupla visuals but they are being sneaky. I'll git'em.

outback

Well, my season is all but done. Living in city, 2 hrs from my hunting properties means no weekday hunts and May being a month of birthdays for myself and my wife and a few close friends/family means no weekend hunts either :-(

This was by far the toughest turkey hunting I've experienced.

-Silent birds
-Abandoned roosts (the only birds we could roost in the evenings were on neighbouring lands)
-Low bird population (never saw even one group of birds, not even a pair!)
-High predator population (spotted 4 coyotes & 1 fox over 5 days!)

All made for plenty of frustration and long, no-action days. I did get myself that jake, so obviously i have nothing to complain about, but I am big on pushing myself to always improve and do better and had really intended to go after a tom this season... but it just didn't work out.

One other thing that was frustrating was the landowner's grandkids. They were up for extended weekends 2 weeks in a row and all they do is rip and tear around on dirtbikes and atvs and trucks. And that's cool because it's what I'd want to do if i had those toys and was visiting my grandma with tons of land too... but i'm sure it played hell on the turkeys' travel & roosting routines as well as their vocalizations.

Am i wrong?

One of the grandkids was up this past weekend to try turkey hunting for his second season. My bro and I took him out last year to show him the ropes, all the turkey signs & routines and express the basics of turkey hunting (I call them the 3 Ps) - pattern your gun and pattern your birds, show patience and be a pedestrian (WALK gawdammit!). And he ignored all of it.

He'd drive the full kilometer from the farmhouse to the field he had is blind in (parking his truck just 70 yds from the blind) and wonder why he wasn't getting good opportunities.
We tried again and again to express to him that just driving to a blind and sitting in it for a couple hours wasnt enough. Had he walked around looking for sign? Did he sneak in quietly on foot in the dark, or was he driving his noisy truck through roosting areas in daylight (we already knew the answer to this).

It all fell on deaf ears. He had a shot at a massive Tom his first morning (before the birds were wise to the truck) and missed with 3 rapid shots because he'd never bothered to pattern/range his Versa Max.

Then, on Sunday morning, I ended up spotting my jake roosting IMMEDIATELY over the old train track the kid drives down each day. Even after stressing that this bird was roosting RIGHT ON HIS PATH to his blind, and there's no way he'd ever know it by driving around everywhere, he still didn't bother to change... he drove out to his blind for his final hunt that noon-hour.

*Sighs* Oh well, we tried to help.

Oddmott - I feel your pain - living a couple of hours from where you hunt - and I try to spend Sundays with my family. I only made it out for one morning last year - work/out of the country. Missed last weekend because I helped my daughter move (Guelph). Hope to get out Friday/Sat this weekend.

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Originally Posted by werner.reiche

Missed last weekend because I helped my daughter move (Guelph). Hope to get out Friday/Sat this weekend.

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I hope you manage to get out too Werner. I can't remember... will this be your first turkey season on the new-ish property?

you won't forget that one!

Sweet pic!! Thanks for the read.