Kinda been an off year for me but with everything going on I figured my season was over after my Florida trip, and I was ok with that.
Well my wife overheard me talking to Reid about his trip and some scouting he had done on the way home out in Utah. She asked when we were leaving and I told her I wasn't going to make it this year. She told me that wasn't happening and that I needed to load the truck up and get ready to go. So who am I to go against what she wants.
We make our plans, somewhat we pretty much just wing it, and I leave for Utah Monday morning (5/5/25) and Reid won't leave until that afternoon when he gets off work. We both get to our spots Tuesday afternoon, I'm going to one part of the state and he's going to another in hopes of finding birds. I end up knocking on a door and getting permission to hunt some private land late Tuesday afternoon. I have a plan as long as some locals don't beat me to the spots.
Wednesday morning I get to my spot and I'm alone and I can hear a few birds off in the distance but nothing within a half mile of me. I start to leave to go to one of the other birds when I hear a gobble that seemed to be closer. I make a call and I hear a goggle close. I run to a near by tree with dead fall next to it and get set up. No sooner than my butt his the ground a bird appears in the edge of the field 70yds away. It's a Jake, then another and another 2 longbeard. This might actually work. I make a soft call and they gobble and then go to feeding around. They are working my way but not worried about anything. Finally they have worked their way into 45yds and by the angle they are waking that's as close as they will get. I make a call the middle bird raises up to took, I'm braced on a log dot on his head I squeeze the trigger the gun goes off and the turkeys fly off at 6:22am What the heck. Needless to say I'm not real happy. I run up the road and check my gun and it's dead on.
I spend the next 14hrs walking and looking for a gobbler that wants to play the game but these birds are acting nuts. All bunched up no strutting and minimal gobbling. Just feeding around.
Fast forward to the afternoon I run back into my group from the morning and now it's 5 hens 2 jakes and 2 longbeards. I figure I'll roost them if nothing else so I set up to watch. Then hens eventually go
Roost in another area but the 4 male birds come my way but skirt me. I'm sitting between two big cotton wood trees with a stump in front and a blowdown across my legs. I'm tucked up in there pretty good so not much moving around. When the birds skirt me I pull myself forward to try to see them and I see that they are hooking back kinda towards me and the tree line. I sit back and then lean back around the tree only to be looking eye to eye with a Jake standing at 10steps. He puts and flys off. Hoping the others didn't spook I got my gun and just laid back on my back. As I'm laying there another male turkey steps out where I can see his head. Now I've got a decision to make. I've got a 2/3 chance it's a longbeard but a 1/3 chance it's the other jake. I decide to wait. He steps back out of sight then another bird steps out and hits a small opening at 12steps and I see a beard swing. I'm laying on my back with my gun across my body upside down. I put the red dot in the middle of him and pull the trigger at 8:14pm I didn't miss this time. What a day. And what a way to get a bird. Unbelievable part of the country that I was blessed to be able to see and get a bird in.
We headed to the next state in hopes of finding some birds that some coworkers had left the prior year. Unfortunately we looked all over that mountain and I was able to finally at dark find one bird that gobbled one time. The next morning was silence. We decided to make a move to a new part of the state for the rest of the hunt.
We found some birds but man they were Hen'd up. If you made a call they would take off the other way and it's tough to get around a merriams. Me and Reid chased birds all over that mountain, getting real close a few times but things never worked out. We decided to split up and cover more ground in hopes of finding some more willing birds.
I had to leave early to come home for the funeral of my godmother so my last morning was going to be a quick one. I made my loop and heard one bird way off across a ravine so I tipped my hat at him and worked my way back to my truck. As luck would have it after walking 17miles in 2 days when I get back close to my truck a group of hens walked across the 2 track. The sun was coming up right behind them so I could barely see anything other than turkey silhouettes then another larger silhouette steps out into the opening and there is a beard on this one. Good enough for me. I was blessed with a fine mountain gobbler.
I headed towards home but Reid stayed another day.
I was extremely happy to get a call from Reid the next morning to hear about his awesome hunt.
That's a wrap for me until next year.
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