Posted this on another forum already, but figured I'd put it here too as i have enjoyed reading others stories here all spring
Well Our season is over, and it was an interesting one. Weather conditions were difficult to say the least. Snow, rain, wind, we had it all. even about 3 hours of sunshine. The season opened Monday, but we didn't get down to Houston until late Tuesday night. Ended up hunting Wednesday AM through Friday afternoon. Here's a day by day account, sorry for writing a novel!
Tuesday.
My friend Jake left SD around 2. It had been snowing all day and he didn't arrive in Minneapolis untill 7. We were on the road again by 7:30, headed down to the Rushford/Houston area of southeastern Minnesota. It had been snowing down there all day as well, and the forecast was calling for 6-10" of wet sloppy accumulation by morning. We pulled into the hotel in Houston at 11:00, unloaded quick, set the alarm for 4:15 and went to bed. It had stopped snowing by this point, but was supposed to start again overnight.
Wednesday.
We are up at 4:15 and i immediately look outside. It isn't snowing, and i don't see any more accumulation. We have permission to hunt ~300 some acres of land, but the landowner wanted to meet with us first to go over some aerial photos of his property. So this morning we decided to head to some public ground i had scouted the previous week. I had heard several gobblers there, and had seen plenty of sign. When we got out of the truck there was 8" of snow on the ground. We hiked in 3/4 a mile to a good listening point and waited for the world to wake up. after 15-20 minutes birds started gobbling. Most of them seemed to be further along the ridge and off the side a ways. We continued working our way along and ended up getting within 100 yards or so of several gobbling birds down in a small hollow on the edge of the ridge. We spent about 45 minutes calling to these birds. They answered most of our calls and seemed interested, and were slowly making their way closer to us. We could tell they had a couple of hens with them, so we decided to try and bring them in. I started getting feisty with one of the girls, cutting excitedly at her, stepping all over her calls, and trying to mimic what she did. She got pretty worked up, but the birds didn't come any closer than 60 yards or so, just out of sight over the edge of the hollow. After 45minutesor so things started to settle down, and we started making contented sounding clucks and purrs every few minutes. Out of the corner of my eye I see a hen slip between two trees. I bring my gun up on that opening when she gets behind cover, but never see another bird. I can hear turkeys moving up the side of the draw, screened from me by a fold int he land and fallen trees. They are less than 40 yards away. Afterward Jake said he could see 6 or 7 birds walking up the draw, led by a mature tom.they passed within 30 yards of me, but I never got a shot. They hung around for awhile interested in our calling, and a jake did eventually poke his head over the fold of land for 2 seconds, which was all it took to bust me in my woodland camo sitting against a white background. After that we were surrounded by putting for a few minutes as the birds wandered off. After a few minutes we packed up and headed back out to the truck, happy with our morning and how well the birds had worked despite the snow. By this time it had started to snow lightly again, and we decided to grab some breakfast then head to the private ground we had lined up for the week.
After breakfast we headed over to the private ground we were going to hunt. After talking with the landowner for a half hour or so we decided to take a blind up to a small clearing on a ridge top. After 2 hours in the blind we had seen a couple hens moving through the woods, and heard 2 distant gobbles. It had continued to lightly snow this entire time, and there was a lot of falling snow from trees making a bit of racket in the woods.
The snow stopped around noon, and we decided to get out and run and gun for the rest of the afternoon. We spent the rest of the day climbing ridges and getting the lay of the land. We had a couple half hearted responses to our calling, but no birds that wanted to work. The snow continued to melt throughout the afternoon, and was down to a couple of inches by the evening. Around sunset we stood in the valley and roosted a group of birds back in one of the fingers between two ridges in the valley.
Thursday.
Up at 4:15 again, we headed out to get on the birds we had roosted the night before. The freezing temps overnight combined with the previous days melt combined to put a hard crust on the snow. It was impossible to walk without making a ton of noise. Figuring we didn't have much choice we started the 25 minute climb and hike to our set up area on the ridge top. The sky was clear this morning with very little wind, although it was cold. As expected the area we roosted birds in the night before exploded into gobbling before flydown. there were at least 6 different gobblers along with several jakes making their best attempts. Unfortunately we could hear alot of hen talk as well. We didnt hear a gobble from any other direction on the property. It seemed that the weather had caused the birds to flock back up again. After about 10 minutes it was clear that we weren't going to pull any in our direction, and we listened to them move off up the valley.
After breakfast we decided to setup a blind in a strut zone down in the valley a couple hundred yards away from where the birds were roosted that AM. By this time it had clouded up again, and the wind had picked up to 15mph or so. After 2 hours in the blind with nothing seen we decided to run and gun through the other end of the valley and check out some more of the property. After another 2 hours of walking through some of the best looking turkey country I've seen without hearing a single gobble, we headed back to the truck to regroup. Figuring that the birds here were still flocked up, we decided to head back to the public ground we were on Wednesday, as we had heard several birds gobbling there with minimal hen talk.
We arrived back at the public ground at 12:00, and immediately started walking ridges yelping with a box call every couple hundred yards. At 1:30 we heard a distant gobble. We moved within 150 yards of the bird and set up on a bench on the ridge side. The bird was down in the valley below us. After 10 minutes he had answered every call we through at him, but hadn't moved any closer. We pulled back and walked around the ridge top to the other side of the valley to reposition on him. This time he immediately answered our first call and we could tell he was getting closer. again he answered every call, but seemed particularly partial to a slate. This time he closed to about 75 yards, but hung up at the bottom of the ridge, unwilling to climb to us. The brush in this area was fairly thick and he might not have wanted to go through it.
we slipped back and repositioned a third time on him, moving 400 yards around the ridge again. by this time we were getting close to the point of the ridge. Again he answered immediately after we had sat down, and it quickly became clear that he was coming to us quickly. He would gobble at our calls, he would gobble on his own, he would gobble at crows that flew over. It became apparent that he wasn't coming up the side of the ridge, but was sliding along to the ridge point, and working his way up that. As my friend Jake was closest to the ridge point when we originally set up, this put him about 25 yards closer to the bird than me. We could tell the bird had worked his way up on top of the ridge and was now heading our direction. The problem was that between us and the bird there was a small open meadow on the ridge top. The meadow was screened from us by a small fold of land, and thick brush. The bird came quickly to the meadow, gobbling all the way, and then predictably hung up. He was probably 60 yards away, gobbling on his own and at everything we through at him. My friend Jake had been doing the turkey shuffle this entire time, picking up his slate and calling, then putting it down and picking up his gun, then picking up the slate again. Since the bird had been responding to the slate so well, And since Jake was in much better position for a shot anyways i put down my gun and picked up my slate call. After 10 minutes the bird hadn't closed the distance any further, so i started moving backwards in 15-20 yard jumps. Every time i would move and call from a new location the bird would come a few yards closer. after a half hour or so of this the bird had closed the distance to 50 yards, and was right over the small lip of land where he hung up again. Jake told me later that he could here him up there spittin and drummin for what seemed like hours. He simply would not take another step forward, and i had run out of room to retreat as i was almost off the other side of the ridge. An idea came into my head, and i wrestled with whether or not to try it for about 5 minutes. Eventually i decided that this bird had picked his spot, and he wasn't going to come any closer no matter what that hen said to him. Something needed to change or he was going to lose interest. I fished out another striker for my slate call, and worked my mouth call out of my cheek and into position. once i could get my hands to stop shaking enough, i started a LOUD fighting purr on the slate. at the same time i started cutting hard on the mouth call and kicking my feet in the leaves like crazy. I went on doing this for 10-12 seconds. Jake told me later that he couldn't help but smile at all the racket i was making. The tom ate it up. He gobbled 4 times in succession during the fighting sequence. As soon as i was finished i put the slate down, folded my arms across my chest and sat there. He continued to gobble another 2 times, and then went silent. 30 seconds later i heard the gunshot. I never saw the bird until he was on the ground. I looked at my watch and it read 4:00 pm. We had worked this bird for 2 1/2 hours, during which he probably gobbled 50 times. Absolutely epic and the most fun I have ever had in the turkey woods.
1" spurs, 10" beard didn't weigh it but in that 22-24 lbs range. A nice public land 2 yr old. we were pumped. We dropped him back off at the truck, and went out looking for another. Almost immediately after climbing another ridge I got an answer to a series of yelps on a box call. We worked that bird and another one for the next 2 hours, but it was getting late and they were unwilling to move far from the roost. By this time it had begun to rain again as well. So we packed up and headed back to town for the evening to celebrate.
Friday
Last day of the season and last chance for me. Is was cool and misting in the morning, with rain expected for the rest of the day and winds increasing to 20-30mph. We decided to sit in the blind we had set up the day before on the strut zone below the big flocks roost. Birds were late gobbling that morning due to the rain (it had also rained all night) and we ended up hearing 3 or 4 gobbling on the roost 200 yards away or so, but they never seemed very interested. We had a nice conversation with a lonely hen in the woods behind us, be she eventually moved off towards the flock who fell silent around 8:00 am. We walked back out to the truck after packing up the blind and had a nice chat with the landowner for a half hour or so. Thanked him for letting us hunt, and let him know how jealous we were of his property. We headed into town for breakfast, and decided that afterwords we would spend the rest of the day running and gunning on public land. Conditions were perfect for active birds. 42 degrees, 20 mph wind, with higher gusts, and a lovely spitting drizzle . We hit the ground again at 10:30, and immediately started hiking. We were following the same game plan as Thursday, moving along the ridge tops and calling down into the valleys with a box call every couple of hundred yards. By noon we had covered 3 large ridges,and set up in a likely looking meadow for 20 minutes with no responses. We saw scratchings and droppings scattered throughout the woods on all of the ridges, but no birds seen or heard. We started working our way back towards where we had setup on Wednesday morning. The wind had really started to blow now, and it was extremely noisy on the ridge tops and exposed sides of the valleys. By 1 pm we had not had any responses and were starting to get discouraged by the conditions, but knew everything can change real quick in the turkey woods. As we started coming down a small fold on another ridge we finally got a response to the box call, and he wasn't far, maybe 100 yards. We immediately moved off into the woods 30 yards and set up. I put the box call away and Jake grabbed his slate. I sat up next to a big Oak tree. the underbrush in the area was fairly think, but there were several shooting lanes out to around 40 yards or so. Jake was 15 yards behind me. At the first series of soft yelps and clucks by Jake the Tom gobbled hard, and a hen started soft yelping at us. I could tell two things: they were coming fast, and I was too far to the left. I immediately got up and moved 10 yards to the right and sat down again. As soon as i did i thought to myself that the place looked vaguely familiar. Jake clucked and purred and again the tom answered, followed by some clucking from the hen. They were even closer, and coming from my left front. Suddenly i saw a hen slip through a small opening in the underbrush about 30 yards to my left front. As soon as she was behind a tree i shifted my gun over to the area. a few seconds later a blue and white head appeared through the trees. I knew that the group of birds we'd seen in the area on Wednesday had included several jakes, so i waited a few seconds to see if this was a tom or not. Suddenly i saw him raise his fan through the trees, at the same moment he took another step further into the opening and i could see his beard. He stopped and periscoped his head up looking around. I enjoyed the moment for a half second, and squeezed the trigger. He went down like a ton of bricks, and two hens ran/flew off into the woods. I stood up, looked at Jake, and and the same time we both shouted "same fricking spot!". I was sitting within 10 ft of the tree Jake had been at Wednesday morning in the snow. Loud celebrating then rang out through the woods. It was 1:30. It was maybe 5 minutes from when he first answered the box call.
10" beard, 1" spurs. 2 yr old, and we both couldn't have been happier. Was the twin of the bird Jake shot the day before.
B season was a great hunt for us. The weather was terrible, but to each tag a mature bird that worked the way these did with no blinds, decoys, and on public land; needless to say we were on cloud 9. We began the 30 minute hike back out to the truck. 10 minutes after we got their it began to rain again, and by the time we'd hit the interstate on the way home it was pouring buckets.
