Highest of highs to the lowest of lows

[VICK]

Get out of the truck this morning at six make my hike to where I want to be and at 635 there it was my first gobble of the season. Its like hearing your favorite song the radio just gets you pumped. So I move into about 150 yrds I thought that was close enough considering the lack of foliage. I sit down and enjoy the song he let it out about 25 to 30 times in 15 min . Now it was cloudy this morn so its still pretty dark in the woods, but I get ready mouth call in slate ruffed up and ready wing in hand for a fly down just waiting on that moment that feels right. Then two more gobbles back to back ( at this point I have still not made a sound its still pretty dark way to early for him to be on the ground I feel) and at 651 Boooooooooooom , all I could do was hang my head and hope for better luck tomorrow . I like to hunt public land but that is one fall back you never know when someone else is around his luck and not mine I guess. I cant prove it and nothing can be done about it now but I believe that bird lost his life on the limb.

[uncleC]

Heard one die on the limb Saturday morning and I was hunting private property. Sounded like he was real close to the property line when he gobbled so I was headed his way.... was about 250 yards away when I heard the 1st shot and about 30 seconds later heard a second shot. No way the turkey was on the ground as dark as it was.....

[quackerkiller]

If he ain't coming to my calling, I ain't gonna choot em! Roost shooting and road hunting is a low life way to kill a turkey.....

[kris Schaumburg]

just for arguments sake, I killed one on the ground in full strut gobbling in the pitch black one time. I don't know what time it was, cause you couldn't see your watch.

I also missed one in the tree one morning about 945. I could see him at daylight and he was in his third tree when I shot. I couldn't sit anymore, and with no decoy he wasn't coming down. He was directly above me.

[kris Schaumburg]

they will do some super strange stuff. Alex and I had one scouted out one time that was roosting on a foodplot in a pine tree as big around as your pecker and 6 ft high. I never actually saw him in there, but he was there every day gobbling 1000x, and the tree had 10 inches of gobbler dropping on every branch. a guy wounded him opening morning in a blinding rain storm in that food plot at first light.

One time I was in HNF around 1 pm and it was snowing around opening day. I bet I bumped 30 off roosts btw 1-3. They would sit super tight till you were right up on them.

Called one in texas that walked up to a 3 ft high hog panel fence. He was super charged up. He tried for prob 20 min to push himself through a 4"x4" hog panel. Eventually walked off the way he came. 5 min later, a hen comes by on same track walks right up to fence, flaps once and comes right over it. Dangit. we sat on other side and killed that bird next day.

I would say 85% of the time, they belly crawl under barb wire rather than jump it. No idea why.

Have had them walk right around my truck that was parked blocking all of a logging road.

Had two gobblers in Kansas that could have walked right across a nice dry beaver damn across a 45 yd wide river. The dam was 10 ft wide and looked like a driveway. Instead they flew across it 5 ft over from the dam. Tagged them both.

[wildturkey]

If the turkey was on the ground he had not been there long. I never can get that close to them on the roost without getting busted. Especially when the trees are as bare as they are right now.

[hillhunter]

I killed one last year at 6:42 in the morning, but it was almost the end of April, so it was light a little earlier. He pitched down, him and his partner raced to my decoy and boom, that was it. Never been able to get too close to them this time of year, but seems like later in the year when the leaves get on you can get in on them pretty easy.

[arduckslayer]

Colorado has a legal shooting time and it's 30 minutes before sunrise, same as duck hunting. Killed my first Merriam's 2 minutes after legal coming to my call in a full strut. It was so dark that all I could see was the white tips of his fan and his white crown on his forehead. Not to say you're wrong, but it would be hard to slip up on a bird in a tree as nekkid as the leaves are right now. Who knows though. I will say it sucks to hear you got cut off. One of the many reasons I hate turkey hunting on public land.

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Kris it's funny you say that about the small pine tree. About 4 years ago I roosted a wad of gobblers the day before the opener. I got a little too close. I had to wait until pitch black dark to leave out because they were all around me. I could have literally jumped out from behind the dirt mound I was behind and slap three gobblers in the neck. They were as close as I have ever been to turkeys.

Anyhow, the next day I went back in and setup way before dark. It was getting close to daylight and I was re positioning myself after going numb. When I did I looked up and low and behold a longbeard was 5 yards away up in what would never pass a timber cruiser's test for being called an actual tree. I'd say more like a sapling. Diameter at the ground was the size of your wrist. I'd say it was 8 feet high- max. The bird got spooked but couldn't tell what I was. He would move and strain his neck trying to figure me out, and in the process the whole tree would wobble and shake. It reminded me of a fellow who is balancing on a tight rope. Or the time myself and four other 50 year old grown men (who are probably insane by medical standards) who wanted to try duck hunting showed up to meet me in a 12 foot jon boat: when we got stuck on a stump we were literally balancing the keel line of the hull on a thread- one inch in either direction would've dumped us.

I actually do not think the turkey got spooked when he flew off. I think it was a result of him losing his balance and having to take to the wing or risk falling to the ground and being eye to eye with the unidentified camouflaged gawker on the ground who was cracking up at the bird's misfortune.

It was an odd site to see for sure.

[kris Schaumburg]

lowest of the lows was when I missed one this morning at 40 yds after 3 hours.

[huntersmky]

[VICK]

Yea I saw first hand I have to retract my statement on birds flying down early this season had bird on the ground Sunday and Monday before 7.