Ok guys, teams have been drawn and it's time to check in! Looks like we have a great team and I'm excited to get this going! My name is Dave and I will be turkey hunting here in my home state of Montana.
I'm, John here checking in. Going to be huntin in IL. I have 2 tags and hope to fill one with my Mathews.
If you guys have not already please pm the members that havent showed up yet! Im trying to get all the spots filled and have some alternates chomping at the bit for a spot if we have no shows! Thanks Crick
I'll be headed to the farm tonight and chasing Gobblers in the morning. But it will have to be with my shotgun for the first couple of days. I was shooting my bow in the backyard Friday evening and my serving under my D-Loop broke. I took it in to be repaired yesterday and the guy says I need a new string too. Probably won't get it back till Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm off work Monday-Wednesday to hunt the opening few days. I have 2 tags, one is good for the whole season and the second is good for May 3-9. So if one presents himself in the next couple of days, it will be a shotgun bird, but then the second tag will be bow only.
John I got your pm. you guys are getting the famous mobow as an alt to replace the no show. If your lost man now shows tell him he can resign as an alternate. I will need some more! Ill pm or text mobow
Well hello gang!! Mobow here. JM, super excited to be on your team bro. For those of you who don't know me, I'm from east central Missouri. I used to be quite active here but when I bought my house we no longer had internet so I've been away for a while. But I'm back, more or less anyway. My season opens Monday morning, and I'm excited! I set my blind up thursday evening in a field where we've seen bird frequent. My son and I will be in the blind bright and early in the morning as I took the day off work to hunt opening day. I've got high hopes, but we'll see. There are certainly no guarantees in the turkey woods. I'm just hoping for NO TORNADOS!! Ugh, that was no fun.
Well it's about 530 and I'm in the blind. After raining about 7" this weekend the rain has finally stopped. That's the good news. The bad news is the wind is blowing like a mad man. I envision the pretty boy disguising himself as a tumbling ragweed but we'll see. Turkeys like fields in wet and windy conditions, and that's what we have this morning. The triangle of death is set up about 8 yards from the blind. Now if we don't all blow away I'm sitting here till 1:00 or one dies. Whichever comes first.
Color me confused. I just made what I thought was a perfect shot on a jake. But my arrow says differently. We ranged him at 27 yards. I took my time and lined everything up. WHUMP! Sounded good and looked perfect. He jumped. Turned and walked. After about 5 seconds he ran. When he hit the tree line he flew. I recovered the arrow and it's clean and dry. Apparently all I hit is feathers. I'm gonna go looking later but the evidence tells me he's not hurt.
Ok so. After I missed this morning the wind really picked up. So around 830 we decided to go home for some breakfast. About 10 it cleared off and the wind layed down some. Only 15-20 instead of 25-30. So we headed back out. Yeah. The wind pulled 5 stakes out of the ground and rolled my blind over. It took about 15 minutes to get that mess squared away and settled in the blind. About an hour later I was looking around and about 120 yards away in the shadows something didn't look quite right. Looking through my binos I determine it's 2 turkeys, though I can't tell anything else. We glassed them for a bit and realized at least one is a gobbler. So I hit the slate call. No response but he did pick his head up and look around. But that was it. No real interest. They just hung out and were chilling in the shade. So 5 minutes later I hit the slate again. This time he broke and started slowly walking our direction. He dropped into a small ditch and we lost sight of him at about 100 yards. A few minutes went by and we still hadn't relocated him. I peeked out the back of the blind and there he was. About 40 yards from the blind. I told my son he's back there and headed our way. About 30 yards he went on strut and Austen still couldn't see him. I said dude. Pick up your bow. You're gonna need it. He said. Oh. Yeah. I might. By then the bird was in view and I could see he is getting anxious. I said just wait. Wait till he gets in the decoys. It'll be a slam dunk shot. Well about then the bird drummed and took off on a dead run, in full strut, towards the decoys. He spun around and got nose to nose with my pretty boy strutting Tom. I said, kill him! THUMP! Right dead center. The bird went about 50 yards and expired. It's the most exciting hunt I've ever been on. I've never seen one react that way to the decoys. He probably would have kicked pretty boy's arse but I didn't let him. Wish it counted for the team but hey. It's only opening day. I missed one and he killed one.
It's 530 on day 1 of a 3 day hunt. I'm back in the killing blind and hopes are high. The birds are here. We'll see what happens. They should start gobbling very soon.
Well guys. I screwed up. I shot a really nice one this morning but wasn't able to make a recovery. He ran off and after 4 hours of looking we haven't found him. I'm calling off the search.
I secured a place hunt monday where we see turkeys every single day. We will be setting up the blind this evening and back at it in the morning. It should be good!
Sorry about the delay in my reports guys, but I don't have internet at the farm and I've been super busy at work since I got back in town last Thursday, then it was off to Arkansas for a nephews wedding last weekend. I did get a nice gobbler last week, but it was with the 12 ga. He weighed 24.3 lbs. with a 11-1/4" beard and 1" spurs. I have another tag for May 3-9 so I'm going after the next one with my bow. Bow hunting isn't that easy on my property. It is mostly woods with 2 5 acre fields. One field is NWSG so it's pretty grown up. The other one I plant food plots in but rarely do I see the turkeys using the field. These birds like to stay in the woods. So the shotgun gets much better results. Congrats Dustin on the great bird. And better luck next time Don, hope you stick a good one.
Well my season is over. I killed one with the shotgun early and tried like hell to get my second bird with the bow. It was late in the season and I didn't hear near as much gobbling as I did early. They gobbled a little on the roost, I got as close as I could and when they flew done they just walked away and the next time I heard them they were a couple hundred yards away. The weather sucked too. storms the first morning then 90* temps the next 2 days.
