First/last time spring turkey hunting

[briancorneal]

I took a new-to-turkey-hunting buddy of mine out this weekend for his first turkey hunt.  Kids/work/wife got in the way this year for some odd reason, so this was my first and only time out hunting.  We covered a lot of ground, and called our tail off (I hope it wasn't too much), but not one peep in reply.  I'm wondering if it was the high Memorial day traffic or just the rain, but where I normally see sign, there was none.  I'm guessing that with the mild spring we had, this is going to be a great year for the turkey population.  From the looks of it, late season turkey hunting hasn't been affected much by the harvest pics on here.  Is it always this tough this late in the season?  Was our lack of seeing anything where there are normally a ton of birds during opening weekend weather (rain)  related?  What do you old timers have to say? 

[Tom Tamer]

Saw where you said hunted Liberty, the populations up tuere seems to be way down. Think with bad winters and the recent logging has them scattered. This year I thought in the and Teanaway was strange. I heard hardly a peep this weekend. Friday had two go off but still with hens that wanted nothing to do with sharing her toms. And a bear run them off afterward didn't help. Weather was crap all year except maybe a week or so. Lots of wind makes it hard to hear.

[Elkrunner]

I had a whole flock of them walking the dirt road in front of me on Friday as I was pulling in for campling.  Had 5 jakes in the group.

[turkeydancer]

Weather and hunting pressure can definitely affect their moods and make them clam-up.  If windy I will head down and find spots more protected ...   if rainy, I will move to forest openings/field edges or even into larger timber which provides them more protection.  You kind of learn where they are most likely to be hanging out and try to get there first.  This time of year you want to call softer and less frequent, whereas most newer hunters figure they need to call more and louder ....   

[briancorneal]

I guess I'm not the only one whose found out the hard way Liberty isn't producing much turkeys.  NE Washington is where it's at.  I just have to justify the expenses for "just a bird", as my wife likes to say. 

[kevinlisa06]

Buy 2 tags then you get more bang for your buck?

[Ridgeratt]

I guess I'm not the only one whose found out the hard way Liberty isn't producing much turkeys.  NE Washington is where it's at.  I just have to justify the expenses for "just a bird", as my wife likes to say.

Following some of the post sounds like people were disappointed with the NE this year also.

[briancorneal]

Buy 2 tags then you get more bang for your buck?

Genius!