Colville Indian Reservation

[Carl]

Are you guys visiting WA to hunt turkey?  SC is a pretty good drive.  We moved here from NC 3 yrs ago.

[MerriamMagician]

How many guys you got in your group Michael? 5 turkeys in 3 days is a decent start, not knowing the area at all. 
We had a very early spring this year also, which is making it tougher this late in the season.

9 guys in our group three of the birds killed were jakes.  I have already put over 1k miles on the truck in the past 5 days and have seen 6 gobblers in the entire state. Three of those were in town. Never expected it to be this bad.

Yeah this early spring is killing ya. Bird numbers are actually very high this year, but with the vast majority of hens bred and on the nest the gobblers have gone off to the more isolated country already. And if you do find an unbred hen, there are a ton of jakes from last years good hatch that snatch them up.

[trkykilr]

I am not complaining. When we travel we go for the experience, to meet cool people and to see cool places. With that attitude it's hard to go wrong.

We have simply found the birds to be very late in the cycle. Very very late. This group has traveled a lot to hunt turkeys and we usually kill birds if we find them and we usually don't find it to be hard.

This trip has been tough. We have not found the volume of birds that we expected. I have driven 3 tanks of gas through my truck and hiked my ass off. I have seen less than 10 longbeards. Tons of jakes.

Make no mistake, we have had a blast. I felt like with the weather we have had we would have filled all of our tags and headed to Idaho or done some trout fishing. This state is beautiful with great people. We will certainly be back.

[kevinlisa06]

Definitely a weird year land owner told us that even opening weekend the birds weren't gobbling like normal. Sorry you guys aren't getting into the birds like you had hoped.

[CAMPMEAT]

PM: inchtowntracking

[turkeydancer]

  Sorry you're not doing as well as expected .... myself, I was done in this spring by my job (aircraft carrier in for overhaul ... first time in 15 years I'm not getting out).  I've hunted for years in NE Washington and usually very successful usually tagging out in 4 minutes to a few days at most.   I agree the very early spring has probably hurt your chances, as well as hunting later in the spring after the birds have been overcalled to and bumped a lot.   I would cover ground and use some soft and infrequent calling, as well as not using your normal calls (maybe wing bones, tube calls, for example .... maybe even try throwing a turkey fight.  Watch carefully for the birds sneaking in and periscoping over the brush for a peek.

Good luck ....     

[trkykilr]

Things improved greatly today. We certainly appreciate all of the help. We have one more day then catch a flight. This country and its people have been incredible.