NE turkey report

[hunter399]

Hunting on some private in Valley, haven’t had a tom come by the blind in two days, damn cold in the mornings!  Hens and mostly solo ones.  Last year was my first time turkey hunting and it seemed much better on public land, odd. BUT, we hit the opener last year.  Two ticks so far, and the public fishing from shore sucks at jump off joe and deer lakes!!

Not to side track but yeah the fishing is horrible at those spots 😂 Growing up there we never wasted our time at them. Until fishing opener I’d say your best bet would be Roosevelt down at the boat launch outside Kettoe Falls it mouth of the Colville River. Could even see a few birds on the drive up. Once Waitts opens you are next to some of the best trout fish in the entire PNW.

Your definitely in my neck of the woods.
I know a few spots for sure,wink,wink.
PM if you need some public land spots

[trophyhunt]

Hunting on some private in Valley, haven’t had a tom come by the blind in two days, damn cold in the mornings!  Hens and mostly solo ones.  Last year was my first time turkey hunting and it seemed much better on public land, odd. BUT, we hit the opener last year.  Two ticks so far, and the public fishing from shore sucks at jump off joe and deer lakes!!

Not to side track but yeah the fishing is horrible at those spots 😂 Growing up there we never wasted our time at them. Until fishing opener I’d say your best bet would be Roosevelt down at the boat launch outside Kettoe Falls it mouth of the Colville River. Could even see a few birds on the drive up. Once Waitts opens you are next to some of the best trout fish in the entire PNW.

Thanks, yeah we are heading to deer lake in a bit, friend has property on it with a dock, should be much better. 

[trophyhunt]

Hunting on some private in Valley, haven’t had a tom come by the blind in two days, damn cold in the mornings!  Hens and mostly solo ones.  Last year was my first time turkey hunting and it seemed much better on public land, odd. BUT, we hit the opener last year.  Two ticks so far, and the public fishing from shore sucks at jump off joe and deer lakes!!

Not to side track but yeah the fishing is horrible at those spots 😂 Growing up there we never wasted our time at them. Until fishing opener I’d say your best bet would be Roosevelt down at the boat launch outside Kettoe Falls it mouth of the Colville River. Could even see a few birds on the drive up. Once Waitts opens you are next to some of the best trout fish in the entire PNW.

Your definitely in my neck of the woods.
I know a few spots for sure,wink,wink.
PM if you need some public land spots

Appreciate that, I’d take you up on that if you want to PM me, leaving in the morning after a quick hunt, so not much time left. 

[hunter399]

Hunting on some private in Valley, haven’t had a tom come by the blind in two days, damn cold in the mornings!  Hens and mostly solo ones.  Last year was my first time turkey hunting and it seemed much better on public land, odd. BUT, we hit the opener last year.  Two ticks so far, and the public fishing from shore sucks at jump off joe and deer lakes!!

Not to side track but yeah the fishing is horrible at those spots 😂 Growing up there we never wasted our time at them. Until fishing opener I’d say your best bet would be Roosevelt down at the boat launch outside Kettoe Falls it mouth of the Colville River. Could even see a few birds on the drive up. Once Waitts opens you are next to some of the best trout fish in the entire PNW.

Your definitely in my neck of the woods.
I know a few spots for sure,wink,wink.
PM if you need some public land spots

Appreciate that, I’d take you up on that if you want to PM me, leaving in the morning after a quick hunt, so not much time left.

Next time hit me up before you come this way.

[trophyhunt]

Hunting on some private in Valley, haven’t had a tom come by the blind in two days, damn cold in the mornings!  Hens and mostly solo ones.  Last year was my first time turkey hunting and it seemed much better on public land, odd. BUT, we hit the opener last year.  Two ticks so far, and the public fishing from shore sucks at jump off joe and deer lakes!!

Not to side track but yeah the fishing is horrible at those spots 😂 Growing up there we never wasted our time at them. Until fishing opener I’d say your best bet would be Roosevelt down at the boat launch outside Kettoe Falls it mouth of the Colville River. Could even see a few birds on the drive up. Once Waitts opens you are next to some of the best trout fish in the entire PNW.

Your definitely in my neck of the woods.
I know a few spots for sure,wink,wink.
PM if you need some public land spots

Appreciate that, I’d take you up on that if you want to PM me, leaving in the morning after a quick hunt, so not much time left.

Next time hit me up before you come this way.

you bet, thanks. 

[Ridgeratt]

As the hens get bred and go nest. Toms will still be looking for hens. I they will range and cruise looking. But they have been in several turf conflicts so they might come in quiet just looking. When I was hunting them my best time was around the end of April and the first week of May.

[hunter399]

Went out a bit this morning.
Pretty slow seemed like to me.
Came across half a dozen hens, nothing with a red head.
Only one gobble from across the way,on some private land.
Probably had a dozen+ ticks on me when we got back to truck.
That's with no bug spray on.

[actionshooter]

Hunted my butt off for the last 4 days, super cold and lots of wind for a couple days.... It was tough, very few gobbles and the ones that answered were hung up tight.. 

[Dogmanscott]

I agree that the hens aren’t having anything to do with Toms yet. We are hunting out of Davenport. I have seen a few hens, increasing daily in game cams. Wednesday night or so Davenport got 4 inches of snow.
This is the strangest stage I have ever seen. Toms are still in groups.. not fighting.
I called in 11 Jakes this weekend. Birds would gobble one time, then not answer you or walk away. We have a lot of visible adult birds on the various properties this year. It is not lack of birds. They act like we are speaking a foreign language, but every thing on earth recognizes sex.
I had 6 Jakes come in, then watched 2 flocks of Toms ignore calls in the evening across the canyon. I threw in the towel at that point. It was
Time to finish my corned beef brisket on the Weber bbq .
My friend shot a nice Tom that never made a sound,  just walked in. He uses a knight black powder shotgun with #6 shot.
Don’t give up!!! May is going to be spectacular turkey hunting.
Scott

[hunter399]

I totally agree with the above reply.
Son and I hunted mourning/evening yesterday.
Just seems like this cold snap caused them to herd back up.
We seen a few nice toms last nite,on private, watching over there huge herd of hens.
On public we kept spotting hen ,here or there . But no toms with any of the hens. Just seemed like the tom was with large herds of hens,bottled up tight on private ground.
We have a tom here that's shows up in the back yard, haven't seen him since about Thursday.
It's like they just shut down for the weekend.

[smithkl42]

My son and I were out Fri/Sat/Sun around Chewelah. We hiked 20 miles, saw one bear, and a couple dozen turkeys - but nearly all on private. We only heard two faint bugles the entire three days, both of them late Sunday afternoon, both coming from private. A couple of the turkeys we saw were jakes, but we only saw one tom.

This is only our second year turkey hunting, and we're very much still figuring things out, so I'm unsure how unusual this is. Were the birds quiet for other folks as well? Any thoughts as to why?

[hughjorgan]

My son and I were out Fri/Sat/Sun around Chewelah. We hiked 20 miles, saw one bear, and a couple dozen turkeys - but nearly all on private. We only heard two faint bugles the entire three days, both of them late Sunday afternoon, both coming from private. A couple of the turkeys we saw were jakes, but we only saw one tom.

This is only our second year turkey hunting, and we're very much still figuring things out, so I'm unsure how unusual this is. Were the birds quiet for other folks as well? Any thoughts as to why?

It was quiet for us around hunters, hike 35 miles only managed a couple gobbles. I’d blame the the weather. Last year they were very vocal compared to this past weekend.

[trophyhunt]

My son and I were out Fri/Sat/Sun around Chewelah. We hiked 20 miles, saw one bear, and a couple dozen turkeys - but nearly all on private. We only heard two faint bugles the entire three days, both of them late Sunday afternoon, both coming from private. A couple of the turkeys we saw were jakes, but we only saw one tom.

This is only our second year turkey hunting, and we're very much still figuring things out, so I'm unsure how unusual this is. Were the birds quiet for other folks as well? Any thoughts as to why?

It was quiet for us around hunters, hike 35 miles only managed a couple gobbles. I’d blame the the weather. Last year they were very vocal compared to this past weekend.

Same with us, but the birds we did see on private that are there every year were sure talking, just couldn't pull them off of their hens.  The private property we did get to hunt was surrounded by private and they killed birds.  We were in valley area as well.

[baldopepper]

One thing I've noticed driving around my place is how many of the birds are on the move.  Kind of a here today, gone tomorrow.  Lot of what I consider the local, year around flocks have settled in, but some of the bigger flocks just seem to be passing thru.  I think they're a little more responsive when they finally kinda settle in somewhere. Honestly could have shot several from the road, but when I went back later and called I got no response even though I knew they were in the area.  Fun just to mess with wih em, but hey aren't playing much yet.

[actionshooter]

 So some guys are saying that most of the hens were bred the 1st 2 weeks of April, and others are saying that it hasn't happened yet.... which is it?