Bearpaw - Northeast WA Turkey Hunts (turkey down)

[Michelle_Nelson]

Nice!

[bearpaw]

Guys have passed on two groups of jakes and a bearded hen so far, hoping the toms come back, they are talking, fingers crossed.

[bearpaw]

The guys passed a bunch of jakes and finally got two more toms about a half hour apart.

[bearpaw]

Action really heated up this afternoon. Had a nice tom within range and another tom just out of range, they decided to wait it out to get both in range, as luck would have it, they ended up not getting either bird. 

[bearpaw]

Update:
Birds are gobbling pretty good and really broken up now and covering ground. I don't have many hunters this year but we have taken 6 birds so far and passed dozens of jakes. Have seen quite a few bearded hens and one of the new guys in camp wants a bearded hen, hope we see another one while he's here.

The photo below is pretty interesting, one of the guys killed a coyote this morning (almost got two at once) and two different groups of birds, mostly jakes stopped by within the next hour to pay homage to their fallen nemesis.

I wonder what they are thinking!  (looks like wileycoyote got what he had coming, hehehehe)

[bearpaw]

Yesterday afternoon was pretty dead and the rains hit hard. This morning we got the hunters in position early, we have been seeing some good gobblers, one bird looked like he has 1 3/4 spurs that we saw just before season, we have a guy setup in one of his travel routes. After we got everyone set I went to check another location for alternatives later today. Sure enough there was a loudmouth gobbler going off almost constantly, so he is next on the list if this morning doesn't work out. My fingers are crossed.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Thats cool you guys are picking up a couple ...congrats to the clients... where I hunt they were in flocks of 25 or more ...one ranch we hunted had 150 or more birds in it.... plus we were around a mile below snow line ... guess it depends where your hunting....and I only seen 2 other hunters in 3 days ..... thats crazy .....

[wayner]

Good Luck. It looks like the weather is going to start clearing up. Those pictures of the dead coyote are pretty cool! 

[elkhunter1977]

I hunted with Bearpaw on the opening weekend. Had a great time and got both my birds!...anyone that chooses to hunt with Dale and his crew will not be disappointed!

[bearpaw]

Thanks elkhunter, it was a pleasure meeting you and having you here for the hunt. The rain stopped last night and hunting picked back up a little today. David missed one this morning and Les smacked a nice one this afternoon, I'm looking for another good day tommorrow.


One of the bearded hens that we are looking for and a few pics of more birds that have been taken.....

[bearpaw]

We had a real tough hunt last week, 3 guys hunted 2 1/2 days and only killed 1 mature bird, I hate it when that happens, but we are back on track now.

Birds in my area are pretty tight beaked right now, but my current hunters are good hunters. Two hunters in camp, seen quite a few birds, killed a bearded hen yesterday on the first day and a nice 9", 20 pound tom with 1" spurs a few hours ago today. It was the first bird ever for both of them, hoping for 2nd birds now.

[bearpaw]

The bearded hen, sorry about the poor quality cell phone pic, I forgot my camera and all I had was the cell phone.

[Elk whack master]

The Bearded Hen....The equvilent to The Beareded Lady!!

[bearpaw]

Yesterday morning was a hoot.

I stopped just as I started into one of the ranches and blew the shock call. Gobble, gobble, gobble, oh nuts, I practically drove right into the middle of them by total accident, I hate it when that happens.

We got ready as quietly as possible and I tried to sneak both hunters into good positions. I was probably being watched by half the birds as I did that, there were at least a half dozen gobbles so I figured we needed to give it a try.

I told the guys I was going to circle around and hoped the birds would keep watching me and not realize where the two guys were hiding, I really did not have a better plan since I knew half the birds must be watching us. 

So I dropped Doug off in a good position and then I put Mike in a good position, meanwhile another gobbler had started to gobble 150-200 yards across a small meadow. I started to leave Mike and then I turned around and told him "That bird is really gobbling pretty good, I bet I can call him in and I don't think he has seen us!". So I sat down with Mike and we just listened for a while, it was still pretty dark.

It was still too early to start calling and this gobbler is going off every  10 to 30 seconds on his own. I figured this was going to be a slam dunk.   

All of a sudden a dang coyote shows up, we can see him in the half lit morning trotting around trying to figure out which tree the gobbler is in. Pretty soon the coyote decided on the same tree I figured and sits down watching the tree. The dang coyote is sitting there looking at the tree waiting for the bird to come down. 

Now I am pissed, no matter what we are screwed, if I try to run off the coyote the gobbler will see me, if the loudmouth gobbler comes out of the tree the coyote will make a run for him and the hunt is over. So I told Mike that I was going to try and call in the coyote and if he comes close enough to blast he can blast the bastich if he wants, he said "Sure, I'll shoot him." So I started yelping but we did not even get a look from the coyote. Our gobbler is still going wild and every now and then the other gobblers that had seen us would throw out a gobble from the other direction, but it was obvious they were not going to be very cooperative so I figured our best chance was still trying to pull the coyote away from the loudmouth gobbler. 

So I increased my yelping, in fact I got downright aggressive. We got a few gazes in our direction, but the coyote was not leaving that gobbler for nothing. 

It was getting pretty light by now and all the birds had stayed on the roost longer than usual with all this unusual calling activity. Finally the loudmouth gobbler flew way out into the field away from the coyote and away from us. I tried to call him to us but that failed. Somewhere during this time the coyote disappeared too, he must have known the turkey was onto him. We watched the turkey disappear across the horizon of a large field and I wrote him off as turkey gone. 

I heard a hen yelping and figured I would continue calling now and then in case one of the other gobblers had forgotten humans were in the area. It's good that I didn't know it at the time, but Doug had watched the other group of gobblers walk past and leave, he figured they might be out of range so he didn't shoot. Anyway I kept calling occasionally hoping to call one of them because I didn't know they left.

Mike and I had both had to readjust our positions a couple different times as our legs went to sleep. I was about to give up when I saw the loudmouth gobbler coming back across the big field. Yes, he is getting closer and closer to Doug. I finally asked Mike, "Why isn't Doug shooting, I hope he didn't fall asleep!"

So in desperation I threw out some really loud yelps hoping to wake Doug. The gobbler stopped, raised his head to look at us and whammo, Doug give him a round of hevi-shot to the memory bank. YES, turkey down. Mike headed over to Doug and I went to get the truck and drove over to Doug. We got some photos and laughed about the fun morning. Doug hadn't known we were in competition with the coyote and we hadn't known the other gobblers had walked past Doug, but in the end we sacked up another 9" gobbler so all was well. Doug ended up with a bearded hen and a nice tom, I love it when a plan comes together.... well, sorta comes together.   

Doug with his first tom, 9" beard, 3 1/2 years old, 21 pounds.

[bearpaw]

We were down to one turkey tag now. After lunch we decided that Mike would sit where we had heard a gobbler the day before on a different ranch. This is not the usual place most turkey hunters would consider hunting, but over the years I bet we have killed 20 to 30 gobblers and numerous buck deer by the cattle corral and orchard right next to the landowner's house and they are fine with us hunting there, they know we are careful.

It's not uncommon for the landowner to be walking around the yard and for her dogs to be barking up a storm, but the birds and deer are used to this behaviour and if you can overlook what seems like a major disturbance, it's the best hunting spot on that property. As soon as the owner and barking dogs go back in the house the animals often appear.

We have seen a group of 4 toms, a group of 3 toms, and some hens and jakes at this corral recently. I expected birds somewhere around 5 to 6 pm. We got Mike into position a few hours early then Doug and I left. At 5:35 my cell phone rang it was Mike, the first words out of his mouth were "mission accomplished" so Doug and I went to pick up Mike. He told us how they showed up on their usual route, it was the group of three toms, he said they were all about the same size, he took the last one as the first two were going out of sight down into the corral. The beard wasn't real thick and judging by weight and spur length I would say he was a 2 year old bird, but he had a little over 10 inch beard. Congrats to Mike on filling his 2nd tag, he ended up with a 9" and 10" toms.