Post by: turkey slayer on April 04, 2010, 12:53:14 PM
Friday went over to scout but the winds were blowing 45mph and horizontal snow for 3 1/2 hours seen a few bird and roosted some but the wind were so bad that the birds left the roost and flew down lower. The up is that they are strutting, but I'll just wait for opener and see what happens.
I was still a fun day being with him on his first hunt.
Post by: ol_grayfeather on April 04, 2010, 09:15:16 PM
Middle of last week I had one gobbling at my call and we met on a tight corner (he was strutting), he took off up the hill but everytime I'd call he'd gobble back. But saturday morning my sons didn't gobble once and wasn't strutting either. Just walked up and stood in between the two decoys and looked around for about a minute.
Didn't see any other hunters at anytime either. This is my first year chasing turkeys. My big question is why are they not vocal at all now? I was thinking after a few crappy days they'd be out moving around :dunno:
Post by: ICEMAN on April 04, 2010, 10:08:33 PM
Post by: dawei on April 05, 2010, 09:11:17 AM
Both my kids struck out. Sat am was frozen and crunchy, no birds talking....Sunday was warmer, with some toms talking, but not responding. Really a cold youth hunt. Fun but no birds...Were you hunting Easterns or Merriams?
Post by: jackelope on April 05, 2010, 09:25:24 AM
I yelped and cut a little at them a few times and all 5 strutters lit up multiple times. There was some other toms and jakes that stayed quiet but the 5 that were strutting were hammering away. It was 9:30-10:00am and probably low to mid 30 degree range.
I saw probably 3 other flocks that were all huge flocks of 20-30 or more birds a piece, all had strutting birds. I only called at the 1 flock because they were right off the side of the road in someone's yard. I was not hunting so no shots were fired. All the birds I saw were in people's yards and seen from the road.
Post by: Phantom Gobbler on April 05, 2010, 01:06:57 PM
Heard some nice birds were harvested further inland (east) from Lake Roosevelt.
It was great to get out. We also tryed a spot and stalk but got the slip. :dunno: Young hunter is fired up to get out again in the general season.
Post by: turkey slayer on April 05, 2010, 02:58:23 PM
Post by: Birdguy on April 05, 2010, 05:59:54 PM
As a hunter the greatest morning of my life was last Saturday. We sat in the trees my son calling to the turkeys getting just hammered with gobbles, one of the biggest grins you could hope to see. He just kept looking over at me saying "this is incredible" over and over. He experienced the highest of highs with the bird laying there looking dead and the lowest of lows when it took off. He still can not wait to get back into the woods next time.
Post by: ICEMAN on April 05, 2010, 07:17:48 PM
Both my kids struck out. Sat am was frozen and crunchy, no birds talking....Sunday was warmer, with some toms talking, but not responding. Really a cold youth hunt. Fun but no birds...Were you hunting Easterns or Merriams?
Merriams.
Post by: turkey slayer on April 05, 2010, 08:19:49 PM
Post by: WildfireArcher on April 05, 2010, 08:55:14 PM
-Wildfire
Post by: Birdguy on April 05, 2010, 09:00:51 PM
Post by: KimberRich on April 06, 2010, 09:32:33 AM
We were in birds thick both days :whoo:. Boy got a shot at a real nice tom at 35 yds. Bird flipped and jumped then laid on it back real still. We ran up to in the highest spirits possible just to see it flip over and run off before flying away :yike:. We looked for an hour or so with no luck :(. Got back into the birds several more times but he could not get a shot he was happy with. If the birds were in close there were too many of them to just shoot one, if they were further out (25-30 yds) he did not want to shoot and have another one get away. All in all an awesome weekend. I was so pleased with his choices to not shoot when he could have but was not comfortable. We roosted 80 birds Friday night and got right into them Saturday morning. He was able to use my box call and get 12-20 gobblers to fire off each time he touched the call but they did not come in.
As a hunter the greatest morning of my life was last Saturday. We sat in the trees my son calling to the turkeys getting just hammered with gobbles, one of the biggest grins you could hope to see. He just kept looking over at me saying "this is incredible" over and over. He experienced the highest of highs with the bird laying there looking dead and the lowest of lows when it took off. He still can not wait to get back into the woods next time.
Was a great weekend for sure!! We were in the middle of more birds than I have ever been around. Watching 80 birds fly up to roost and then watching them fly down in the morning and mill around for an hour was amazing! :drool: I hope the video turns out good and shows how awesome it was. They were still in large flocks though and the toms/jakes wouldn't break away and come to any calls. Basically had to get out in front of them and be ready when they went by. They would gobble like crazy and walk a few steps towards us but then realize the flock was going the other direction and they would turn around and leave. Had one awesome set up on film with the Tom/hen decoy and 4 jakes came in inspected them at about 15 yards. First time I've actually had birds come in to decoys. I was thinking that with the favorable spring weather over there it would be different but maybe in a couple weeks they will start breaking apart into their smaller groups and it will be better for the general season!! :IBCOOL: Hope to hear more good stories of the Youth Hunt! Great for you to everyone that had a chance to get a kid in the woods!! 11 Days until it's our turn fellas!