I just printed out a receipt for the turkey tag I'm hoping to fill during the May 1-5 season we have here in Minnesota. I'm planning on hunting the one of the areas I was on last fall for small game and deer hunting, south of Cloquet. I've seen lots of turkeys on the 80 acre plot (a mix of wooded hillsides and grass pastures with a creek running through it) every time. I've visited the neighbor, a dairy farmer who pastures his holsteins on the land, and he told me they are increasingly common in the area and isn't a fan.

So my plan is to hunt with my buddy Noah like we did last fall and hopefully bag a couple of gobblers. This will be my first time turkey hunting so I have been practicing with diaphragm calls and will head to a range likely tomorrow night to try patterning a few different loads in my shotgun. I'm sticking with my 870 Wingmaster and an X-full turkey choke I bought on sale a few years ago knowing I'd eventually use it. My friend will borrow my brother's Mossberg 835 with the Hastings turkey choke I bought for it. I have a few different HS Strut calls I'm making noise with, practicing along with the CD some came with.

I'm planning on wearing my tan Carhartt coveralls as usual with a camoflage jacket, face mask, and hat, with brown gloves, so all but my eyes is covered. Is much further camo necessary, or are ground blinds worth it?

When I was deer hunting last November, I ended up facing the hillside they were roosting on one morning, it was facing N-NE. Is it likely they could be in the same area or should I try locating them again very early just before the season starts? The hillside has been partially logged so there are pockets among the trees with a diameter of maybe 10 or so yards of open space.

I'm wondering if it would be better to set up along the woodline facing the open pasture (sitting at a corner or something), along the woodline facing an open pocket, along a travel route from the woods to the pasture, or on the edge of an open pocket in the woods? Are there any hard rules to this or would the turkeys' behavior dictate it?

Any other general suggestions for a first timer? Thanks in advance.

Here's some photos of the area.

The hillside I was facing in this photo is where the turkeys were roosting. It was fun to hear them wake up.



The view from the corner I was facing above, with my back to the hillside where the turkeys were roosting.



This pasture area is ajacent to the one in the photo above, separated by a creek. There were turkey tracks and droppings all over here with tracks following the cow trails.



The woodline in the background of this photo intersects the woodline to the right and forms a corner where I saw turkeys coming in and out of the property.

You need to have on full camo, head to toe.

That whole area in all the pictures looks fantastic. I would try to slip in under cover of darkness one or two mornings a few days before the season opens and see if you can see/hear if they are still roosting where you saw them last Fall. Stay away from the roost area though, stay hidden, and DON'T do any calling. Any place you have seen them traveling may be good if you can't catch them coming off the roost. If you don't have camo pants, I would make sure and have some cover in front of you lower half. Setting up in the cover right behind the fence would be good so that only your gun barrel sticks out, but clear the area enough so you can turn a little to the left and right without any interference or noise. If you set up any decoys, keep them within 15-20 yards of you or maybe even a little closer in case a longbeard hangs up. That way he will still probably be within range and definitely know how your gun patterns the shell you'll be using from 20 to about 45 yards out and try to keep your shots within that longer distance.

Thanks fellas!

I've seen one travel route across the property being used several times and am pretty certain I've figured out another.

Setting up a low ground blind in front of my lower half shouldn't be an issue. Getting some time to scout before the season likely won't be an option with limited time off from work but I will get at least three full days to hunt if not more.

I'll be on the ground in less than two weeks. Very excited for this.

First of all, glad to see another hunter taking up turkey hunting. Plan on cussing a lot.

Gobblers in the spring are kind of like teenage boys - without curiosity. They sleep, eat, fight, and like to charm the ladies. Unbelievable eyesight and hearing.

Keys are proper location (sounds like you've done some good scouting) and blending in - with blind and camo. Break your image up as much as possible and BE STILL. You have to be comfortable to be still, and I use a camoed up low beach chair to keep my but from getting too sore but still close to the ground.

Unlike a lot of the TV programs I keep calling to a minimum. I have and use a variety of calls, but a box call is my "go-to" call. Keep your calling simple and your eyes open. They sometimes just appear out of nowhere....

Good luck with it and stay warm..... I lived in Cloquet for a year - coldest year of my life....

80 acres is small for two turkey hunters unless you just intend to try to hunt them like deer (which is not a great idea).

The classic strategy is to wait at the entrance - not in the middle of the 80 acres - to the property until you hear them fly off the roost then move to a good calling spot 100 yds.or so from where they flew down.

Two hunters are a lot more likely to bump them.

But turkeys are sometimes smart and sometimes stupid and a bad approach sometimes will work out anyway.

Thanks for the additional info. I got my tag in the mail on Saturday, happy to have that on hand now.

Right now I'm planning on setting up low blinds under trees at two woodline junctures that face the pastures along the rim of the property- basically where we've seen them the most. I have a couple of foam pads to sit on, they are very comfy and warm so I can stay put at the base of a tree all day without fidgeting too much. Just bought some additional camo so I will be covered from head to toe.

I will spend a day or two hunting solo before my buddy joins me, so I can get a feel for the birds and hopefully bag one so we can hunt together and not separately. Otherwise the two spots I have in mind are at opposite ends of the property, separated by a hill, and facing away from each other with safety in mind. Easy access to them too, so we can slip in quickly and quietly.

I'm using my time while driving to and from work to practice with the mouth calls on and can yelp, cluck, cut, and purr with them... but obviously I don't have the real hunting experience with the training wheels off yet so I'm planning on taking it easy on the calling and keeping it at a minimum.

One thing I'm a little unsure about is mid-day hunting. Is it best to just hunt the morning and evening with less pressure or spend all day in the woods?

Your strategy might work. I tend to not have that much patience and usually move in on them when I hear a gobble.

I suspect the best idea would be to hunt til about noon. Your buns will be tired before then anyway.

Then leave them alone in the afternoon and go out just before dark and try to hear them fly up on the roost. That will tell you where to start the next morning.

Here is one I took this morning about 9 am on my 80 acre woodlot. It was raining here in SW Missouri and they were in the pastures nearby eating worms that the rain forced up.

quote:

Originally posted by Evan K.:
One thing I'm a little unsure about is mid-day hunting. Is it best to just hunt the morning and evening with less pressure or spend all day in the woods?

You most certainly can hunt throughout the day.
I have found that with my teenage sons that is the best time to get them out in the woods. Getting a sixteen-year-old out of bed at 3:30 AM can be a challenge. They still manage to shoot their birds.
The only thing about which I would caution you if you plan to try it is to call very sparingly. Because you are on such a small piece of land, they will be able to hear your calls no matter where you go (unless you have high wind to deal with.) Too much calling and they become less likely to investigate.

Congrats on the turkey Palmer!

I think I'll take that Thursday afternoon off from work so I can drive up to the property and do an evening hunt and hopefully locate where the birds are roosting, then hunt them early on Friday morning solo and return in the evening again if I don't locate them on Thursday. My buddy will be less excited to wake up at 3:00am as I will be so he might want to hunt the afternoons more on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I have several days to hunt so I don't feel as tempted to sit in the woods all day rather than just hunt the mornings/evenings when timing may be best and pressure the birds less. If I only had a day or two to hunt it would be a different story.

I filled my Wis tag at 1230 they were out strutting in full.

I have shot them at all hours morning is prime.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
I filled my Wis tag at 1230 they were out strutting in full.

I have shot them at all hours morning is prime.

Congratulations!! Big one?

22lbs 1 inch spurs 9.5 beard big bird I think after a very hard winter it was lighter then it should have been.

hard hunting up here lots of snow

Yes, I wondered if the snow cover would affect their weight. Congratulations again!

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
22lbs 1 inch spurs 9.5 beard big bird I think after a very hard winter it was lighter then it should have been.

hard hunting up here lots of snow

Nice bird!

My buddy in Duluth reports the snow has disappeared from his yard now, indeed it was quite the winter.

If one has a open yard it is gone mine is well shaded still covered

Weather forecast looks like steady rain (maybe snow) this week until Thursday when it is down to a 30% chance of precipitation. That is when my season starts and when I'll first hit the woods. We may see sunshine on Saturday, we'll see.

I took the shotguns my buddy and I will use for turkey hunting to a range for some pattern testing this past weekend. I'm using my reliable Remington 870 Wingmaster and my buddy is borrowing my brother's Mossberg 835. I got a Remington brand Turkey choke for the 870 and a Carlson's choke for the Mossberg. Tried Federal, Winchester, Hevi-Shot, and Fiocchi loads in both guns. I first shot them all at 25 yards and moved out to 50 with the best performers to see how far they could reach. The Hevi-Shot #4s are best in the Mossberg but my Remington likes the Winchester #4s.

This was the pattern out of my gun from the Winchester #4s at 25 yards. I was a little off target at 50 and even though it will be lethal at that range I'll try to limit my shots to 30-40 yards.

I'll fill in more details later but I was successful after three days of hunting. I shot my turkey at about 6:45 am on Saturday morning. It was a great hunt.

I first arrived at the hunting land on Thursday afternoon, opening day of my season. I encountered birds right away. After I suited up, I noticed a Holstein heifer was loose from the feedlot adjacent to the hunting land and wandering my way, and as I was walking her back to the lot the farmer came out and we started chatting. He mentioned the winter kill was very harsh this year as we had a tough winter and as we were talking his wife spotted two hens crossing the road and headed into a pasture a couple hundred yards from us. I took off after them and it didn’t take long for them to disappear in the wooded property.

I kept hiking along the property to check out the other pasture and ended up seeing three deer in the field I eventually shot the bird in. This is the same field I hunted for deer in November, sitting in that rock pile. I didn't see a single deer then, so of course they show up just as I arrive but during turkey season instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APN-r6g3GY8

They were about 50 yards from me at the closest and despite me just crouching down in the open field they didn’t seem to spot me. I had dropped my green pack down at the base of the rock pile and that's what the deer were sniffing.

Friday was my day to hunt solo and I got situated under my tree at 5:30 am. It was either raining or windy all day long and I sat at two spots, calling every 20-30 minutes. I had a lone hen visit my field for a few minutes around 11 am. I was in the woods for almost 11 hours that day and this was the only bird I saw in the field.





I took a hike along a trail that runs through the wooded property at mid-day and ended up seeing another lone hen turkey with those three deer about 100 yards from me at one point, but had knee-deep snowbanks separating me from it.

Turkey tracks in the snow:



I left a little bit early on Friday so my buddy and I could hit the property again well before first light in the morning. Being a little damp, tired, and feeling somewhat frustrated at the lack of birds compared to what I saw last fall didn’t help.

On Saturday morning a friend joined me and I had him sit at a blind I made overlooking a drainage between two pastures that the turkeys frequently passed by. It was where I saw those birds as I first arrived on Thursday. I was sitting along the fenceline across the property where I’d spent most of Friday. We got settled in at about 5:30 am.

I was treated to a spectacular sunrise that morning. Thursday and Friday were very wet and windy days, and on Saturday the clouds parted and the sun finally came out despite being even windier.



At 6:20 my buddy was texting me, asking if they'd still die if they ran away after you shot them. I thought he was just BS-ing with me as usual but he actually had seven hens show up where I expected them to at about 6:00 with a tom following them, strutting away. He shot twice, missed, and the birds escaped back into the woods and were headed my direction. I didn't hear him shoot because it was so windy, and had been calling a little more aggressively than the past two days.

Around 6:40 I had to pee really bad (drank way too much coffee while driving there) so I got up and went about 10 feet away from where I was sitting underneath a pine tree, did my business out in the open next to the fence, and immediately after I zipped up and turned around I saw a hen turkey fly out of the trail opening along the wood line about 50 yards to the left of me. I knelt down and grabbed my gun next to me (I have a rule that it is never left in the stand, no matter what) and about 10 seconds after the hen flew out lo and behold there was a jake slowly walking out towards the field.

I couldn't go back to the tree so I just stayed frozen, kneeling there next to the fence. He saw my decoy about 25 yards from me but started walking slightly away so I very gently clucked a few times on the call. His head shot up and snapped towards towards the decoy and over maybe a minute he walked right along the fenceline, crossed it, and went straight to it while I raised the shotgun to my shoulder. About 10 feet from it he stopped and puffed his feathers out and fanned his tail, then started strutting. My heart was practicaly beating out of my chest at this point and I couldn't believe what was right in front of me.

I let him strut for a few seconds while I settled the bead on his neck and rested my finger on the trigger. As soon as I pulled it he was knocked onto his back, stone dead, tail still fanned out under his body. I was numb from the adrenaline and hardly felt the shotgun kick. Everything went like clockwork except for me having to take a leak and having that bird go for my decoy and strut for it was one of the most exhilarating hunting moments I’ve experienced yet. He was bigger than expected and I got some very nice breasts, thigh, and legs in the freezer now.

Here it was right after I shot it, laying just a few feet from the decoy 25 yards away.



His beard was about as long as the 3" shell I killed it with, seems fitting. 1 3/4 oz. of #4s did the job very cleanly. Its head and neck took a very direct hit.



I didn’t measure or weigh the bird before dressing it out but here it is next to my shotgun for scale, as it lay after I shot it.



We went back out on Saturday evening so I could hopefully call another one in for my buddy I was hunting with, but had no luck. Celebrated a bit much on Saturday night to get out of bed early on Sunday morning. I didn't mind since my tag was filled and it was his call at that point. We'll be back after them this fall!

Congratulations! Sounds very similar to my first spring turkey hunt over twenty years ago. Shot a jake early on my first morning ever. Then I spent the next several years not shooting anything but definitely learning how to hunt turkeys!
I love spring turkey hunting. The only North American hunt I've ever done that compares is archery hunting for elk, a very similar sort of hunt except that, as a friend of mine says, the turkey is like a 25 pound elk!

quote:

Originally posted by sdirks:
Congratulations! Sounds very similar to my first spring turkey hunt over twenty years ago. Shot a jake early on my first morning ever. Then I spent the next several years not shooting anything but definitely learning how to hunt turkeys!
I love spring turkey hunting. The only North American hunt I've ever done that compares is archery hunting for elk, a very similar sort of hunt except that, as a friend of mine says, the turkey is like a 25 pound elk!

Thanks! We're planning on heading back out after them in October for the fall turkey season. Hopefully I see more of them when we're back on the land for scouting and trail maintenance this summer and then grouse hunting in September.

Less than two months to go before we're at the turkeys again. Now the anticipation can build up.

I hunted three weekends in the fall season and chased the birds around a lot but didn't end up bagging one. Oh well. My goal for this spring hunt is to call one in for my buddy to shoot since I shot one last year and he didn't get a deer last fall either. That should be nearly as good as pulling the trigger myself.

Mine starts April 15th in NW Wi.

Killed a really nice tom last fall also.

Should be better then last year unless we get a big dump of snow.

In Texas, our spring season starts March 21. I plan on being there the Thursday before.

Best,

GWB

I like the bird trout knife

quote:

I like the bird trout knife

Flat worked on this bird.




it's patterned after his brother Rick Menefee's "16 Bore". Ebony scales and AEB-L steel, red liners and mosaic pins.




I call it my "sweet 16"


It is one of several knives Rocky Menefee has made for me.

Latest Batch.



Rocky Menefee Extra Fine (RMEF)



JAPPF,


GWB

Nice knives GWB... one of these I'll start making them myself and I really like that slim trim bird/trout style. Ebony handles there?

Good luck you fellas this spring!

Back at ya!














Best,


GWB

Nice pics... what is that little rifle? A Brno? Whatever it is, I want it.

I am thankful for not having to do any pattern testing with the turkey shotguns again this year. Got plenty of the 3" Winchester 1 3/4 oz. #4 shoulder smashers left. If there ever was a range session that wasn't enjoyable, that could have been it.

A vintage Sako Riihimaki (circa 1955 IIRC) in 222 Remington. Loaded with 45 gr. Barnes TSX it works on turkey and all manner of critters.

Best,


GWB