A couple weekend ago I went out for our Spring turkey season in northern Minnesota and got my bird on a beautiful Saturday morning after two exciting days of hunting. He was 19 pounds with an 8" beard and stubby black spurs, one of three young toms that came in together across a field I was sitting along. They were not really fans of my decoys, which seemed odd, but were still turned on by soft mouth calls and I ended up taking a 50 yard shot at this one. It was longer range than I'd prefer but it felt like they were about to scatter and I had to do something or just watch them disappear. I planned on the birds coming from my left but instead these came from my right, so I got to quickly pivot in that direction and shoot just as they started to turn and run after seeing me move. Lesson learned, face where you hear them coming from.







I used my Remington 870 Wingmaster with a super full choke and Winchester Longbeard XR #5s. Ms. K is looking forward to smoked turkey breasts.



On that Friday I got busted by an old hen after calling 6 or 7 birds in across a gully. I was sitting with my decoys and heard a gobble off in the distance, so I decided to get aggressive and go find it. Ended up moving to the top of a ridge along a gully and they birds were on the other side. It ended up taking them 10 minutes to cover the 200 or so yards between us. I could watch them coming up until the final 40 or so yards, which were obscured by thick brush. One big tom was strutting the whole time, it was fun to watch and hear him gobble followed by the other males. Finally out of nowhere this old hen pops her head up to my left when I expected them to come at me head on, and she gave a couple of warning clucks to the flock for them to run- which they obviously did. I was just kneeling next to a tree so I could get a better view of them rather than sitting down tucked into brush so that was my fault. It was my first time calling in a whole flock and not just a single bird. I felt sick for the rest of the day and didn't see another bird but at least I knew there were some in the area and I could get their attention.

Another first for the weekend was seeing a wolf in the wild. It was headed into the property at the same time I was early on Saturday morning before sunup and ran off once I started going after it. I've seen plenty of tracks and scat in the area, seen them on trail cam pics, listened to them howl nearby... just never seen one with my own eyes before.

I'm going to try and call in another bird again this weekend now for a buddy of mine before we go trout fishing- what a great time of year.

That's a good gobbler. He has a thick beard looking at the photo.

Good luck with the trout fishing & I hope you call one in for your buddy. Bob

Thanks Bob!

Good looking bird. That is a heavy beard on him.

quote:

Originally posted by Southwesthunter:
Good looking bird. That is a heavy beard on him.

Thanks, regarding the beard itself I'm surprised how the beard from this bird is about the same as the significantly bigger bird I shot last year- and he had some real spurs too. Last year's:





Still learning a lot about these birds as I go and having fun too.

I have land up by Sturgeon Lake Minnesota that has a lot of turkeys on it at various times of the day and night. But due to the deer tick outbreak I am afraid to hunt them. Glad to see that you had fun, bagged a turkey, and didn't get bit by a deer tick. 8 days in intensive care a few years ago taught me I would never want to go through that again.

I give my exterior hunting clothes (including hat and gloves) a good application of permethrin prior to hunting and use DEET around my ankles, wrists, neck, and head. Don't want to deal with ticks either!

I'm headed back out tomorrow morning with a buddy, curious to see if the birds' behavior has changed much.