CampRipleyLF
Active member
Awesome, congrats! Big Fin should great a sticky for Turkeys ("Turkeys... lets see em"). I would be surprised that there isn't one already but I know he doesn't do much turkey hunting.
2018 MT Turkey Thread
- Thread starter 406LIFE
- Start date
Doublecluck
Well-known member
Jessica was able to connect this morning, hen kept pulling him away but persistence paid off.. Another public land bird.
[video=youtube_share;hhRYwNe2Tso]https://youtu.be/hhRYwNe2Tso[/video]
[video=youtube_share;hhRYwNe2Tso]https://youtu.be/hhRYwNe2Tso[/video]
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Quackkillr-Nice!
Hunted r3 this weekend with the kids.
Sat birds were either off the property we had permission or we couldn't get permission to birds we found....I think some had been asked a lot, they were getting pissy about it.
Sun Dad screwed the pooch. Got to the gas station at 5am realized I didn't have my wallet, drove home, drove back to gas station, got to spot much later than planned. An owl hoot confirmed a toms location, but it was getting pretty light. By the time we got to where he was we were in trouble. I could see the tom in the cottonwood. So we ended up setting up in a poor spot, on a lone tom. He flew down about 100 yds from us, and went into strut. He strutted all the way into us then veered behind a big blown down cottonwood and strutted around at 40yds for a few min without presenting any kind of shot. He then moves out into the wide open at 75yds for over an hour an a half, strutting back and forth. Tried everything I could think of...then he walked away. Not sure if there's anything more frustrating than when your trying to make it happen for your kid and I doesn't work. That's why its called hunting....but that doesn't translate well into kidspeak. LOL
Hunted r3 this weekend with the kids.
Sat birds were either off the property we had permission or we couldn't get permission to birds we found....I think some had been asked a lot, they were getting pissy about it.
Sun Dad screwed the pooch. Got to the gas station at 5am realized I didn't have my wallet, drove home, drove back to gas station, got to spot much later than planned. An owl hoot confirmed a toms location, but it was getting pretty light. By the time we got to where he was we were in trouble. I could see the tom in the cottonwood. So we ended up setting up in a poor spot, on a lone tom. He flew down about 100 yds from us, and went into strut. He strutted all the way into us then veered behind a big blown down cottonwood and strutted around at 40yds for a few min without presenting any kind of shot. He then moves out into the wide open at 75yds for over an hour an a half, strutting back and forth. Tried everything I could think of...then he walked away. Not sure if there's anything more frustrating than when your trying to make it happen for your kid and I doesn't work. That's why its called hunting....but that doesn't translate well into kidspeak. LOL
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phor-O-six
New member
Just curious if anyone has been out around the CMR (and surrounding public lands) lately and would be willing to share general road/two track conditions. Headed that way this afternoon so I guess we will see soon enough but any advanced info would be most appreciated. Thanks!
DANGLER
Well-known member
Friday was a good day to be turkey hunting. My son and I left Friday for 3 days of fun in the sun which turned in one great day.
Day 1
We got to our 1st area well before daylight so we took a nap. We woke up to the smell of smoke. Turned out the FS had conducted a series of controlled burns in the area and we were more or less surrounded by black. Ive never actually hunted turkeys in a burn before and figured this would have pushed the birds out...Nope. First series of owl hoots from the truck brought responses from 3 different directions. One was pretty close so we went after him. Remember that scene at the end of predator??? that's kinda what the woods looked like. There were smoking stumps and spots still with active flame..it was a little weird to say the least. We found the bird roosted in a house sized island of unburned timber. We found a nice tree that wasn't totally black and set up about 200yds from the bird...which hadn't stopped gobbling since we started walking in on him. My first series of calls at legal got an enthusiastic response and out he came. He hit the ground and came in fast screaming to every call I made. At 30yds I got him to stop and periscope and my son layed him out. He flopped around and rolled down a small hill in the ash completely covering him with charcoal and ash...he was a mess. We loaded him up and started walking out. About 1/2 way back one of the other birds or another bird sounded off right in front of us. We made an attempt to set up on him but we had zero ground cover to move and we bumped him trying to get to spot to setup. We spent a couple hrs trying to get another bird to respond without any luck so moved onto another area.
** Ive seen birds in recent burns before, but Im still surprised at the activity in this fresh one. There were several stumps with flames and lots of logs that were smoking still. So don't ever pass up a location that looks good because its burned.
We got to the new area about 10 and started checking areas that Ive found birds before without much luck. About 11 we got a response on some private. With some legwork we found the landowner and he was gracious enough to let us on. About noon we crossed the pasture and moved into an old logged over area and got setup. The tom cut me off from about 300 yds away before I finished my first call. It took about 45 min to get him to come off his strut zone he was real fond of but once he broke he came fast. From about 150yds out we could see his fan coming. He'd come about 30 yards gobble and strut periscope and look around and I'd call and he'd gobble and start walking again all the way into about 40yds.... I think he would have come right into our laps but 3 horses came over the hill and started walking right for us. I could see how this was gunna play out in my head so I told my son to shoot...click...oh that's right we forgot to put a shell in because of fences we had to cross. LOL I gotta hand it to my son he calmly jacked in a shell and dropped the bird as it was trying to figure out what was going on. We found a spot to take pics and sat and talked about the show the bird had just given us when my son said he could hear hens off in the direction the tom had just come from. I figured it was this birds hens but let out a cackle anyway...nope there was another tom. Long story short they wernt coming in, BUT while calling to them my son could hear more toms way way way off in the distance so we stayed put. We finally spotted them on the other side of the drainage about 1/2 mile away on some other property. Knowing that there was a creek, at least 2 fences, a county rd and another fence between them and us didn't give me high hopes but they were screaming and ive had turkeys do some crazy stuff to get killed before so we stayed put....Plus I had that landowners phone number in my phone and was pretty sure he'd let us hunt. 2hrs later they moved off.
We picked up and headed for the truck. A quick phone call and I was told "go kill them all" lol gotta love some old ranchers. So we moved in and set up. My calls got a fast response but they were in the creek bottom a long way down the creek. This rancher also had horses and they thought we were the most interesting/scary thing they had seen in a while. Id call, turkeys would gobble closer and closer and the horses would walk up to about 40yds and spook and run off...this was repeated over and over for about an hr. Finally 3 big toms popped out of the bottom into the open about 500yds away and started coming up the 2-track along the pasture edge. Pretty quick they were at 60yds and closing...at which point the horses trotted over to them spooking them as they once again trotted off. They didn't spook to bad though an quickly got back on track but wouldn't break 60yds. Then they started moseying off, still gobbling. When they crested the hill I figured what the heck and broke loose with some aggressive cutting and cackles...and here they came at a trot. At 40yds I picked out the one with the biggest beard..and the worst tail.
All in all a better than average day in the MT turkey woods. Even though our 3 day trip turned into 1 long day it was great
Day 1
We got to our 1st area well before daylight so we took a nap. We woke up to the smell of smoke. Turned out the FS had conducted a series of controlled burns in the area and we were more or less surrounded by black. Ive never actually hunted turkeys in a burn before and figured this would have pushed the birds out...Nope. First series of owl hoots from the truck brought responses from 3 different directions. One was pretty close so we went after him. Remember that scene at the end of predator??? that's kinda what the woods looked like. There were smoking stumps and spots still with active flame..it was a little weird to say the least. We found the bird roosted in a house sized island of unburned timber. We found a nice tree that wasn't totally black and set up about 200yds from the bird...which hadn't stopped gobbling since we started walking in on him. My first series of calls at legal got an enthusiastic response and out he came. He hit the ground and came in fast screaming to every call I made. At 30yds I got him to stop and periscope and my son layed him out. He flopped around and rolled down a small hill in the ash completely covering him with charcoal and ash...he was a mess. We loaded him up and started walking out. About 1/2 way back one of the other birds or another bird sounded off right in front of us. We made an attempt to set up on him but we had zero ground cover to move and we bumped him trying to get to spot to setup. We spent a couple hrs trying to get another bird to respond without any luck so moved onto another area.
** Ive seen birds in recent burns before, but Im still surprised at the activity in this fresh one. There were several stumps with flames and lots of logs that were smoking still. So don't ever pass up a location that looks good because its burned.
We got to the new area about 10 and started checking areas that Ive found birds before without much luck. About 11 we got a response on some private. With some legwork we found the landowner and he was gracious enough to let us on. About noon we crossed the pasture and moved into an old logged over area and got setup. The tom cut me off from about 300 yds away before I finished my first call. It took about 45 min to get him to come off his strut zone he was real fond of but once he broke he came fast. From about 150yds out we could see his fan coming. He'd come about 30 yards gobble and strut periscope and look around and I'd call and he'd gobble and start walking again all the way into about 40yds.... I think he would have come right into our laps but 3 horses came over the hill and started walking right for us. I could see how this was gunna play out in my head so I told my son to shoot...click...oh that's right we forgot to put a shell in because of fences we had to cross. LOL I gotta hand it to my son he calmly jacked in a shell and dropped the bird as it was trying to figure out what was going on. We found a spot to take pics and sat and talked about the show the bird had just given us when my son said he could hear hens off in the direction the tom had just come from. I figured it was this birds hens but let out a cackle anyway...nope there was another tom. Long story short they wernt coming in, BUT while calling to them my son could hear more toms way way way off in the distance so we stayed put. We finally spotted them on the other side of the drainage about 1/2 mile away on some other property. Knowing that there was a creek, at least 2 fences, a county rd and another fence between them and us didn't give me high hopes but they were screaming and ive had turkeys do some crazy stuff to get killed before so we stayed put....Plus I had that landowners phone number in my phone and was pretty sure he'd let us hunt. 2hrs later they moved off.
We picked up and headed for the truck. A quick phone call and I was told "go kill them all" lol gotta love some old ranchers. So we moved in and set up. My calls got a fast response but they were in the creek bottom a long way down the creek. This rancher also had horses and they thought we were the most interesting/scary thing they had seen in a while. Id call, turkeys would gobble closer and closer and the horses would walk up to about 40yds and spook and run off...this was repeated over and over for about an hr. Finally 3 big toms popped out of the bottom into the open about 500yds away and started coming up the 2-track along the pasture edge. Pretty quick they were at 60yds and closing...at which point the horses trotted over to them spooking them as they once again trotted off. They didn't spook to bad though an quickly got back on track but wouldn't break 60yds. Then they started moseying off, still gobbling. When they crested the hill I figured what the heck and broke loose with some aggressive cutting and cackles...and here they came at a trot. At 40yds I picked out the one with the biggest beard..and the worst tail.
All in all a better than average day in the MT turkey woods. Even though our 3 day trip turned into 1 long day it was great
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CampRipleyLF
Active member
Sounds like an awesome three days. Congrats!
Some nice birds, congrats everyone. Phutch and family are turkey killing machines!
Finally caught up to an R3 Tom after 2 weeks of hard hunting, these birds have been pressured hard, had to employ some old eastern call shy tactics. ;-)
20 lbs, 9.5” beard
Finally caught up to an R3 Tom after 2 weeks of hard hunting, these birds have been pressured hard, had to employ some old eastern call shy tactics. ;-)
20 lbs, 9.5” beard
406LIFE
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2016
- Messages
- 3,128
I have not been out since opening weekend. Gonna have to change that after seeing everyone's good looking birds.
Doublecluck
Well-known member
Took a neighbor kid out today. We met last summer when I had a garage sale, he was interested in getting in to waterfowl hunting and got some items I was selling. This fall we took him duck hunting a couple times and now his first turkey. Seems like a good kid, neither of his parents hunt and his brother lives out of state.. I think he had a good time..
Great job getting someone new out. It's a dying tradition if we don't get the younger generation out there.
Yah Phutch if you’re talking about specific hills near a specific small mountain town then yes (Lol), but in all seriousness, they have been getting hammered w pressure, I will probably Hunt Central MT more next year, I feel like I’m hunting birds in the Eastern US and I don’t like that.
My rule is When they are pressured hard, sleep in and hunt from 10-2, just sayin.....��
My rule is When they are pressured hard, sleep in and hunt from 10-2, just sayin.....��
Rat Fink
Member
I killed a bird there opening morning. Glad I did because it has been a zoo ever since. We will get back out there this weekend trying to get the wife a bird. We hunt with our two sons ages 6 and 4 so it is a bit more difficult but they absolutely love it. They were with me when I got mine opening morning, which I why I shot a jake so they could experience it. Best turkey hunt of my life watching them take it all in.
