2023 spring turkey!

[Tomahawk]

This year’s Jakes from NW Montana. Getting to hunt turkeys in the Ponderosas was super cool. About the time we were starting to think that waking up at 3:45 on a Saturday was a really dumb idea they gobbled hard in the pines up ahead and turned the whole day around.

 

[Gellar]

Well, I will bore you with my 2023 turkey. Here he is:
View attachment 277128

No, that's not a mistake. I got a big fat NOTHING, unlike everyone here. So, there won't be any of this in my future either.
View attachment 277129

No Turkey Leg Carnitas - to die for normally.

I'll just bore you with the last day's events.

It was raining at before dawn. Hard. I wasn't very enthusiastic, so I went out to breakfast with my wife and then came home and hung out as the rain gradually died out. By about 1pm, it looked like the rest of the day was rain free. I didn't really want to go but I felt guilty so I did. l

I did a slow walk and call routine for a couple of miles along some public land field borders. I was using my favorite home-made box call that I have used to kill a dozen birds. But today, not a peep, anywhere. Dead silent. Birds should be lurking just back in the timber in the shade and cover, but if they were, they weren't giving themselves away.

Finally I got to the back field and low and behold there is a mature tom out there. Maybe 50ish yards out and feeding away. Well that sure looked good. He had no idea that I was around and I'm somewhat imfamous for tagging out on the last minute of the last day. This was pretty close. Maybe 6:30 or so.

I snuck down to the field edge and got in position before I called. I even thought about taking a poke but 50 yds is a bit far, and it might have been 60 for all I really knew. But with a few soft yelps he should head my way easy. So I yelped really soft and just a few. His head came up. Then he went back to feeding. I yelped again. This time, his head shot out to the right side and his butt followed right behind as he vacated the premises stage Right just as fast as his feet could pitter-patter across the cover crop field. DANG! That sure went bad. Worse, this exact same scenario played out 2 days earlier in the exact same place with three idiot jakes of all things. Clearly, my calling sucks. Sounds just like very other year to me, but I'm clearing the fields of birds like I was riding a bulldozer.

Sunset was to be about 8:22 or something like that. Birds start flying up well before that, but there was just enough time to make a big hike down a bottomless ravine, up the other side on all fours and then hunker along the rim of this flat. It was a skinny piece. A triangular extension of a piece of private occupied all of the flat but a skinny little strip only a few 10s of feet wide or less where the flat dropped away onto an incredibly steep ravine on public where I had a hunch a bird was roosting regularly. It was a a bit of chore getting in there without making commotion or being spotted or trespassing, but but I'd been there once before and knew the route.

Got there, settled in front of a red oak just over the lip of the flat. Nothing for cover really but with just my head and shoulders above the flat and a few weeds around, I thought I might get lucky.

I yelped a few times, super soft. This time with a mouth call that I don't trust, but my box call was dead to me now. Nothing called back so I diddled around with my phone, read a few HT posts nearly fell asleep and then, unexpectedly, I thought i heard something. Or more like felt something. That deep vibrating "thrummmm" maybe. But I wasn't sure, and I didn't hear it again.

And suddenly, there he was! Under 20 yds! Right in front! Looking right at me! DANG! And instantly, I'm just a little kid with turkey-fever, and I'm thinking this is going to work! It's a miracle, I'm going to fill this tag yet, Carnitas are mine! But he has me totally pinned with my gun across my right leg, pointing in the right general direction but in my lap, not on my shoulder. So, what to do in the next instant? Well, not what I did. Which was schooch my head and shoulders down to meet the gun coming up, and awkwardly hurrying as he spotted my head movements and then fire a clean miss and then yet another. Both high and left with my cheek nowhere near being lined up on the buttstock. Holy Rookie, Batman, did I ever mess that up as the bird beat cheeks down the rim and the over the edge and gone forever, just like my carnitas.

So, woe is me. And now you know. But I sure have enjoyed and envied each and every one of these successful turkey pics. Just can't have one of my own to show you.

I’m not laughing at you but with you. Sorry for the luck this year at least you were on some birds. Maybe you can get a fall bird for carnitas!

 

[OPSTER246]

Congrats!!

 

[mdcrossbow]

No Turkey Leg Carnitas - to die for normally.





I yelped a few times, super soft. This time with a mouth call that I don't trust, but my box call was dead to me now. Nothing called back so I diddled around with my phone, read a few HT posts nearly fell asleep and then, unexpectedly, I thought i heard something. Or more like felt something. That deep vibrating "thrummmm" maybe. But I wasn't sure, and I didn't hear it again.

And suddenly, there he was! Under 20 yds! Right in front! Looking right at me! DANG! And instantly, I'm just a little kid with turkey-fever, and I'm thinking this is going to work! It's a miracle, I'm going to fill this tag yet, Carnitas are mine! But he has me totally pinned with my gun across my right leg, pointing in the right general direction but in my lap, not on my shoulder. So, what to do in the next instant? Well, not what I did. Which was schooch my head and shoulders down to meet the gun coming up, and awkwardly hurrying as he spotted my head movements and then fire a clean miss and then yet another. Both high and left with my cheek nowhere near being lined up on the buttstock. Holy Rookie, Batman, did I ever mess that up as the bird beat cheeks down the rim and the over the edge and gone forever, just like my carnitas.

So, woe is me. And now you know. But I sure have enjoyed and envied each and every one of these successful turkey pics. Just can't have one of my own to show you.
[/QUOTE]

This is why I hunt with a pop up ! LOL I like diddling with my phone. I did shoot one this season with my back to a tree. The last one and it was over before it really got started and he had no idea what was coming.

 

[Chad Gus]

I limit myself to, two birds a year here, locally, so i try and prolong it as long as possible. Today i filled my 2nd tag on a nice tom.
17 pounds, 10 inch beard and inch spurs. Hunted this bird off and on for the last 10 days, before i finally got him to come in, this afternoon.

 

[jpc01101]

First day in Montana and am doing some turkey hunting before the season goes out on 31st. My question is for anyone hunting anywhere near the Bitterroot. Where do the Tom’s go late season. I was covered up with hens this AM but didn’t hear a single gobble responding to a turkey call or a crow call. Are they done with the hens at this point? Do they go higher on the mountain? Lower? Thanks to anyone with any advice.

 

[Gellar]

All this turkey carnita talk has me craving turkey carnitas!

 

[phutch30]

I swung down to WY this past weekend to cross it off my list. It was a fun trip, but I'm not used to seeing grizzlys in the creek bottoms I'm turkey hunting in. I videoed one after it came out of the creek bottom less than 100yds from where I was sitting in the truck after having just come out of the same creek bottom. But it won't lete post...anyway, I figured it was time to stop being picky and fill the turkey tag and get out of there

 

[phutch30]

First day in Montana and am doing some turkey hunting before the season goes out on 31st. My question is for anyone hunting anywhere near the Bitterroot. Where do the Tom’s go late season. I was covered up with hens this AM but didn’t hear a single gobble responding to a turkey call or a crow call. Are they done with the hens at this point? Do they go higher on the mountain? Lower? Thanks to anyone with any advice.

They scatter to the winds honestly. Try higher elevations at first light to locate, beyond that cover ground to find a active bird

 

[mmazour]

Had birds a bit skittish this year and was trying to get them right for my son. This bird skirted us 3 separate times at just over 50 yards after coming hard gobbling the whole way for an hour...when he tried it yet again that morning, I was furstrated and as he skirted, I took a longer shot than I would normally have and my son wasn't comfortable with. Stoned him with #7 TSS.

 

[dodgermax]

This year’s Jakes from NW Montana. Getting to hunt turkeys in the Ponderosas was super cool. About the time we were starting to think that waking up at 3:45 on a Saturday was a really dumb idea they gobbled hard in the pines up ahead and turned the whole day around.
View attachment 277136

Nice pics and those are great kill. Congrats buddy.

 

[BenP]

Turkey leg and thigh Brunswick stew from one of the turkeys this year.