Turkey Hunting 2005 |
April 18, 2005
Piff and I went down to Adams County and hunted the opener of Ohio’s four week spring turkey season. As we were getting our gear together we could hear gobbling in the distance towards the neighboring property. While making our way to the property line we could hear hens yelping and toms gobbling to the east and north sides of the adjacent properties. These were the same wooded areas where the turkeys were heard last year. After avoiding a close encounter with a skunk we sat up against a few cedar trees in the pasture and called to the birds off and on for a few hours. All the while we could hear the birds yelping and gobbling in the distance. They calmed down around 8:00 or so and we stayed put for another hour without any turkeys showing up. We then split up and headed to different ends of the property and tried calling for an hour or so without any response. Around 10:30 I went back to our first position and met up with Piff. After about 15 minutes of calling I heard some hens yelping on the neighbor’s property to the north. I thought that maybe a tom was with them so I made my way to the property line and called. Soon a tom gobbled! He was in the wooded hillside on the neighbor’s property. He sounded like he was about a hundred yards away. I tried different calls until I found out that he responded to my box call the best. While waiting him out I had a small bird land on my gun barrel reassuring me that I was well concealed. He would occasionally answer but he didn’t come any closer. From the sounds of his gobbles I could tell that he was moving around the hillside. At the property line a small ditch went under a fence. I knew from the past the turkeys crossed under the fence there so I set up close to the crossing and hoped that he would eventually show up. After a half hour or so I heard him at the fence line but at the top of the hill on the neighbor property. He would not come down to the crossing. I slipped away and met up with Piff and told him that I had a gobbler answering but he would not come over to our property. We went back towards the tom and called from a different position. He didn’t answer at first but when I tried a gobble call he gobbled back. He was still at the top of the hill. We thought that he might come over now because he might figure another tom was moving in on his territory. He wouldn’t budge. I then slipped back to the crossing and hen called to him while Piff stayed put and gobbled at him. He would gobble back but would commit. We eventually ran out of legal hunting time that ended at noon. We had to give up on him but we think that he will still use that spot as a strutting zone and plan to be ready for him to show up the next time that were down there. |
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April 21, 2005
I hunted in Shelby Co. this morning. I heard one Tom gobble about 3 times after 6:30. Due to the infrequent gobbles I couldn’t get a fix on his location. I also heard a hen yelp softly one time. At around 7:00 I saw a turkey fly down from a tree about 75 yards from me. I couldn’t tell if it was a Tom or a hen. After about an hour or so calling I heard some clucking and putting behind me. It was a big hen with a 3 inch beard! I ran into her 3 other times throughout the morning. I never heard any more gobbles… |
May 1, 2005
Piff and I headed out about 4:15 a.m. for Adams Co. and arrived shortly before sunrise. After a brief visit with the land owner we grabbed our gear and made our way to the back of the property. Piff set up in the area where we encountered the late morning tom on our opening day hunt while I headed towards the east end of the property. Soon I heard two different toms gobble in the neighboring property next to me and one gobbling in the area close to Piff. I also thought that I heard one far behind me coming from the west end of the property. It wasn’t long when I heard a gunshot that came from the property near me. I stayed at my position for about an hour and a half and then headed to the woodlot behind the owner’s house. As I made my way to the woodlot I noticed a couple of rabbits chasing each other along the edge of the woods. When I finally got set up inside the woods, about 30 yards from the pasture, I had rabbits running all around me. There must have been 6 or 7 of them. They were running in circles and would pass about 10 feet from my boots as I was sitting propped up against a tree. Anyway, after calling a while I heard a tom gobbling somewhere in the pasture to the north of me. I repositioned myself to face the rolling pasture and continued to call off and on. Suddenly a hen appeared and I watched her as she made her way towards me. I could hear the tom in the distance and hoped that he was following her and that she would lead him to me. When the hen started to enter the woods she stopped suddenly and spotted the rabbits running around. She putted a few times then turned and headed down the fence line to the east. I never heard the tom gobble again after that! I then worked my way to the northwest end of the property while stopping occasionally and calling. I didn’t hear or see any turkeys so after about an hour I headed back to my original setup on the east side of the pasture. When I got there I looked at my watch and noticed that it was 10:45. I decided to set up there for the rest of the morning. I placed two decoys about 25 yards away from me off my left shoulder and I faced down the fence line that runs through the pasture. I was nestled in a group of cedar trees and I could see the rolling field in front of me. I could see along the fence line for about 50 yards but a lone cedar about 20 yards in front of me blocked my view along the rest of the fence line. Around 11:00 I heard a gobble way off in the distance and I hoped that maybe the big boys were getting lonely and were out looking for hens that weren’t yet nesting. About fifteen minutes later I noticed a bird on the other side of the fence working its way toward me. The cedar in front of me had blocked my view and I didn’t see the bird until it was about 50 yards away. It was a young tom, a jake. Suddenly three more birds appeared. They were three more jakes! I raised my shotgun and positioned myself so that I was looking down the barrel in the direction of the four birds. I called a few times but I did not get any reaction from them. I was hoping that maybe there was a tom behind them that I just couldn’t see because of the cedar tree that blocked my view. By this time I had a bead on the biggest one of the four. When he was about 30 yards away one of the other birds became nervous and started putting and running around in a panic. It was now or never. POW…I took the shot and feathers and birds flew everywhere! One bird flew over to my side of the fence and ran off while two more flew into the neighbor’s woods. The one I was aiming at laid there flopping on the ground. I quickly negotiated the fence and recovered the bird before he had a chance to get away. While it wasn’t a big mature gobbler I was not letting the opportunity get away. I haven’t shot a turkey in a long time. When I looked closer at the jake I realized that he had three beards, the longest about 4 ½ inches. |
May 15, 2005
Piff and I made the one hour and twenty minute ride down to Adams Co. to hunt the last day of the spring 2005 turkey season. I didn’t buy another turkey tag so I was just along to partake in Piff quest to bag his first Ohio turkey, or in other words, to wake him up if I saw any turkeys! We discussed our plan on the way down and decided to go to the back of the property where there has been a gobbler the two times that we have been down there. As we approached the fence line at sunup we heard a Tom gobble. He was in the same spot as the previous trips. He was in the little strip of woods across the fence where land slopped down to the creek. We hunkered down under a few big cedars that grew on the pastures edge. Soon we heard another Tom gobble in the area where I shot my turkey a few weeks ago. The two gobblers would sound off every now and then but would not gobble to our calling. We tried yelps, cuts, purrs etc., but the Tom would not come to us! They stopped gobbling about 7:30. We stayed there until 8:30 and then moved towards where we heard the second gobbler. He would gobble occasionally and seemed to be getting closer judging by the sounds of his gobbles. After about an hour 3 dogs came down a tree line between us and the Tom. When he gobbled again the dogs went his way and we never heard him gobble again after that. We then decided to go back to the area where we were at daylight to wait on the first Tom to come back to his strutting area. On the short walk back as we neared the creek I stopped Piff and told him that I thought that I heard a turkey purring down the hillside below us. We waited a minute or so and when we didn’t hear anything we took a few steps and then I saw a turkey scoot along the creek towards the woods. After we took a few more steps a turkey flew off of a limb high up in a tall tree above the creek. I don’t know what a turkey would be doing in a tree at that time of day unless something spooked it and it flew up to the limb to escape! We then went to the group of cedars and tried calling until noon but we didn’t hear or see any other turkeys. That’s it for the spring turkey season. It’s time to mulch the flower beds, cut the grass and mark off a few more things on the honey-do list so I can go fishing the first week of June. Steve |
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