The ride up to my friend's place on Tuesday was terrible! Low 40's for temperature, driving cold rain out of the Northeast, just a really nasty day! But, we were going turkey hunting, so there's that. The cabin is heated with a wood burning stove, so it took a bit to get the place warmed up, got a fire going and then unpacked and set-up the cabin for our stay. Wednesday morning, the opening day, broke clear and sunny, but cold, in the low 30's. The woods show very little signs of spring, most of the trees not even budding out yet. So the woods are pretty wide open, you can see a long way, so, so can the turkey's. Short of our usual starting place, a tom was sounding off with an incredible amount of gobbling, so we started out in a new place! Lol! The tom gobbled on the roost just about more than I've ever heard a tom gobbling on the roost, hardly taking a breath between gobbles, just one after another for almost a half hour! It almost got annoying... almost! Ha! He finally flew down and went directly away from us, following the hens that flew down just before him. We were able to call him back towards us, but with the woods so open, he couldn't see the hen he was hearing. He finally vacated the area as we listened to his gobbling get farther and farther away. So we moved on to the next spot. We raised gobbles at every set-up, one time we had 6 gobblers responding to us, we were surrounded. But again, the woods are wide open and they just wouldn't commit to coming all the way in. It was nice though, to see all the toms and hear all the gobbling, no shortage of birds. As the morning progressed, set-up after set-up resulting in lots of action but no bird on the ground, we went back to the cabin for a quick sandwich and to strategize. After the sandwiches we went up to what we call the top timothy field. One side of the field breaks down pretty quickly into a creek bottom that is a main travel corridor for turkeys. I set up on the edge under an apple tree, sat down, masked up, didn't even call yet and was rewarded with a gobble not even 5 minutes afterwards from the creek bottom. I let go with some yelps and purrs and could tell a tom was headed my way by the approaching gobbles. 2 toms came up from the bottom, cleared the brush at the edge of the field and broke into a strut. I picked out the bigger of the 2, putted, he stuck his head up, and well... that was the end of my first season. I don't use decoys and it wouldn't have taken long for the toms to realize something was up and left. So from sit down to collecting the birds was all of about 15 minutes, pretty quick. After taking care of my bird, I put my gun away and we continued on hunting as my friend still had a tag. We had tons of action, a lot of worked birds, but to no avail for my friend. We did see a first on the property, at least for me. On the second morning we snuck into another great area and listed to the woods wake up around us. As it got lighter, we could see movement in the creek bottom, but it was still too dark to make out what it was. After a little time and it getting brighter, we could make out 2 bear in the creek bottom. We've seen tracks before, but this was the first time I've actually seen them. It was time for tree yelps to see if there would be a response and as we started with the soft calls, the bear weren't impressed and left going up the far side of the creek to be seen no more. Again, lots of gobbling, lots of action, no results. Next week I head up to my place by Green Bay and see what happens, can't wait for round 2!



21 pounds, 11" heavy beard, 1-1/4" heavy spurs...

Nice!

Congrats Dean! Nice bird! I'm heading to the UP on the 15th.

Nice turkey Wisconsin is a state I've never hunted.

Thanks guys! smitty_bs, good luck to you up there.

CONGRATS !!!!

Trophy of a bird there Dean. Congrats!!!

Nice! Well done!

Congrats.

I miss hunting in central Wi with my Father in law. Aaron Rogers turned my hunting spot into a golf course...

Where the new sx4 20 gauge? I was hoping to get a user review on it because I'm getting tempted to get one.

Great hunt and story. Congratulations

I guess there were some signs of spring... the Trillium were starting to pop out...



and these little things...



But it was still cold enough that there were no frogs singing down at the pond...

Good work deano 👊🏻