Monday, Apr. 11, 2011-day #17
Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2011-day #18
Since I did not scout Monday I was forced to prospect this morning. I covered a number of roads without getting any response from a gobbler. I did call up a hen on the road near a spot we call the persimmon tree. It was a pretty slow morning.
Wednesday, Apr. 13, 2011-day #19
I started out on the North end of the creek road this morning and ended up going in to my stand at the west fence. When I got to within calling distance of the hammock I stopped and made an excited cut call. I was immediately answered by a hen cutting back at me. Since that was all I had to go on I thought I'd play it out and how there was a gobbler with them.
I needed to close the distance a little so I moved their direction. It was so think you couldn't see 10'. I never came into any place that was open enough to set up and call. Finally I was actually within gun range of them and there was just no place to call from. The hens were still aggressively calling to me but there was nothing I could do. I had just decided to go back when I heard one fly, then another. Amazingly, they flew almost vertically up into a big yellow pine. They had flown up for a vantage where they could look for me. One of the hens walked up and down the limb she was on calling and looking. She would hop up to another limb and do the same thing. It was a pretty interesting to see.
It was getting up in the morning so I decided to slip out of there and head for work. On the way out I cut some track sign in the road. It was a gobbler and a hen that had come from a big head where they had roosted and crossed the road headed to a pasture just up the hill. The gobbler strutted his way up a dim road and I believe this is the remaining bird from the duo I have been hunting.
This was an interesting discovery and I started making plans for an afternoon hunt.
Late that afternoon I got there in time to get set up between the pasture and the roost where the turkeys had roosted. The sign on the sandy knob indicated that a number of turkeys had been using this spot and there were plenty of big gobbler tracks. I was a little disappointed that I had not put 2 and 2 together and already figured this out.
Unfortunately, even though the plan was sound, the birds roosted elsewhere that night and I did not hear nor see any turkeys.
I decided to spend the night at camp and do some tracking with the head lights.
At the persimmon tree, I found where a gobbler had been in my wheel sign from that morning. His track entered the woods at the fork in the road but I found it again just down the road. I tracked down the road to a 4way intersection where he had gone left. I ended up following him a half a mile until he finally left the road at an old sink hole.
I did not know how late in the day he turkey had been there but I hoped he would be roosted on the hill not to far away.
Thursday, Apr. 14, 2011-day #20
I waited at the sink hole and did some calling but never heard a gobble. I did get a response from a hen roosted on the other side of the road but I pulled of and headed off to do some prospecting. That turned out uneventful as well and the turkey sign on the roads was weak.
Friday, Apr. 15, 2011 - day #21
This turned out to be one of the best hunts in quite some time, a real classic! It's a pretty long story so I'll put it on it's own post to follow.
These turkeys were still finding low bush acorns!
The hen in this photo took advantage of an aggressive atv tire that had
broke up the clay in the road to get a dust bath! pretty smart!
Larry S.
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