cold weather spring turkey hunting

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grouse
Posts: 830
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:08 pm
Location: Missouri

cold weather spring turkey hunting

Post by grouse »

I have been a spring turkey hunter for 40 years and this spring has been the most consistently cold one yet. There are always a few cold days, and I remember one year when there was snow on the ground on opening morning, but this year has been the coldest overall. During the last couple of weeks I did some pre-season scouting on my farm. I got up early to listen for gobbling and heard none. There is little or no vegetation or leaves anywhere. Turkeys eventually did appear in our crop field but they seemed to be in winter type flocks with no gobbling or strutting.

Opening morning was Monday (4/16) and the temperature was 26F with 25-35 mph northwesterly winds. I got out well before dawn and (of course) there was no gobbling (in an area with a good population of turkeys). I decided to call from a spot where the flock might pass by even if there was no response to my calling. The place I chose was near the southeast corner of the field so i was constantly blasted by the arctic winds, but it seemed like a good place to ambush a gobbler under the circumstances. About 25 minutes after shooting hours began 5 hens flew into the field about 100 yds. away. They milled around for about 15 minutes and were joined by 3 more hens. At this point I hoped they would go into the woods so I could go back to the house and warm up without spooking them. The group just walked around the field for a while and were soon joined by 10 more turkeys (18 in total now). A couple of the birds were obviously jakes but there were no mature gobblers. I hadn't called for over 30 minutes and didn't have a call in my mouth so I decided to sit still and hope they would wander my way. A couple of the hens headed in my general direction and the whole flock followed. One of the jakes was separated from the flock enough that I could take a 30 yard shot without hitting another bird (I confess, I grabbed my shotgun instead of my crossbow when I heard the wind howling earlier that morning). It was a clean head shot and a big jake (13-14 lbs). Maybe I'll carry the Excal when I go back next week.
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W.Miguire
Posts: 1662
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:26 pm
Location: Washington Island Wisc.

Re: cold weather spring turkey hunting

Post by W.Miguire »

Nice goen . you will have some good eaten with that jake. we have some 30" of snow here and our season opens today .I just hope that I 3 weeks it will be all gone .My week starts on the 9th. :clap:
W.M.
dutchhunter
Posts: 1823
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:20 am
Location: ontario

Re: cold weather spring turkey hunting

Post by dutchhunter »

We still have some snow here but thy are gobbling and strutting up a storm..
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mr meat
Posts: 5236
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2009 4:40 pm
Location: The land of ice and snow North Bay

Re: cold weather spring turkey hunting

Post by mr meat »

Congrats on the jake
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gerald strine
Posts: 3421
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:41 pm
Location: Southern Michigan

Re: cold weather spring turkey hunting

Post by gerald strine »

Congratulations on the harvest !
Hunt eat sleep repeat.
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