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.
cold weather spring turkey hunting
Moderator: Excalibur Marketing Dude
cold weather spring turkey hunting
axiom
350 SE
350 SE
Re: cold weather spring turkey hunting
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.
W.M.
W.M.
-
- Posts: 1823
- Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:20 am
- Location: ontario
Re: cold weather spring turkey hunting
We still have some snow here but thy are gobbling and strutting up a storm..
addicted to canadian beaver
Re: cold weather spring turkey hunting
Congrats on the jake
vixen 11
exocet 175 with Aging custom stock #27
Exocet 175
exocet 200
matrix 355
Micro Camo 335
Micro Nightmare 335
380 Lynx
BJ custom arrows
Boo string on vixen
exocet 175 with Aging custom stock #27
Exocet 175
exocet 200
matrix 355
Micro Camo 335
Micro Nightmare 335
380 Lynx
BJ custom arrows
Boo string on vixen
-
- Posts: 3433
- Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:41 pm
- Location: Southern Michigan