Its turkey season dont ya know

[davetclown]

ya, I have been out three days lookin fer turkey day dinner, a coon eated my turkey day and christmas day turkey dinners. so I am looking to replace it with the next best thing...

I have seen a few hundred birds, no luck getting close enough to shoot one with a shot gun, you have to use shot no bigger than number 4's, which means you have to be close....

anyone having any better luck?
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[lonehunter]

8:30 am every morning at my back door a group comes by to pick up the lady bugs on the ground , no tag for me !
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[davetclown]

public and privet tags gone already?

I have turkeys in my back yard but I also have neighbors in my back yard too...

the domestics turks are no more, they disipeared in a coon belly...
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[davetclown]

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[left]Well its almost that time of year, where you will need your mittins in the great lakes state of michigan, tho you couldnt tell by the 80 degree weather we have been bostin about for the last week...

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[left]I would like to say it was opening morning, but alas it was far from opening morning, not even opening day, but on fryday following the opening day of monday of the week.

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[left]the first few days I hunted I sat alone, enjoying the solitude peice and quiet other than the on going traffic on the road and ocational aircraft fly bys.

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[left]I sat for the first tree days waiting for a turk to come walking by close enough for a head shot with a shotgun. I did not want to fill the bird with a shot blast from a distance... so close is imperitive in this hunt.....

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[left]"12 gage" one of two fire arms we are allowed to hunt turkeys with here, the other is bow.. or cross bow if you have a handy cap permit.

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[left]lots of skeeters and lots of bees enjoying the indian summer. ya frost has hit but not hard so the grass has not layed down.

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[left]I had hopped for some morning fog like I had a couple weeks earlier while deer hunting, but alas we got clear mornings with infinate visibility....

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[left]each morning I heard the turkeys in the tops of the trees behind me, so ya, I knew they were there, it would only be a matter of time before they would come walking in...

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[left]three days whent by and yes I saw lots of birds, flocks and flocks of them, ranging in all different ages from only a month or so old up to grand daddy toms..... 100's of them going in all different directions but the direction I was sitting....

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[left]now since I was looking for a turkey day dinner, I realy didnt care as to weather or not I got me a prize turkey... an edible one would suite me just fine...

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[left]so I sat, feild glasses in hand, watching turkeys from a distance and an ocational deer walking by close enough to spit at.

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[left]I took off day 4 to do some chores that I had been putting off for a good long while, ya know me, dont do today what I can put off till next month.[:p]

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[left]wouldnt ya know it, day 4 it rained the night before, and fog had rolled in that morn, the fog lifted and I get a phone call from my brother wanting to know why I didnt shoot! I said what do you meen why didnt I shoot, he said there a twenty pounder standing not 10 feet from where I was sitting! he said he sat there for 15 minutes waiting for me to shoot and nothing, the turkey walked quietly in to the woods.. he said I figured you had fallen asleep so I called to wake you up and let you know one walked right by you.....LOL

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[left]well I had to bust out laughing and told him I was at home.

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[left]Day 5, back out on the farm again this time the sis in law decided she wanted a bird for the holidays and was going out with me.... she had picked up one of them turkey callers from meijers and brougt it out with her...

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[left]mind you this is the first year I had ever turkey hunted, so I had no clue as to what to do with a turkey caller, she said she hears them turkeys every day and figured she could make those sounds.

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[left]I wasnt to keen on the idea sitting next to some one who has never turkey hunted nor ever used a turkey call, But it is after all her farm, and I am a guest, and since I had no turks to say I knew any better she had the winning hand on that arguement. She said "How hard can it be?"

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[left]starting off to our little spot in the woods, yep you guessed it, half an hour late...[laugh] sun already up.

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[left]the temp was a balmy 55 degrees, no wind to speak of, patches of semi drifting fog rolling up from the near by pond slowly moving across the feild in to the woods.

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[left]half way back in to our spot, we spot him, a twelve pointer, at least 200lbs if he weight an ounce and another buck just as big standing beside him grazing.... ya we are a good 300 yards from him, we stopped walking and watched them untill they gently and quietly walked in to the woods on the other side of the feild.

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[left]turning left we spot a six pointer had stuck his head out watching us not more than 30 feet up the path from where we stood. doing a quick 180 in less than a second flat all that was left was the white flag and then nothing, he was gone...

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[left]a couple more steps further up the path we go and the next thing we here is honkers, yep canadian geese. a pair making a bee line right to us, here we are standing a feild in blazing orange and two beutifull specimens are right over top of us, not that we had a license nor knew if the season had opened back up on them, there they were tree top high, you couldnt have asked for a better shot...

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[left]we start walking to our spot again and wouldnt ya know it? streight ahead 100 yards, two more does are standing, grazing, not even caring if we were there...

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[left]we stood quietly and decided we would aproach them slowly to see how close we could get to them before they saw us and scurried off, they looked right up at us, we froze in our steps, one feeding and the other looking, taking turns, each time both had turned their head away from us we incroached a little further... we must have been doing this for a good hour, we had managed to get with in 60 feet of them, and still they did not seem to care that we were there...

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[left]then here comes another pair of honkers, again bee line right over top our heads at tree top high... the doe's looked up at the geese and stepped over the mound at the end of the feild out of our site...

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[left]from that point we only had twenty more feet to go to sit. and that is where we sat 10 feet apart...

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[left]being that close we had to have some game rules.. since I was a guest, I chose to shoot second, figured I would get me a nap while she was making chirping noises [angelic].

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[left]but to have a little fun with her I said if you call in a flock, I will take the one on the far left and you take the one on the far right... make sure the head is sticking up streight in the air before you shoot. and we will shoot together at the same time from a count down from 5.

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[left]I place my gun in my lap, lean back agains a tree, and I am about to nod off listening to chirps that didnt sound like any turkey I ever heard before... thought for sure I was going to get me a couple hours before she got tired of making noises.... NOPE, fat chance that was, it wasnt five minuts that she had called her first flock in, granted it was a hen with a half dozen little one that couldnt have been more than a month and a half old, standing 30 feet away from us...

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[left]she stopped chirping and we both shook our heads NO... we wanted no part of that... we watched them scratch for bugs in the grass and leaves, while ocationaly she would make a chirp or two causing the hen to look up at her...

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[left]and slowly as the little family of turkeys came in they walked back in to the woods out of site...

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[left]once again, some what bewildered, I leaned back against the tree looking forward to my nap this time with not so much confidence that I would get one as was before.

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[left]Sure enough, I can hear them, they were chirping back at my sister in law as she makes them funky sounds... I couldnt believe my ears, and whats more they were coming directly to us!....

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[left]I started looking a little more intentitively, I saw 3, comming though the woods, no! 4! no 6! no! 10! no! there had to be at least 20 toms walking though the woods directly twards us.

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[left]I signeled to her with my fingers "2" two fingers meaning we were both going to shoot at the same time!

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[left]they came in closer, she kept chirping, I was wondering if she was ever going to stop, my hands were sweating, I was getting nervous thinking the birds were going to look directly at her chiping and flee in to the woods..

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[left]she didnt stop chirping untill the birds had reached the edge of our circle. waiting for the biggest flock of trukeys I had ever seen out side of a turkey pen to fully enter the target range, I could not beleive my eyes..

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[left]I held up my hand with 5 fingers to start the count down as per previously agreed. 4, 3, 2, 1- KA-BANG!!!! my gun goes off and I only see one bird down, all the rest are scurrying around not knowing what happened and I looked at my sis and was pleading with my eyes and silentyl with mouth shoot!... shoooooot! and then whooof! turkeys flying every where, in every direction...

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[left]and I thought oh no, she wasnt going to get one, and I started to look at the birds in fleet then Ka-BANG!!! OFF GOES THE REMING 870 WITH 3 INCH MAG. at a distance of I'd say a good 75 feet a turkey drops to the ground....

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[left]I was never more relived nor impressed by her sportsmanship and shooting ability....

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[left]I of corse got the honors of cleaning the birds, after all she did the hard part....

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[left]the harvest, two - two year old toms.... 8 lbs each.... Dressed to 5+

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[center]sorry guys, she didnt want her picture taken

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