Spring Turkey

Toad

Toad

Active member
Seems like a good time to get a Spring turkey thread going.:D Feel free to post reports, pics of flocks, or pics of you and yours holding dead birds.:thumbsup:

I was talking to one of the two big land owners I know (not me :laugh:), and asked him how his turkeys were doing this year. He gave me the standard farmer answer of, "there's a few around"... But he said he saw his big flock last weekend and figured it was down about 1/3 over the long-term average. But he also said it was bigger than he expected it might be, and said he was seeing some odd sized turkeys due to a late hatch last year. He blames Spring rains and Summer heat for the numbers being lower than average.

I couldn't put as accurate a number on it as he did, but I think our flock at home is still much smaller than it was 10 years ago. I would have guessed half.
 
Toad,

I sure saw plenty hunting deer in the fall in NE KS and had 15 or so on a trail cam. I am getting excited/ ready too! Will be putting the cameras back out this weekend. I hope when the family gets back from vacation I will have a few strutters on film.

Let's keep this thread full of pics. Shooting the new CZ 612 Wildfowl this year with a I- phone camera mount from S4 gear. Will see if it hold up to a turkey load. Also taking my boss and another virgin gobbler killer out from the office on hunts. That should be fun. I like calling them in for others more I think now as I get older.

Final plan is go west to kill a Rio's too in late April with the boys. :thumbsup:

Kick'em Up!
 
Heading for the Happy Hunting Grounds April 9th to be afield at zero dark thirty on opening morning. If I bag a morning tom, I will head to my cousin's farm in another unit and try for an evening bird. Have "doubled" like that twice. Makes for a short spring season but a great day of hunting.
 
I'll be out after them this year. My daughter and I half heartily chased them a couple of times last spring. That was the first year I hunted them in over 10yrs. Interferes a lot with my spring fishing!
 
I found these while running the dogs last week. I had seen feathers on the property, but nothing that showed them being on the land recently.

Looks like a Tom following a hen,


Feb13_573.jpg
 
good timing toad i to will be down in KS chasing rio grandes for the 4/10 opener after opening OK turkey season on 4/6-4/9... we have done well there in KS the last 2 yrs so hope its a repeat of the last couple seasons!!! then off to SD to try for a prairie unit merriams hunt 4/13-4/17 & back home to MN for our big ol easterns 4/22-4/26

i guy i met in KS last yr from CO who hunts the same public lands i do mentioned the birds there being down also... i seen tons of birds so i just thought he was in the wrong spot lol??? to be honest i have never seen a jake while in KS on 3 different trips there but have seen tons of toms & hens???

hope my area is doing ok???

good luck all you other KS turkey chasers out there...
 
You shouldn't have any problem killing one of those T-Rex birds here....... Plenty to go around.
 
turkey stuff

what one see's don't mean much but as i have said in other post, this past winter i have never seen so many birds and as stated, actual count on one flock was 527. any way, this wed. i am putting out my two blinds so the birds can get used to them and plan on shooting one with the bow on 4/1 then for the shotgun season i have a buddy flying in from wash. state and will shoot my 2 nd bird then. got an invite to hunt meriams around grand jucntion colorado and am going to do it, that starts the 4/13. on this hunt think i will borrow a real shotgun just in case

cheers
 
decoys

in as much as someone has broken the turkey ice on a pheasant show, here it is. in the course of a season, mainly in n. w. kansas, rio's, i often use decoys and anywhere from 1 to 3 and mostly hens, sometime a jake. if i had to make one statement i would say they rarely work and more often then not make the birds more alert. never have i seen a tom come in with lust or fight on his mind and because i am using mostly my bow or 14 ga. i let them get really close, in fact i have had them trip over the guy rope holding my blind in place. the video's surely show that some people are having better luck decoying than me. the question is in as much as many of these video's are showing i believe eastern's and i am hunting rio's, could that be the case? any thought out there, comments. i shoot a quite a lot of birds so this is based on lot's of encounters, mostly in the spring but i also hunt the winter birds.

cheers
 
we use decs for the first couple of days,after that the toms have wised up to them,just standing there not moving around.If you can get them old boys to gobble you from the tree,just be patient,he will come by to see whats up sooner or later.
 
I agree that what I see may not give an accurate count, but my source would know. He is farming and ranching on a lot of acres, and he is out on the land all day every day. But don't let his estimate of the population scare anybody off. He's on some of the best turkey ground in the state, in fact KDWP has trapped birds off his property at times in the past for relocation.

There are lots of turkeys around. When I talk about the numbers we had in this area ten years ago... it seemed like there was a turkey behind every blade of grass. The numbers were just crazy at the time.

I didn't want to sound gloom and doom.;) The turkeys are doing just fine and a healthy harvest wouldn't hurt them at all.:thumbsup:

Somewhere I have a trailcam pic from the Fall I need to post.
 
Have used decoys for nearly every Rio I have shot in the spring, putting them in open fields. They usually come right to them. Occassionally they stop at some distance but are usually in range. Last spring had the first angry Rio who put his breast up against the jake decoy's and was kind of hissing. In a wooded area just calling did the trick.
 
strutting stuff

just got back from parts of two days checking on MY turkey. couldn't count them all but did try, every time i got to about 200, the other half would move. saw one tom trying his luck at the ladies, he was doing about as good as i used too. there were about another doz. tom's with their fans up but i think there were really just seeing if they still worked, apparently not, saw 4 chickens flush and about 20 snow's. wheat didn't look much better but the ground did have moisture in it

cheers
 
Musti, I saw quite a few strutting here this week also. There must be a lotta love in the air.:eek:

Nice pics, Steve!:10sign:

Got some work to do at the farm tomorrow, so I will have to pull that SD card and see if I can find that Fall turkey pic.:cheers:
 
I think right know the toms are establishing their pecking order ,so to speak.
Hens will be heating up when temps heat up,so the only love is one sided right know.Heck I saw strutters in the dead of winter,its an on going thing with the young jakes coming into their 2nd year,thinking that they can run off the older boys.I bet if you could watch them long enough,you would see some pretty good fights about know.Thats always been a good tactic for me,if you get a couple of birds to hang up,do a fighting purr on your slate call,brings em in to see whats going on.If they won't come for love,they will come to fight. Just my 2 cents
 
I've seen strutting all times of year, not just in spring.
 
Has anyone gone scouting locations yet? Have they started to gobble? was going to go this am but weather kept me in,getting fired up.
Since the decline in the quail population done here in SEK, turkey hunting has become my main deal.Never would of thought that 10 years ago.
 
Very nice pics Steve and I like that you chase them with stick and string as well. I would suspect with the rising temps here soon that the birds will also begin to pick up. It won't be over night by no means. I believe that when season rolls around you will be in good shape if the weather stays pretty constant. They should be starting to gobble as the nights are staying warmer too now.
 
weather

on any given day, weather sometimes plays a role but then that's a maybe. believe that daylight is what is really important, worry about the weather, you'll end up staying home, turkey are not going to stop being turkey's just cause of the weather

cheers
 
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