2. Getting up at 3 AM sucks.
3. The toms always seemed to be hooked up with hens right off the roost so calling doesn't seem to do much good. I think knowing or guessing their direction of travel and cutting them off would be a better morning tactic.
4. The toms did not like my decoys and wouldn't come close. My decoys are those foam ones you can fold up in a pack. Where's big bio when you need him?
5. without decoys the toms would just come only so far then leave when they could'nt see a hen.
6. I noticed that every day about 3 PM the toms would get fired up and gobble. I think that they were with hens that came off their nests for a while?
7. I never got a single gobble by running and gunning.
8. turkeys are much smarter than magicman!
9. I was never able to determine a pattern and their daily movement seemed to be very random.
10. I had my best luck on the nicest weather days.
I do feel the hunt was a success because I had a dandy tom within shotgun range on the first day but I had my bow. He came by at 7:30 AM with a flock of hens and jakes. He returned about 4 hours later and strutted for my decoys but locked up at 50 yds. He started making a puck, puck, puck, noise and buggered out of there. He came back about another 4 hours later and did the same thing but he didn't get as close. I had a few more encounters with toms over the 5 days but nothing close enough to shoot. I got some cool wildlife footage on my video camera. It must be squirrell mating season because them suckers were going nuts chasing each other around. I found one spot way back in where there were at least a dozen squirrells going crazy and they were not scared of me at all. They practically were running over my boots! If I was good at editing I would put together a short video. Maybe if I find the time I'll put something crude together. The hunt was fun but frustrating because I really wanted to take one with my bow. I got close but never loosed an arrow. I did carry my scatter gun when I was running and gunning. I constantly had to fight the urge to do some deer scouting which I gave into temptation on a few occasions. I hooked up with matson123 (Adam) on Sat. afternoon. We walked his hunting land then planned to do some turkey hunting but his Dad showed up with some apple trees that needed planting. Adam is a great guy and I'd like to do some scouting of the public land near him sometime down the road.
