Spring Turkey

A Sensational Turkey Hunter Goof Up

July 6, 2017 by Charlie 6 Comments

Luck is an indispensable asset during any successful turkey hunt. Not just luck at the beginning but it requires luck at every intersection of the hunt. Take for example one of my recent hunts during Wisconsin’s last spring season. I had a surefire plan, also known in turkey hunting parlance as a preconceived notion.

The previous day I had a six and half hour calling duel with a blabber beak type of gobbler who did not have the good manners to come and show himself. We introduced ourselves at 8:45 A and chatted back and forth until 3:15 P. Tried the silent treatment on him several times, needed a break from all the noise not to mention the old fingers were in need of rest. Plus the wingbone pucker needed to ease off my face. But each time he matched the silence while moving off 100+ yards to then give that nana you can’t get me gobbles, this only made me more determined to kill him. No luck, so all that night as I slept, I dreamed up – The Plan.

After the three miles foggy Mississippi River boat ride, the tedious wet slog to Mr. Babbler Beak’s haunt begin. The determination to get this particular bird was dominating my thoughts even though a wrong step could have frigid water pouring into my knee boots. Swamp turkeys can be most provoking.

Less than a quarter of the way into the plan an urgent gobble erupts. An unaccounted for occurrence in the hunt is an intersection; the hunter must decide to continue or change of mind. An easy decision, change of the plan. I figured out a doable setup on a relatively dry finger of land, a few soft tree yelps and settled in for fly down.

Air swooshing through feathers followed by a dull thud marked his landing. Scratching out the most urgent yelps I could muster brought a robust series of approaching gobbles. Down went the slate and up with the gun, just in time he’s right there in strut with two hens flanking him. When he moves clear, the blast swirls the fog, and I launch up to claim my prize.

Except, there is no prize laying there. What the heck? I saw him go down, after searching the area I turn around to go back to the setup, perhaps I’m looking in the wrong spot. Uh, no, that ripped down sapling caught all the shot. The tom is unscathed.

I Swear there really was a turkey there, while sitting against this tree.

Here I am at another intersection, is this a sign to go on with the original plan or stay in the area and pursue this lucky gobbler.

Working my way in the direction the hens went pays off. They flush, rising straight up above the oaks heading different directions, excellent they are out the picture. The tom should miss them at some point and call out for his ladies. I grin when he does – I’ll do the answering.

One of the hens had a nest on an elevated piece of ground to keep it out of the coming flood.

Like the hands on a clock, I move forward listening carefully. At different points, a couple of does break cover crashing off leaving behind their well-hidden fawns. Who can pass up taking those pictures?

Need to be careful where a hunter steps today.

Another one! I really have to watch my step.

Gobbling begins in earnest somewhere up ahead, can’t pinpoint it exactly as I continue moving forward until I realize he is on another strip of land to the east. The water is too deep to cross so backtracking is required to a more amicable crossing point. Dang river has been at flood stage all spring making stealthy approaches on longbeards difficult at best.

The woodland is open, full of mature maples and oaks with good visibility on the strip he chose. This is good news in that I have a better chance of seeing him and bad news, he has an even better opportunity to see me. Move down a bank to sneak along the water’s edge, slipping on the mud occasionally but this breaks up my outline while allowing to see.

The tom’s course yelps carry through the mist to my ears telling me it is time to pick a spot and start talking turkey. Of course, these spots are never perfect, my seat sinks down, no matter it is showtime. My first calls are answered with robust gobbling that is closing in. And, of course, he is across the water from me as he walks by out of range. I amp up my calling as soon as his head goes behind some trees this causes him to spin back and walk his back trail right past out of range. My calls continue every time he can’t see me, his gobbles start to fade with distance. My hope is he is going cross back to my side somewhere up ahead. Taking advantage of the pause in action I reposition into a convenient blow down which provides me better cover and good visibility.

There’s a white/blue head bobbing its way towards me, stopping to look for danger and hens. At fifty yards he goes behind and large maple,

Turkey hunting is great if for no other reason plans change

seemed like he stayed there for an eternity. When a gobbler is searching like this silence is a turkey hunter’s friend. His juking head preceded him as came out trotting in full strut facing my position. At thirty yards dropped out of strut to start yelping. I won’t claim to know

The shot caught him mid yelp.

what he was saying in “turkey speak” but those were his last words.

Stressed Hen Turkey Struts and Drags Wings

July 6, 2017 by Charlie 2 Comments

Submitted by AWTDA

It’s a hard life, trying to protect seven babies by yourself! This hyper hen was in a near perpetual 3/4 tail strut, almost dragging her wings,
warning anybody that sees her she’s a formidable threat. Notice her head position is always on alert, she rarely gets something to eat herself, always on a lookout for danger. Where are them big tough gobblers, when a mother could use a little help around here?

Do hens suffer from the loss of gobblers? For more tiptoeing around the issue see AWTDA

Video of Wisconsin Wild Turkey Hen with Poults; Video added

June 29, 2017 by Charlie 10 Comments

Contributed and Written By; American Wild Turkey Hunting Dog Association

Here is another hen with her brood this morning. A beautiful hatch, despite that it has rained 15 out of the last 17 days here. Either it’s an old wives tale that getting wet will kill poults when less than 3 days old, or Wisconsin turkeys have evolved to tolerate it.
I count 13 poults. Only saw the one hen, but I suspect her cohort(s) was/were nearby. Two or more related hens will often lay eggs in the same nest, take turns setting, serving as sentinel and raising the brood, with adjacent barren hens and male turkeys announcing danger in the neighborhood.

Notice this hen has a slight beard – never shoot bearded hens.

How old do you think these poults are on June 29, 02017?

At 44.27° N Latitude in Wisconsin.

Update June 30, 2017 – Next day video

Going the other direction today. Four poults flew 3′ off the ground, by tonight they’ll roost in the trees.

Hard to Stop Turkey Hunting

June 28, 2017 by Charlie 8 Comments

The last day of Wisconsin’s 2017 wild turkey hunt dawned quiet, very quiet; at least as far as turkey sounds are concerned. The usual bird rush hour was in its normal fine form, but on this morning the turkeys apparently had other plans. The season has been rewardingly long this spring from the first week in April hunting Colorado Rios, moving up to Wyoming Black Hills for a snowy Merriam and back to

Take time to teach the next generation of hunters.

Wisconsin for some youth hunt mentoring until my first Wisconsin tag validation the last week of April. Not a morning missed, rain, shine, or somewhere in between and now here I set wearily reflecting on it all to the sounds of silence, the 30th of May with no complaints or regrets. Yeah, I missed a turkey or two and zigged when a zag was needed more often than I care to remember. It’s not good to focus on negative thoughts because if you do, they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

As the morning birdie rush hours fade into memory, I stand, stretch and give thanks. Wild turkey season has come to an end for me…Until later while walking the dogs, a lone gobbler takes to flight out of the VPA field and glides lazily to the opposite woodlot. It’s 1:30 in the afternoon, the season is still open, and I have two unpunched tags left. VPA is private land that the Wisconsin DNR leases for public access, the field is open for hunting but as is so typical the woodlot is not enrolled, so it is closed to hunting without permission of the landowner.

The internal debate heats up; tiredness makes its nagging request just to forget him and rest. While the prey drive says “two open tags and several hours to hunt a gobbler you can call out to kill.”

I feel sorry for the poor dogs after promising them on my return this morning that my hunt was over until the fall season and Vic would get the hunt the next time. Funny thing about plans, they are subject to change, and here I am setting up in some long grass barely able to see the freshly planted corn field, calling on a tongue teaser to what seems like wide open empty spaces.

2017 spring’s most effective call for me

As 3:00 rolls around my sanity in some quarters would be questioned and the of quitting continues to grow in appeal. The sun seems searing in intensity; you’d think the biting gnats would have their wings burned off, sadly it just appears to energize their bloodlust.

Time crawls to only 3:15; Has my watch stopped? Ok, enough for one spring; as I roll off the gobbler lounger to take a final 360 look around a neon blue spot moves on my right…How in the heck did he get that close without being seen? And, as always, these birds come in from the direction least expected.

Rarely, is movement helpful when a standing tom is staring at you at close range. However, he must have thought another turkey was moving around in the long grass causing him to up periscope for a better look-see, a fatal mistake. I rose to my knees and looked at the twitching gobbler through the shot-tunnel in the grass. Must be a mirage! Another tom is closing fast, heading directly to the dead bird and the end of my barrel.

Two toms, side by side.

For a moment I thought it was just a dream, so I waited for the empty field to rematerialize. But you know, the weight of 40+ pounds of turkey over your back brings reality into focus. On the half mile stroll back to the truck there was a moment or two when the memory of turkey tags still available and the season does not close until 8p something…hmm.

The Kamikaze Bird, by huntfishtrap

June 12, 2017 by Charlie 18 Comments

By, HuntFishTrap

The morning of May 5 brought clear skies and mild temperatures to my corner of Iowa, and I was itching to get back into the turkey woods again, after a 2-week layoff following the hunt for my first bird of the year, back in our 2nd shotgun season. We’re allowed two gun tags for spring turkey hunting here in Iowa, and of the 2 one must be for the 4th and final season, for reasons I have never heard explained by the powers that be.

Being strongly averse to rising early in the morning, I elected to set my alarm for 6 am, and then hit the woods after fly-down. Since it was a weekday when most of the competition would be at work, I elected to go to a public land spot where I had long wanted to kill a gobbler. The property had produced a number of close calls over the years, including missing a big longbeard two seasons prior, but I had always seemed to be snakebit there.

I pulled into the deserted parking lot a little after 7 and set off into the woods as the rising sun painted the just-emerging maple and oak leaves with shades of gold. I walked about a ½ mile into the timber before stopping to call for the first time, knowing from past experience that calling close to the parking lot is usually a waste of time on public land. The first series of yelps did not produce a response, so I kept going, stopping to yelp a few times every couple hundred yards or so. My destination was a ridge overlooking a large oak flat that often held birds, and I had almost reached it when I heard a faint gobble from somewhere off in the distance. I cut loose a few loud yelps on my go-to long-distance aluminum pot call and received an answer. Still, could not tell exactly where the bird was, so I eased up to the top of the ridge and tried again. This time the far-off gobbler was joined by another, much closer bird, somewhere down on the oak flat in front of me. I quickly scanned the trees around me for a good spot to set up and chose a large oak tree with a deadfall in front of it which acted as a sort of natural blind.

After settling in, it didn’t take long to ascertain that the distant tom was way down in a big valley on the other side of the oak flat, and was most likely a lost cause. But the closer gobbles were only a few hundred yards away, and it sounded like there might even be more than one bird. My first few series of calls brought immediate responses, and it sounded like the bird or birds were moving closer, but then they seemed to begin to lose interest. So I started switching calls, looking for something they’d like, but without much success. The occasional gobble would ring out, but they didn’t seem to be answering anymore. Finally, I got to one of my three wingbones, which I rarely use, and mostly carry for emergencies. That was the ticket, as they – by now I was certain there was more than one – started responding again, and began working their way closer. The birds got to within 200 yards, then hung up, and a stalemate ensued. I would call, they would gobble, but wouldn’t come a step my way. I knew the area quite well and didn’t think there were any obstructions that would prevent them from moving my way, so after about 30 minutes I was getting exasperated. Finally, I’d had enough, so decided to make a move.

I eased back over the ridge until I was certain the turkeys couldn’t see me and started looping around one side. The open oak woods didn’t offer much cover for trying to sneak up on anything, but I knew there was a small ditch on the far side of the ridge that I could use for cover if I could get there. I made it to the ditch and followed it as far as I could, until reaching the point where I had to climb out in order to keep moving in the right direction. At this point, I figured I was still at least 150 yards from the last gobbles I’d heard, but at least I was now on their side of the ridge. I elected to stop and call just before reaching the top of the bank above the ditch, but before I could get my wingbone out of my pocket the toms gobbled again, but they sounded much farther away. I cut loose with a little wingbone music and received silence in reply, tried again, the same result. I was standing there a little despondently, trying to figure out a new plan of action, when I heard what I thought was a hen putting just over a small rise in the ground, about 100 yards in front of me. That was followed immediately by a loud commotion that sounded like several turkeys running in the dry, crackly leaves.

I figured I had somehow spooked part of the flock I’d been hearing, and almost started to jog up to the top of the knoll to see if I could catch a glimpse of them, when a red head popped over the hill in front of me, followed immediately by two more! I froze in consternation because I knew that standing in the middle of the open woods without any cover near me was a recipe for disaster. But thankfully when they lowered their heads they disappeared behind the rise in the land again, and I could drop to my knees and scramble several feet backward until I was up against an oak tree. I just had time to raise my trusty 870 and steady it over one knee before they came trotting over the hill, headed right for me. At this point I was not certain what kind of birds were coming in – the gobbles I’d been hearing all morning had sounded a little choppy at times, like jakes – but the first bird in line was a nice long beard, and he was determined to be first to the party. He came trucking right toward me, beard swinging from side to side, while I tried to make myself small against the oak. While he was coming in, I heard a loud spit-n-drum from beyond the rise and saw a fan pop open, so I knew there were still more birds coming but was focused on the one at hand.
He paused at about 40 yards, and I almost shot him, but just as I was about to squeeze the trigger he kept coming, and I kept tracking him with the gun muzzle. Even in the heat of the moment, the thought popped into my mind, “This bird is like a kamikaze – I’m going to kill him, or he’s going to run me over!”. Finally at 25 yards, he started to slow down, and finally stopped and started giving me the old hairy eyeball, so I centered the bright fiber-optic bead on his glowing head and sent 2 ounces of #5s on their way. The gun boomed he dropped like a stone, and turkeys took off in every direction behind him. There were at least 5 or 6 different birds, a mix of jakes and toms. I will never know what made that flock suddenly reverse course and come right to me after essentially disregarding my calling for the previous 2 hours, but I’m not complaining. Sometimes the unpredictability of turkeys is bad, and sometimes it’s good.

When I looked at my watch, I saw that the time was 9:35 am, only 5 minutes later in the morning than when I killed my first turkey of the year, two weeks before. This bird would then tip the scales at 20 ½lbs, with 1 1/8” spurs and a 10 ½” beard. A nice 3-year-old tom. After snapping some photos, and stopping to enjoy the beautiful day for a while, I loaded the bird into my pack and set off on the 3/4+ mile walk back to my truck. The hard part of the hunt was just beginning, but it was a small price to pay for such an awesome morning in the turkey woods.

Are Turkey Hunts like Chess Match or Card Game of Chance?

June 10, 2017 by Charlie 20 Comments

What do you think? Is a wild turkey hunt more like a game chess in the woods or is it more like the card game solitaire?

Something, perhaps mostly unknown about charlie elk is the fact it took him five wild turkey seasons before he finally killed a gobbler.

What took him so long?

After all, he helped Minnesota catch grouse for the Minnesota/Missouri turkey/grouse exchange release program so he should have learned something about turkeys during that long restoration period. Well, not so fast. Charlie was an accomplished big game hunter who frequently stalked within longbow range of bedded cervids across the North American Continent. And then, in the early eighties along came the wild turkey opportunities.

After finally being drawn for a Minnesota turkey license in the zone where a band of turkey nuts, including Charlie had released turkeys from Missouri years before; the young, cocky, self-assured Charlie was humbled by a bird with a brain about the size of a walnut. It is amazing how a feathered bird-brained creature could be so elusive.

He planned all his hunts so carefully, doing research to determine in advance where the turkeys roosted, where they would want to go from roost and how they would get there, all to no avail. Then late one morning he saw a truck with plates from Missouri pull into the parking area, an elderly gentleman stepped out walked around surveying the area and then did some cutting on a long box call. Answered by a robust gobble, not more than 100 yards down the trail Charlie had just walked back to camp. The veteran hunter headed down the path and soon a there was a gunshot. The fellow came walking back with a very nice turkey over his shoulder.

The mistake Charlie had been making, in his humble opinion was that he’d been hunting turkeys using many of same tactics as he used for hunting big game. Big game animals do things for reasons that are quite apparent to an experienced hunter. Whereas the wild turkey does things that are apparently done for well, maybe no clear reason at all.

A lot of turkey behavior, if not most, is random, much like the shuffling of a deck of cards. For example, if a turkey is flushed and somewhere different with suitable habitat and maybe an available hen during the spring— that turkey is likely to be just as content in the new location as he was in the previous one, he’ll just roost in whatever tree is convenient as it gets dark. Once this randomness soaked into charlie’s sometimes, most times, dense head, he has killed a turkey in every season he has hunted over the last 40 years.

Wisconsin Turkey Season Winding Down

May 27, 2017 by Charlie 4 Comments

As this is written there are only three hunting days left to Wisconsin’s 2017 spring turkey season. For the most part, the toms have stopped gobbling to tip off their locations and they have started forming their summer time bachelor groups. This is the moment some hunters eagerly wait for because when the toms are properly motivated with gobbler talk, deep sounding clucks followed by a slow raspy yelp or two. Make sure it’s just one or two yelps clearly separated and not run together.

The added challenge much like in fall hunting is finding the turkeys. When turkeys form groups there will be more areas without and the other areas will have more birds.

After sleeping in until 5:00 a, sleep deprivation is taking its toll on me; a gobbler who has irritated me since early April by consistently strutting in the middle of a field I can’t hunt. Worse, no one else has hunted him either so all he does is strut at me nearly everytime I drive by. This morning he was in the middle of the dirt road strutting as beautiful as a peacock with the rising sun glinting off his feathers. I did feel a temptation to stop and shoot him or just run him over, but clearly, those thoughts were just symptoms of sleep deprivation, I just blew the horn instead. That tom tipped me off to his roost location as he flew off. I had a good feeling the next morning I’d get him. He was clearly callable onto some land I have permission to hunt by a farmer who likes to have a lot of turkeys removed from his land.

I continued on my way to check out a hillside pocket that is only reachable by boat and since the rivers were above flood stage the turkeys should be in the “pocket”. Sure enough, I settled in called with a few clucks, noticed a black stump that looked very much like a turkey staring at me, red-headed and all. Figured it was a stump with a cardinal sitting on it. There have been a lot of cardinals and scarlet tanagers this year causing excitement here and there. Lack of sleep does that to you sometimes, so I lowered my eyelids to check for leaks. When I opened them a few minutes later the black stump was gone; I clucked and there he was not quite 30 yards standing at attention in the wide open woods staring at the lump that was me. Fortunately, my gun sling is always hooked on my left knee holding the barrel level out front and this tom is standing right in front of the gun barrel. All I needed to do was raise it up and one tag for the last season was filled.

Tongue Teaser call brought em in again.

That left two tags in my pocket for Friday. The determination to bag that most irritating strutter in the county rose to an obsessive level. That is, until Friday morning, when I forced myself out of bed, shooting that poor turkey did not seem as important as it did yesterday.

At 6:10 am I found myself laying back in a grassy field wash using the folds of the field to hide me. Lying back when you need sleep is not conducive to remaining alert. However, the chain gobbling that answered my first tongue teaser yelp sure did get my full attention and when that yelp was followed up with some walking clucks and a single yelp to be answered by near constant incoming gobbling from two sides—sleep just slid way down the priority list.

During late seasons my Willow Ridge Tongue Teaser – Gobbler Pine Box is the call I turn to, Scott made this special for me to use in the fall for calling in gobblers. It works whenever, the need to make gobbler calls arises.

In about 20 minutes the five toms converged on my location, marching as if on a mission to either recruit the lonesome gobbler (me) or kick his butt. I do not which it was, for they did not get any time to explain. At mid-gobble my gun commanded silence from the first one at 15 yards. The other four turned around marching away single file when a single cluck stopped them and turned em around for the gun to silence the second one mid-gobble at 30 yds filling my last two tags for the final season.

Late season turkeys are challenging to find, but when you do it might be double the fun.

You’d think, the season would end there… Not in Wisconsin, there are still thousands of OTC tags left and two of those are now in my pocket. Heck, sleep is overrated, I have all summer to catch up on it.

Neon Tom – Gobbler Rumble End

May 6, 2017 by Charlie 4 Comments

“Neon” Tom
by FirstBubba
The “Gobbler Rumble” ended when the six toms broke into smaller groups and headed to the field with the hens.
One of them, however, headed off on his own to the pecan grove to the east.
The grove has huge, old trees that have shaded out most undergrowth. As they leaf out, they also leave the ground under them in dark shadows.
This tom seemed to be on a mission. He never gobbled, yelped, spat or drummed. He simply walked into the dark shadows of the trees and began to strut proudly. I turned the video back on and began to track him. A few rays of the rising sun were stabbing through the timber east of the trees and provided perfect backlighting for his gaudy show!
I decided I wanted prints instead of video and switched the camera to “Smart Capture”, but alas, the show had ended! I did eventually get one nice photo of him (shot #3) as he strode off with a couple of hens that had arrived for the “Gala”!
As hard as I tried to make an 8×10, the “still from video” function just won’t allow a clear enlargement! Therefore, 4×6 is the best I can do! When we darken the room, his tail stands out in his framed photo like a curved beacon.
So, in all his “radiant glory”, these are the shots I call; “Neon Tom”!

Now is that a ” shiny hiney” or what?

Ending up Intoxicated on Wild Turkey in Colorado

May 1, 2017 by Charlie 8 Comments

It sounded almost like a breeze moving dead leaves on the tree branches, but I don’t remember there being any leaves on the early spring cottonwoods. As another wave of the fluttering sound reached my ears I realized the sound was not the trees or any leaves; it was a flock of turkeys rustling their feathers, and there must be a lot them to make that much noise at little after 4:00 am. A few minutes later the first yelps of the morning started. Apparently, Colorado turkeys wake up much earlier than those sleepy eastern birds in Wisconsin. Sure enough by 4:30 the first crescendo of gobbling cascaded down from their roosts, each like a wave crashing on a rocky beach. Each time the audio wave began it gained volume as if urging the sun to rise early. My shivering intensified, surprised I was that cold, then I became acutely aware it was maximum exhilaration that had no relationship to the temperature, this is what turkey nirvana is all about, like being drunk on wild turkey, the non-alcoholic kind.

Six years ago, on a now defunct turkey forum, Treerooster and charlie elk recognized each other as fellow turkey nerds. We discussed things like the length of the turkey’s memory, how they find food, the effect of ground temperatures on behavior, what the snood means, why two- dimensional sight works, techniques for tree-roosting all night with turkeys; OK you get the idea. Fortunately, the forum had a private message option allowing treerooster and charlie could make hunting plans. And when charlie got enough preference points to draw a spring license he was on his way to treerooster’s hunting turf in Colorado.

Our optimism was high we waded across the dark river back to the truck. We had roosted at least 15 toms and jakes on this eve of Colorado’s opening day of spring wild turkey season. Wake up was scheduled for 3:00 am to make sure we could take our place among the roosted turkeys well before sunrise. A treerooster nugget of wisdom – “Turkey hunting extends your life, each day of turkey hunting is the equivalent of 2 or 3 days of “normal life.”

There’s something about 15 or so roosted gobblers that make the lack of sleep and morning grogginess recede into the background of one’s conscious mind. Gazing up at a half dozen roosted turkeys highlighted against the moonlit sky I wanted to give treerooster

treerooster sometimes likes to spend the night in the roost trees.

two thumbs up for his accuracy last night casting the correct GPS coordinates. Clearly, he has done this many times, and that is why I told him that I would hunt the way he hunts. And he is a one of a kind tree-roosting aficionado, sometimes he actually sleeps in the tree with the turkeys; Prefers to setup, not 200, 100 or even 50 yards from roosted birds, rather, right in the middle of them.

There was a certain surrealness sitting under roosted turkeys expecting the morning light to brighten and instead, it became quite dark after the moon set as we waited for the first glimmers of sunrise. However, the turkeys had no inhibition and continued to call and gobble to each other. They did not seem to care there were coyotes on the prowl, raccoons screaming out their mating calls; every sound caused all those anxious roosted birds to turn up the volume. Treerooster was supposed to do the calling but any calls we’d have made would be the equivalent of spitting in the ocean due to all the actual turkey noise.

Is there such a thing as sonic boom gobbling? Had anyone asked me this question before my first-morning hunt in Colorado I would have thought them crazy. But, not now. A couple of mallards came flying through the trees, and one of them quacked, this caused such loud gobbling that it caused the ducks so much turbulence they almost fell out of the air. Laughter would have erupted from me had my ears not hurt so bad, never before did I wish to turn down or remove my hearing aids on a turkey hunt. What had been 15 roosted gobblers was now apparently 50-70 raucous male turkeys surrounding us on all sides. In almost 40 years of turkey hunting, I have never experienced anything like this.

When the hens snuck up from behind on my five, I became concerned if I didn’t get a tom out this huge group I’d have egg on my face and some explaining to do. Hen turkeys are notorious for messing up a well-planned gobbler killing strategy. One of those hens got so close she could have rested her beak on my shoulder when she yelped. I swear I felt her spittle on my cheek. If she putted, no one here noticed and none of the turkeys noticed the deer that almost tripped over my boot. Thankfully, the deer did not notice me, perhaps due to all the ruckus from turkeys.

Treerooster and charlie with Colorado opening day Rio wild turkey

More gobblers flew down; it was quickly getting crowded here on the ground. Finally, the one who had strutted back and forth from one end of the limb to the other launched and sailed in. Lesser turkeys scrambled out of his way, for a brief moment he disappeared in the dawn’s light. As his head came around the other side of some wispy brush I made a quick check for any other turkeys in the area, the roar of the Benelli caused a literal explosion of turkey wings clawing at the air and every sound these large birds can make filled the woods and the surrounding grassland.

In almost forty years of turkey hunting, I’d never experienced anything like that Colorado morning. We ended the

charlie carrying Rio turkey from the kill site.

hunt intoxicated by overdosing on a whole lot of wild turkey. The non-alcoholic kind.

Hip boots are required for access.

Crossing the river with the turkey while using a walking stick to stabilize footing on the shifting sands.

Pause to soak in the hunt and wide open scenery.

Treerooster’s very comfortable camp. Where charlie managed to arrive the day before right after treerooster got is setup.

Hey treerooster, thanks for the best of the best turkey hunting experiences.

FirstBubba’s Gobbler Rumble

April 5, 2017 by Charlie 4 Comments

Written and photographed by FirstBubba

Basically, this was my first attempt at “wild game photography”.

Armed with a Kodak Z5010 camera and a 21x zoom lens and my trusty Ruger 6.8mm Ranch rifle, (there’s lot’sa wild hogs in the area!) I set out about a week before season to locate and photograph turkeys…or what ever else may pop out.

Settling down in a gully behind a willow log in the gathering light, gobblers loudly greeting the dawn all around me and my heart goes into overdrive!

Wanting some action shots, I set the camera to “Video” and wait.

It doesn’t take long!

Two toms approach from the west, three from across the road behind me and two more from across the creek.

A “herd” of hens gather by twos, threes, and fours from all directions until I’m a nervous wreck!

I can’t track them ALL! …and don’t want one to “bust” me!

These six toms break off, cross under the fence and are joined by one stray hen who quickly scuttles away when the six square off.

I have trouble finding the birds on the screen!

RATS!

I finally get the camera recording, the raucous “fighting purrs” breaking the early dawn quiet and filling the bottom with sound.

Now if I can just keep them on screen…THAT didn’t happen!

With nearly 2 minutes of jittery video, at least the sound turned out good! LOL!

It was nearly 10 o’clock before all the turkeys left and I could escape unnoticed.

Only when I got home did it dawn on me that I only had video and no “pictures”.

The little camera, though inexpensive in the grand scheme of things, has a feature to make “stills” from videos!

That is what you see that Charlie has so beautifully “recreated” here!

Thanks, FirstBubba for these great pictures of Oklahoma gobblers getting ready to Rumble! It’s not very often if ever turkey hunters get a front row seat to this sporting event. Heck, how many hunters would take pictures or just watch before shooting one of these fine toms?

Thanks for sharing these with us Bubba, it is really appreciated. Sure gets a turkey hunter’s blood pumping.

Be sure to check out our Turkey Sitrep and leave turkey stories and reports in your state.

Photo courtesy FirstBubba

Photo courtesy FirstBubba
Gobbler Rumble