My 2018 turkey season

[Matagi]

Wow it’s been awhile since I logged onto SCH. With new job assignment and home selling/buying to our dream house, it’s been an absolute roller coaster for 2018. I hope everyone has had a great turkey season.

My season was off to a horrible start with missing the first two weeks of the season (second time missing opening day in 25+ years). I wasn’t expecting much as my mind was on starting this year having a furry partner at work and preparing our house to sell so we can move into our dream home.

I’ll try to make this long story short. Once things were underway for the sale of our house, I finally had some time to turkey hunt. The first couple days were met with henned up gobblers both on MCC and on some of my public land spots. I decided to go with the roll and work on patterning the birds and wait for hens to go to nest. My first successful hunt was on MCC.

After a uneventful morning, I built up enough will power to stick it out. I hunted a different spot where a few birds have been taken. I wasn’t expecting much so got set up on a hill. Just as I sat down under a tree, I get a gobble about 200 yards behind me. I give the gobbler some soft talk and just wait. After about what seemed like two hours, I catch movement and a red head. As the gobbler become visible over a knoll and I see that it’s a long beard, I slowly bring my gun up as the gobbler walks behind a tall sage. As he clears the sage and sees my DSD single hen, he half struts and starts walking away. I decide not to waist a second and give him a face full of Hevi Shot. What a relief, bird number 1 was a beautiful 2 year old Rio.

18lbs
8.5inch beard
3/4 inch spurs.

 

[SurfNHuntSD]

Welcome back Gen.. great bird, congrats.

 

[Matagi]

So now that bird number 1 was down, I was now committed to getting my son on a bird. We hunted the early youth season with getting into a good amount of birds but with no shot opportunity. After the youth season, my work schedule switched to working weekend and on graves.... I hate graves but oh well it is what it is.

Because I work weekends, I had some time to hunt on my own. That gave me a good opportunity to pattern a pair of long beards I been watching since early March on public land. These two gobblers had seven hens with the with about 4 jakes. This spot is where I took my two big toms last year. I also don’t shoot any jakes here so I been lucky to have an opportunity at mature birds every year. It’s really surprising that no one is hunting turkeys here. There’s plenty of old shell casings from quail hunters but I been lucky that no one is hunting turkeys.

Anyways, because I work weekends mybhunting days with my boys are limited. With moms approval, we let my son play hooky from school. I told my kid the spots we could hunt and allowed him to choose where he wanted hunt. He says let’s go after those two long beards and see if the hens are all gone, maybe we could get a double. I told him that if any of the 4 jakes come in, he could take one.

So we get in early and set up about 80 yards from where I believed all the birds were roosting. As day light approaches, we don’t hear much at all. A coyote in the distance started to howls and boom we get gobbles from the two long beards in front of ya and the jakes up near the trail head. Perfect, we’re in a good position. As the birds continue to gobble, we don’t hear the hens I heard the week before, even better!

As the gobbling intensifies on the roost, I give a few tree yelps and a jake yelp. The long beards go nuts. I hear the birds fly out of the roost and I do a short fly down cackle and flap the turkey wing i carry in my vest. Once on the ground the bird go quiet. Not 5 minutes after fly down, I give a few soft yelps and clicks and I get a loud gobble in front of our set up. I see two red heads crest a hill to our right. I give them another series of soft yelps and boom I get a double gobble from the long beards and a gaggle of gobbles from the jakes.

I go silent and immediately I see a strutter and another long beard come running towards the DSD jake and lone hen. As they get near, one of them makes us out and both toms heads go up. I tell my so to shoot the strutter and boom down goes the strutter at 15 yards. The 20ga TSS round just grounds the tom stone cold dead. The second bird is still unsure and is hanging out so I get my son’s 20 ga, align the red dot, and down goes the second long beard. Holy crap what just happened!

Me and my son first double! And enough time for him to go to school (he wasn’t happy about that).

Son’s bird:
19lbs
10inch beard
1inch spurs

My bird:
19lbs
9 inch beard
1 inch spurs.

 

[Matagi]

Welcome back Gen.. great bird, congrats.

Thank you!

 

[Snake Charmer]

Coll stuff, Congrats Gen

 

[Matagi]

Coll stuff, Congrats Gen

Thanks Fred! I’m going to be up fishing this afternoon with my youngest. If you’re around, I’ll stop by to say hi.

 

[ppbets]

Good job congrats on those 2 birds !!

 

[ilovesprig]

Gen,

Despite already hearing the stories, reading them was even better....Getting a double with Yusuke couldn't have been a finer or exciting moment....Nice seeing you today.

I'll talk to you more about Utah.

 

[Lungpopper]

Thanks for sharing the stories Gen. Memories that will be with you and Yusuke for life.

 

[WaterDawg]

Great season for you and son. Congrats!

 

[Elcazador.Mz]

Great pictures.... awesome season for you and your boy.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk

 

[The Deer Guy]

Way to get on em Gen! Sounds like a pretty good season to me!