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I honestly hope the DEC knows what it is doing. This is the first time I have ever heard of tackling the problem of an invasive species by putting full protection on them. It sounds a bit bold to me, and certainly counter-intuitive. On the other hand, if the DEC finds that they don't have the resources or the knowhow to handle eradication by themselves, and the population explodes, they will look like the world's biggest dummys for not having taken the route of using the willing army of hunters to help solve the problem. I know the theory of what they are trying to do. The idea is to not disperse populations because of hunter pressure. I understand all that. But the fact is that now that they have chosen this unorthodox way of doing business, they damned-well better be right, and they damned-well better be up to the task.

after having 2 adult at 50 yards first thing this am and being spotted, we moved about 1/2 a mile and My nephew got this guy at 8:45

My daughter was lucky and she took this beautiful bird this morning. It was a amazing hunt that I will never forget. Being there and calling in her first turkey and her being able to harvest it, is something I will never forget.

This was my 12 year old son, Steven's, first time turkey hunting since taking and passing the sportsman's education course this past October. He decided that his first hunt would be this years Youth Spring Turkey Hunt. Last weekend my father in law gave him a 20 y.o. Savage 20ga side by side shotgun with double trigger. He also gave him a 410 which he had a blast shooting at the Calverton range. He was afraid to use the Savage and I did not push the issue. During our car ride up this past Friday afternoon we got to talking about the 410 not having enough knockdown power and that he should consider using the 20ga when we went into the field the following morning. Well he didn't give it much thought and half way up he decided that he felt confident to shoot the 20ga. I said ok and left it at that. Saturday morning's hunt started out with the two of us trying to sneak to our blind when we didn't realize we were set up right below a roost. We ended up spooking 5 big ones and heard them soar like helicopters onto the neighboring property. We get to the area where I had previously set up the ground blind and it was missing. So in pouring rain I'm cursing under my breath that someone stole it. I thought to myself I'm not going to let this ruin his first hunt. After about 5 minutes I found the blind upside down along a path inside tall brush. After resetting up the blind we sat there trying to dry off and heard nothing. Then the rain stopped and shortly thereafter the gobbles started. He was shaking in his pants from excitement. They were far off in the distance but close enough to get him hooked. After a few hours on Saturday, we see two young jakes coming out from the tall brush and enter a cut corn field about 150 yards to our right. I start soft calling on my glass call. They start moving at an angle closer toward us but heading for the woods. Eventually they disappear into the treelike. About 30 minutes later my son spots two hens coming out of the woods in the corner of the property just opposite the front of our blind. Following not even 5 minutes later were 4 jakes. All 6 were heading into the cut corn field. I had a jake and hen decoy out and I started purring on my glass call. The jakes danced around for a few minutes but eventually continued on their way just out of the 20ga range. Needless to say although they were too far my son was excited to see them that close. At 10:30 he was bored after not seeing anything for about 2 hours so we called it a day. Saturday night he says to me lets get out there earlier on Sunday. So I said Ok and asked him what time. He said lets be in the blind by 5:00am. After another sleepless night for me, (He was sound asleep all night) I'm up at 3:30am and head downstairs to put wood in the wood stove. About 30 minutes later I hear footsteps walking along the hallway and down he comes dressed and ready. I said it's still too early. We sat and talked for a while and he says to me I feel that I'm going to get me a turkey today. I said lets hope so. He wanted to get in there before they flew down from above us. At 4:45 we head out to our blind and by 5:00 we are sitting patiently in the blind. Unfortunately they decided to roost all the way on the other side of the property on the neighbor's land. Sitting there listening to them gobble their heads off on the roost made me a bit disappointed and I thought to myself well they have about 600 yards to make there way toward us and we only had 3 hours to hunt today. Nevertheless, he was all excited and raring to go sitting there listening to the Toms gobbling. About 6:30 we are glassing the fields and we see 4 turkeys about 500 yards away across the fields, tall brush, a stream and a pond. I start soft calling and purring and they start to gobble. I call again and they continue. This goes on for about 20 minutes but they are moving from our right to our left still at 500 yards away. I'm thinking to myself Steven is not going to connect today. Then out of nowhere without a peep at about 6:50 two jakes pop their heads out of the brush about 40 yards directly across from our blind. I grab my glass call and start purring. One starts to gobble. Steven grabs the 20 and slowly puts the butt up against his right shoulder and places the fore end on my Primos trigger stick for support. The jakes start walking toward us but at an angle to our right and toward the woods. All the while I'm soft calling and they stop, look and continue. My son has his 20 still pointing straight out of the blind and he can't maneuver it toward the right. I slowly grab the trigger stick and help him lift and angle the 20 toward the two jakes. The jakes get to about 15 yards to our right at a real awkward angle and they stop about 10 feet apart or so. I say to Steven, pick one and shoot whenever you are ready. I hear the safety go "click" and then the next thing I hear is "BOOM!" One jake runs and takes off and the other hobbles its way toward us, crosses not 15 feet from our blind and drops in a heap just off to our left another 10 feet away. We look at each other and the expression on Steven's face was indescribable. He could not believe he just shot his first jake. We hug, and he just sits there. I say "what are you waiting for, lets go get your gobbler"! He tears off his face mask and we run over to where he laid down in a pile and without even saying anything to him, he says to me "Dad, lets kneel down beside him and thank God for the opportunity". I was speechless. He weighed in at about 18lbs with a 5inch beard and stubs for spurs. I think the pictures describe his experience a lot better than I did!

My 12 year old son Hunter and I were unable to roost any birds Friday night due to a scheduling conflict so we had to go in blind Saturday morning. I decided to take him to my best spot in hopes of him at least having some action. We arrived at our chosen location at about 5:25 Saturday morning. We were settled in to our blind by about 5:35. It was on the edge of a corn field with a steep hardwood hill behind us. Instantly after getting set up I let out a couple owl hoots but never got a response. I had a bad feeling at this point since that is not normal for this area this early in the season. Around 5:45 I let out a series of tree yelps without an answer and I immediately started to think about the next spot since I planned on being pretty aggressive to get him at least some good gobbling action. Around 5:55 I let out another series of yelps and immediately was answered by a group of 4 jakes that were only roosted about 75 yards behind us on the hill. Almost instantly they flew down into the field and landed about 100 yards away from the blind. It was like they were waiting for my command before entering the field. They stayed out away from us for a bit before I started calling. They would all answer and go into full strut, but really weren't coming any closer. I was trying to call sparingly and I finally realized that I had to kick it up a notch to keep their attention. After some aggressive cuts and yelps they slowly started making their way towards us. I would stop calling for a minute and they would start heading back the way they came. It was like they had ADD! So I really started to call a lot and they slowly made their way to the blind. Eventually they were only about 20 yards away, but when choosing where to set the blind I put it right next to a brush pile to help with concealment. And of course it was now between us and the birds, we didn't have a clear shot and I couldn't get them to budge anymore. There we were 20 yards away from what we both wanted so bad and couldn't do anything about it. My son was shaking so much I had to put my hand on his leg to hold it down. It really was an exciting 5 to 10 minutes that seemed more like an eternity. Eventually the birds started heading to our right and back into the woods. I told my son to spin around and place his 870 20 gauge out the side window. As he was doing this the jakes figured out something was wrong and started to pick up their pace. He got into position just as the last two were entering the woods. He asked if he could shoot and I said SHOOT!!! He pulled the trigger and down the last bird went. The amount of excitement and emotion that was in the blind at that moment is unexplainable. You have to live it to know what I mean. As the jake fell he spun around to see what to do next. I quickly gained control of his gun and told him to go get him. He left the blind in record time and stopped again to see what I wanted him to do. I yelled out, go grab him and stand on his head. By the time he got there the jake had rolled down farther into the woods. I came up just in time to see Hunter gain control of his first turkey. Our hunt was over at about 6:30. We instantly started telling the story over and over again to each other like it was years ago. After the initial rush of excitement I helped Hunter fill out his own tag and took some pictures. He was a young bird that was probably born pretty late last year, but honestly I don't think even a mature tom could have made that moment any better. He weighed 12 pounds and had a 1" beard. This will definitely go down as one of my best hunting moments ever, and hopefully his too.

Had a short and sweet youth hunt saturday morning. At 5:30 five different birds started sounded off around us...half hour later 2 longbeards and a jake came in to the dekes and the strutter hit the ground. My turn on thursday!!!

This was my daughters second year of youth turkey hunting she is 13 and she did not have any luck last year. So, we went out Sat put on lots of miles and seen lots of deer and 1 hen. So of Sat afternoon I had my dart league banquet for the year, and one of my dart team member's told me that he seen 3 jakes on their property earlier that day and I was more then welcome to take my daughter there to hunt Sunday. So we get up and head out Sunday morning at 5am as it is only a mile down the road from out house. We get there and sit down and listen. We start hearing the geese,ducks, and seagulls, and the waves hitting the shore line down on the lake. Then we hear some grouse drumming. It was heard to hear, but I though I hear a gobble to the south about a couple hundred yards away, so we waited and I heard it again. So we get up walk about 100 yards down the hill, stop I make a call and he hear a goggle, so I look the area over quickly and walk about 80 yards into the woods from the logging road. I find a nice open area on the ridge. I set my daughter up by a tree facing SW and I setup out Avian Jake and Hen decoys (theses decoys are worth every penny). As I just finished placing the decoys I seen a bird fly down about 100 yards from me. I was like did I just spook this bird. So I got back to my daughter and sit near hear. I got out my slate called and did a light call, and he hammered the call with a gobble about 80 yards away. So I told my daughter get ready. I have here using a 20 gauge Harrington & Richardson because it is small and light.So I make another call and nothing. So we sat there and listed, and I heard a noise. I told her to the gun up on her knee and aim towards the lake. I could hear the gobbler puffing up and drumming but could not see him. Then my daughter says she see's him, he was at 20 yards and coming fast in the brush, he breaks out in to the opening and charges the jake decoy and now is at 10 yards,he puffs up front of my daughter. He is fully puffed up (not strutting and turns and faces my daughter), I am like shoot, shoot. then bang, She bagged a bruiser of a bird.The hunt over with by 6:10 am. Total time of setup and hunt was about 5 minutes after locating him. It was a amazing hunt, with the bird just puffing up and charging the decoy. The bird weighted 19 lbs and beard was 9 1/4 and 1 inch spurs. It does appear to have a second beard, but its tough to tell if it fits the definition of a true double bearded or just a super thick beard that splits. Her dad is writing the story as she was tired and wanted to get some sleep.

(by my nephew ryan) My First Turkey! The first day of my hunt was starting to be a beautiful day. My uncle woke me up at 5:00 am and told me to get my camouflage on while he made me breakfast (pancakes, waffles and eggs). After breakfast we set out into the woods. We started along a path that led to another path that was taken on two sides by a thick forest and a large meadow. We found a good spot and sat there and waited and waited.turkeys were gobbling on the roost across the meadow from us. Around 7:00 after seeing that nothing was calling back to us or "the turkeys weren't talking" as my uncle said. We got up and walked straight through the meadow. We heard turkey's gobble where we just left. We started to make our way back over but there were 3 hunters coming up the hill that spooked the turkey , they saw us and they left. After that we walked a lot and arrived at a field where we could see two toms and a hen. We started to make our way over to them but we kicked up some deer. The deer almost trampled the turkeys as both the deer and turkeys left the field. We pursued the turkeys only to hear them crossing the road out of reach. We started walking up a hill back to my uncles house and came to the same path that started our journey. A heavy rain set in and made everything more difficult. We went back to the house and changed our clothes so we could go out to lunch. The second day was a lot shorter time on the actual hunting part. I was awakened at 4:30 am by my uncle. This time we didn't eat breakfast. Outside the air was chilling. We left the house at 5:10 am and departed to start our walk. Around quarter to six we reached our destination. It was here that a game of calling and response occurred. The game lasted for about 25 minutes when one of the Two toms started down the trail towards us. He was not within my effect range by about 10 yards.Right as i would of gotten a clear shot he spotted me putted and flew away! While doing this he let all the other turkeys within a 200 yard radius know I was there. We got up and he took me to an new area about 1/2 a mile away at about 8 am At some point we came across a corn field and there was a tom turkey in it. We called to it but it spooked and snuck back into the woods. We pursued it.in the direction it had headed While walking in quietly, i heard a gobble, we sat and called he would gobble back, after 15 min, I looked to my left and 50 yards away it was walking towards us. I got a clear shot at 40 yrds and took it! After it was dead I carried him back to the house where my uncle showed me how to gut and clean him.... (THIS WAS HIS LEAST FAVORITE PART lol) We called the DEC to report the harvest. In the aftermath I learned the importance of wildlife in the woodland ecosystem and what a huge step it is to take a creature's life. By Ryan Van Splunder

I took my 12 year old daughter out for her very first hunt saturday. We were hunting in 7M near Hamilton. The weather was very cool and windy. Preliminary scouting showed no birds in the fields as we were drove around for a couple days. I have to laugh at myself. I spent daaaaaaays getting my daugher prepped. Shopping for youth camo (which is very hard to find this time of year btw), practicing with the shotgun, learning different commands, turkey calling, tick spray, good boots, you name it I waaaas ready! Or so I thought.......... About 45 minutes into the hunt we had a gobble and he was coming in. I sat my daughter down, made sure she was comfortable and I sat right down behind her. I started calling and after a couple minutes I heard a wimper. Then a few moments later the words, "Dad I don't feel good". Then came, "Dad, I'm gonna throw up". Now I know she didn't eat well, no one can eat at 4:30 in the morning. So I told her to relax and breath, it will go away. Then came words my daughter never says, "I want to go home". At this point I was stumped but I did not want her upset. So we backed out so not to wise up the gobbler. Come to find out after questioning, she told me that she was shaking all over and her stomach was upset. Aha!!! Dr. Daddy has made his diagnoses. What you have babygirl is a severe case of buck/turkey fever. Made me smile. I was so prepped for everything but I didn't teach her how to handle a severe dumpage of adrenaline. It rushed over her so fast, she got sick. After some more breakfast we spent the rest of the morning just walking the woods together. She managed to talk to a bird on her own but chose not to shoot it. Next weekend I'm going to take her out again but she can sit beside me and together we will call in a bird that either one of us can shoot. All in all, we walked two large pieces of property and saw or heard only 3 birds. 2 toms and 1 hen.

Only reason one would be concerned is if one has something to hide.

What a great morning I had today!!!! The opening day of Ma turkey season and I started it off with a bang, literally… LOL. Sally, Sandy and I had done some scouting on a farm we have in Ware over the weekend and things were not “awesome” by any standard… We heard very few birds and the ones we heard were Jakes, not fully mature Tom’s. Sandy went back later on and saw much more promising sign, 1 mature Tom out in the field and several younger Tom’s with a hen. With work being busy I made the tough call to pass up OT for one day to head out hunting (Tough choice.. LOL). Sandy being the gracious hunting partner she is said to me Sunday night “Seeing I know you won’t shoot a Jake (young Tom), you are only hunting 1 morning this week, why don’t you go after that mature Tom and I’ll go hunt another area because I will shoot a Jake”… So this morning we headed our separate ways, I found a nice spot down the ridge from what I was guessing was a roosting spot.. At first light as gobblers started greeting the morning I realized I had set up within 50 yards of the two Jakes we had heard/seen the previous morning.. Thinking there is no way they didn’t know I was there, I went about trying to work the mature Tom. Well, best laid plans I guess, both Jakes flew down right in front of me, gobbling, strutting, etc.. LOL The mature Tom is now gobbling off to my right and then I hear him fly off… Watch him pitch out into the field roughly 200-250 yards away… I’m thinking “well, should have gone to work… LOL”… So with him way out in the field the Jakes finally get bored with my decoy and move off to my left out of sight… The Long beard sees this and here he comes… Strutting and walking.. never gobbled.. Kept a low profile because we found the two jakes were “bullies” and could beat up the mature Tom as a team but not by themselves.. Well as he got within 100 yards the Jakes noticed him and started heading right for him.. I thought for sure it was over.. But as they made their way to him he didn’t turn to run, he angled towards me. So to slow the Jakes progress towards him I fired up the old slate call and they did exactly as I wanted… Stopped running.. started gobbling and strutting… As I kept them from advancing.. I looked up to see the long beard now topping the hill coming in to my decoy 40 yards out… So I stopped calling and tried to get ready for the shot… Now the Jakes were back on the path to run him off, so he is now angling away from my decoy trying to avoid the Jakes… At 44 yards he stopped to look back and my Ultimag bowled him over with a 2 ¼ oz load of #5’s from Winchester.. He weighed in at 20 pounds, 10” beard and as a 2 year old, has ¾” spurs…

That oughta end this conversation ...............well said CCHC. These days all I do is save the feet whole for a few months then cut the spurs off approx. .50" above and bellow. Then drill out the funk and hang on a string in the basement. No goofy necklace for this guy..................

I have a bunch of favorite ways….& smoking it is one. I made last years tom, a few weeks ago. Made creamed wild turkey & wild rice soup. It was WILD LOL!! Seriously though….good stuff..

I tool a board and used finishing nails to position the toes as I wanted them. and tied them down with sting. Then held the leg joint into position with sting as well so it was all balanced and upright. dusted a bit of salt on the exposed joint and set the whole board in the garage for a couple months. That was 15 years ago and it looks great still. I don't thin there is much meat there to worry about. could probably bake it at low temp to speed it up. The board helps make sure that when the foot dries it sits right on whatever you display it on. (shelf)

Thanks!! Slowed down in April and only got out two more times but i did get 7 more including a real nice 4 point side and my first hanger shed ever. Hanger shed That brings my count up to 32 for the year and my personal best. Maybe find another one or two during turkey season but if i don't ill still be happy where im at for the year. Good Luck to everybody still looking!! John

Man, you guys do get some great video....Awesome up close action!

"Oh you wanna fight?????? BAMMM SMOKE AND PELLETS IN YOUR EYE!!!HAHAHA

God that must have been thrilling!! Funny seeing this, as I just watched a few turkey hunting videos on YouTube of this same tactic last week!

Awesome video!

No way I would ever do this even on private land, to big of a risk with trespassers and getting shot.

That must have been such a rush.

OMG that bird got close. Awesome. Should have knifed him. IMO though, that's some dangerous stuff. So guys if you're going to try this MAKE SURE you're alone in the woods.

Anytime lethal control of an invasive is under evaluation by the public, the antis will raise the issue of non native game stocking and/or introduced game species which have become naturalized, just like this guy did. His premise about brown trout, although valid, was not relevant to mute swans. That causes two problems: 1) It takes the focus off of the original issue 2) It changes the balance of power of the argument. You started having the stronger argument, that mute swans are an impact. When the discussion changed to brown trout you then had the weaker argument and he became stronger.. This is known as a red herring, beware of it...

This just happened to me .... I was sitting out side having a cup of coffee when my neighbor comes over and we start to talk about his kids and how he is looking to send them to a new school first he tells me he is atheist so no religion schools and he continues to tell me no schools with guns as he dose not belives in violent and having guns promotes violent and he can't find any school like what he is looking for I look at him and tell him there all over the United Sates in every city town and village He looks at me like a deer caught in the head light then says where I can't find one so I tell him there called PUBLICK SCHOOLS he shakes his head gets up and walks away I asked him what's wrong I just found him the school he's looking for he then calls ME an ass hole I just laugh and went in the house to finish my coffee

I sure would. We have a DEC officer that has hunted the same property as us for the last 2 years. Hes not there to bust our chops, hes there to hunt, and thats what he does. He is very respectful of us we are respectful of him.

We had just returned from our road trip to jersey and she told my buddy and i at the same time , he said he was gonna go back out and recover it . It would have looked better on the living room wall but it will have to settle for the garage wall.

Subscribed....never dove hunted but its always looked like a blast

To hunt during archery season you need an archery tag which requires that you take the NYS bow safety class... so in order to hunt with a crossbow during an archery season you would need a bow tag and therefore need to have a bow hunters safety certificate. Unless they're giving out special crossbow tags during the archery season, which I don't believe is the case.

Why is it that everyone who supports this corrupt government, thinks those of us who don't are like Timothy McVeigh? Talk about generalized stereotypes. Imagine if we thought all Leftists were like Weather Underground members. Wait a minute, a lot of them were!

Bundy, and others, don't recognize the 'authority' of the current federal government with respect to the land in Nevada. FWIW, I have a hard time recognizing that government myself. It doesn't remotely resemble what the founding fathers intended.

count me number 9. About 4.3 miles into my journey, she was pointing towards the sky. Sticking out in plain sight. Another left side. I wonder what happens to the rights?

I would hunt that spot and wouldn't care if SHE was there .

We hunt opposite ends of the spectrum. Here, education has been the biggest impact in not needing ARs as a last ditch effort or preventing them from being initiated, despite attempts.

NY ranks 3rd in hunter density, and Ohio ranks 5th. That's right, 5th. 2 spots behind NY. Fact. PA RI NY WI OH I'm not overlooking anything. Note that two of the top five pressure states are also two of the highest ranking for big buck states - with WI being the #1 state for book bucks for a long time. So again, how is our pressure different from theirs that makes our ability to produce high quality hunting similar or even ballpark on their level? Ding Ding Ding....

So its like having a wife or girlfriend.

Here in 7S I have been out for the last two week hoping to hear or see some birds . I have been out mornings and evening and not a thing. Every year I would see them crossing the roads, not one this year.

What's worse, that or the pro xbow people accepting it and celebrating inclusion? Sort of like requesting sportsman thank Cuomo. Seems like a pattern developing. Before you lob anything, I own a xbow. I've also taken my FIL to Ohio to hunt with his xbow to get him his first deer in 40 years. I'm not some outright anti. I just think the whole methodology of sucking up to people who have posioned our well when it comes to our rights is just the absolute wrong way to do something - even at the cost of expanded opportunities for one niche or segment. It left a bad taste in my mouth and makes me feel like the people involved in the process are the kind of people that anti xbow people believe make up the xbow crowd - willing to sell their soul for the sake of a want. Does the DEC set the training course details or the legislature? I'm not personally aware of who makes that call.

Again maybe its just me, but now you can hunt in archery season without an archery license. That is ridiculous. Goes to show even the govt and enforcers belive one thing and do another. It cant be an archery implement if you dont need an archery tag. But you need a gun tag.....says alot in my book. And im a fence sitter who owns an xbow. That really makes me rethink my stance.

That's awsome! Can you imagine a picture like that today? : Three guys, a dog and three dead wolves strung over the hood of an Impala or something like that. That would be great. Love the pic.