alloutdoors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire

A natural population will have bucks in every age class (progressively fewer with each age class, but all classes occupied nonetheless). There's nothing natural about killing 75% of the teenage males in a population year after year after year.

I picked the first option because it truthfully describes what I've seen with AR at my family's property in 4G. That said, the long answer is a bit more complicated; I'll share it here for those who care to read it. First some back story. Between myself and my parents we own about 70 acres in the northeast corner of 4G. That puts us right near the AR boundary, meaning that bucks that we can't shoot on our property don't have to go far to leave the AR area and get shot, and some of them certainly do. During my first gun season as a 16 year old in 1996 I shot an 8-point on this property that scored right around 100". To this day it's the largest buck I've ever killed there. I did have one opportunity at a 130-140 class 8-point in my mid-twenties with my bow but he came in high-strung and ducked the shot on me, I only clipped his upper shoulder. The neighbors shot him during gun season a couple weeks later, he was a stud. Prior to AR's I would spend most seasons seeing nothing more than yearling spikes and forkhorns, with the occasional yearling 5 or 6 thrown in. I stopped shooting yearlings after I'd killed three or four bucks, so I had lots of time on stand to see what was out there because the only thing I ever really shot was doe. It was easy to go 5 years or more and see nothing but yearlings from the stand. I believe it was 2012 when AR's went into effect. It took a few years to notice much difference but now there is no doubt that I'm seeing significantly more "older" deer. The problem is that the bar was so low to begin with, that really I've just gone from seeing lots of yearlings to now seeing a mix of yearlings and small/average 6-8 point 2.5 year olds, still not much for "shooters". The two biggest issues, IMO, are as follows: 1. The AR's that we have are garbage. Three points on a side sucks. It leaves the very best yearlings vulnerable, and now because guys are staying in the woods longer because they can't shoot the first spike or forkhorn they see those good yearlings are that much more likely to get shot. 2. The deer hunting culture hasn't really changed at all in this area. People will still shoot the first legal buck they see, so all the really good yearlings are as good as dead, and most of the rest now just die as 2.5's instead of as yearlings. I've had a large number of cameras out since June and have a pretty good idea of what is using the property. There are three 2.5 year olds that I'm getting regularly and one that I believe is a 3.5 with a scrub rack. I've also caught one additional 2.5 year old cruising the property a couple weeks ago but that's the only time he's shown up. Here's what I'm working with as far as "older" bucks, the first four are all regulars that I have multiple images of going back to when they were in velvet. I've also got loads of pictures of yearlings, everything from 1-horn spikes to tight little 8-point basket racks. 2.5 year old 6 2.5 year old "narrow" 8 2.5 year old "wide" 8 3.5 year old (I think) 4 Here's that 4 on the right with two 2.5 year olds on the left. I'm pretty sure he's a 3.5 based on his body. And this is the interloper, a 2.5 year old 10 The only buck I would really consider shooting here is the big 4, and he's not legal. The rest I would like to see in another year (or two if I'm being honest), but good luck to them making it that far. Overall though, even though I think the AR's could be done way better, I'm definitely seeing a lot more 2.5's, and the odds of a few of them slipping through to 3.5 or even 4.5 are a lot better now than pre-AR. I came close on opening day of rifle last year with a 3.5 nine or ten that was running a hot doe in front of my stand, I just never got a clear shot. That's pretty much the scenario I'm hoping for again (minus the not getting a shot part). The biggest bucks around here seem to have their core areas close to the ag fields a half mile or more from our property, but our property does hold several doe groups and it really just comes down to getting lucky and being on stand when one of the girls brings a new boyfriend home with her. Since the AR's went into effect I now have at least some hope that he could be a real shooter.

Pulled the card on the home cam again this weekend, a few photos are below. An update from my previous post, Cuddeback received the camera that I sent back to them and quickly determined that it was just plain defective. They sent me a brand new unit immediately which I got last Friday. Today I got a check in the mail from them, to reimburse what I spent shipping them the defective camera. I hadn't said anything about that or asked them to cover it, they did that on their own. They get top marks for their customer service in this instance. Once this heat breaks I'll get the new camera out, and maybe move a couple of the ones that are already out that aren't getting much action. I also learned an important lesson about not shutting off the home camera, if you do you will need to visit every remote camera and manually reconnect them to the network. I already knew that from reading the manual, but that didn't stop me from doing it while I was in a hurry to swap the card. It made me appreciate not having to visit every camera to check images though, and spending over an hour walking around to all the cameras will definitely stick in my head now and make me more careful when swapping cards. It would be nice if the remote cameras would automatically search for and re-establish a connection to the home unit, maybe they can address that in a firmware patch at some point.

Yeah, the only prior hands on experience I've had with Cuddeback goes way back to their DC-200 film cameras when we were using about 20 of them on a research project. Their reputation definitely seems to have taken a hit since then from what I have read, but the reviews I had seen on the Cuddelink cameras have been pretty positive, including from people who have had them out since last summer with no issues to report so far. Hopefully they have turned over a new leaf. My experience dealing with them on the phone regarding the one camera that was defective out of the box has been positive so far as well. The real test will be how they are performing a year or more down the road. We will see. There's no denying the convenience of the system though. I'm looking forward to the Home Plus unit coming out in the near future. The cameras are deployed across my and my parents properties, and I plan to put the home unit at their house connected to a computer (I don't have a house on site, I'm a few miles away). Once that is set up I should have access to all the pics from my phone, if everything works the way they've pitched it on their website.

I bought a couple of the Cuddelink Long Range IR cams a few weeks ago to test out and was happy enough with them to add more and expand the system. I pulled the card from the home camera this morning and so far so good. The thumbnail images that get transmitted back to the home camera are more than adequate to see what I want to see. I'll continue to post images here as I get them, and if anyone has specific questions on the Cuddelink system just ask. So far everything is working as advertised. I did have one camera with an odd issue out of the box, but it is at Cuddeback at the moment for them to look at and fix or replace. For some reason it was missing several menu options and reflashing the firmware did nothing. Not sure how that could happen but I have to believe that's a pretty rare issue, and I'm sure they will deal with it. First image is directly from the home camera. This was a full 20MP image sized down for the web. The rest of these were taken by remote cams and these are the "thumbnails" that were transmitted back to the home camera. These aren't resized at all, this is exactly what is pulled off the card at the home camera. They meet my needs, and I can always go pull the original full size images off the camera that took them if needed.

That's true of any gun, regardless of gauge. With the right choke and load, a 20 will out shoot the traditional 12ga with #5 lead combo all day long. If you only want to shoot to 40 yards, as well as allowing for some fudge factor, then the 20 isn't limited at all when used with today's heavier than lead loads. Heck, these days even a .410 can be turned into a legit 40 yard stone dead turkey killer with TSS 9's. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

It's cocobolo with a horn mouthpiece. It was made by a friend of mine in GA, and he swapped it with me for a wingbone I made. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

I haven't personally shot the Federal TSS loads yet, but I haven't been all that impressed with the numbers I've seen other guys put up compared to what they should be capable of. My gun will put up 180+ with HW 7's, most examples I've seen with the Fed TSS 9's are only around 220 or so. Good handloads of TSS 9 will be close to, or over, 300. It may just take a choke maker figuring out the sweet spot for the new Federal wad, but if I'm spending that much on shells I'll just load my own for maximum performance. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

Yes, a Benelli M2. It's right around 5.5lbs if I remember right. I don't really notice any difference in noise at the shot itself, I can't say I ever really noticed the noise of my 870 when shooting at a bird, but with the 12 my ears would be ringing afterward and my hearing was sort of muted like I had my head underwater for several minutes. I've never experienced anything like that since switching to the 20. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

It occurred to me that this year marked an important occasion, five spring seasons in the books since my switch to a 20ga. It's been one of the best turkey hunting decisions I ever made, I wouldn't go back to a 12ga if someone paid me. It's significantly lighter than my old 870 and just a dream to carry, and my ears no longer ring for 5 minutes after a shot. Over five years of hunting with it I've carried it in four states and managed to kill birds in three of those, including taking a public land Osceola in Florida. I've pulled the trigger thirteen times on spring gobblers, at distances from 12 to 41 yards, and each one has dropped like it was hit by lightning. Two birds in Maine were taken with Federal Heavyweight 6's, the rest fell to Heavyweight 7's. My collection of shells from successful hunts. I record the date, location, distance, and stats of the bird on each shell. Eight of these birds were 3-years old or older, the other five were two-year olds (although two of them were over 3/4" but under 1", so a bit of a gray area). The NY birds were killed as early as May 1st and as late as May 22nd. The best set of spurs from this bunch was 1 3/8". Heaviest bird was 22lbs 9oz, and the lightest was 16lbs 4oz. _DSC3917 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr A few of the birds that have dropped to the 20. _Q7Q7968 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr _Q7Q8070 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr _DSC2389 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr _DSC2394 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr IMG_2326 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr _B8I5994 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr

Nice! I prefer the 7's, but had to use the 6's in Maine this year due to the laws there. They hit like a truck. I thought about buying a few boxes from Roberts after they grabbed up all the remaining stock, but I think I will just start handloading TSS after my HW 7's run out. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

Congrats, looks like a good one! Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

If he's mortally wounded he probably won't have made it all that far, but he will have crawled right into the nastiest piece of cover he can find. If there's multi-flora rose look right into the base of the biggest, thorniest bush out there. If there's a hollow log, look inside it. Try using binoculars to scan the thick stuff, even if it's only 10 feet in front of you. The narrow depth of field can help isolate things that would otherwise get lost in the clutter. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

You're talking about the photo I posted? Yeah, I don't think he's going to want to hunt there. If you want to give it a rip though I'd be happy to send you directions. I'm sure the rest of us would at least get a laugh over the headlines about the nut in full camo stalking around behind the little league fields with his shotgun, inside village limits. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

It's a hen.

I expect to be out at least two of the three days this weekend calling for friends. Hopefully we can help another bird or two punch their tickets to turkey Valhalla.

You can probably come to a better answer on your own by reading through the gun and shooting forums on Old Gobbler and Gobbler Nation. Most guys don't have experience with more than two or three chokes at most, and they probably only ran one type of ammo through each, so their opinion is going to be based off a limited number of data points. Browsing those two forums you should be able to find examples of any number of choke and load combos for the SBE2, and I'm sure you will find some consistent performers that should give you a good place to start.

Nope not wrong, that's the place. Two minutes from my house. He saw it the first day when he flew up from Savannah and said he wanted to take a photo there if he got a bird, so we did. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

Depends on where you're hunting. Here toward the eastern part of the state it was 5:01. Out in Ripley on the western border with PA sunrise was 5:53, so legal shooting was 5:23. That's about the latest shooting time you could have had today and still been in NY though. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

May 20th First time back out since filling my second tag on the 13th. Friend from work called me yesterday wanting to go this morning so we decided to try and sneak out between the rain showers. We got up to a field a little before shooting light to listen and had one gobbling near one of the corners. He gobbled again as we closed in to get set up and we could hear some hen talk too. That was the last we heard though as everything went quiet after that, They might have glided out the back side of the small piece of woods they were in into some other fields because we never heard them leave the trees either. After 40 minutes we headed back to the truck to see what we could find elsewhere. Driving down to the next farm there were trucks parked at either end of the property but they must have been up in the woods, because there was a gobbler with seven hens right in the cornfield next to the road. We sat and watched them for a few minutes and saw the gobbler breed one of the hens. With all the hens moving around we didn't think there was a good way to approach the gobbler without getting busted, and we also didn't want to mess anyone up if they were already trying to get position on him from the woods, so we moved on to check some other spots. Arriving at the next spot we saw a number of hens and at least one gobbler in a cornfield near the border with a hayfield that I have permission on. My buddy grabbed his gun and I grabbed a fan that I keep on a stake from the back of the truck. We went up into the hayfield and got ahead of where we thought they were traveling. They were down hill from us and we snuck as far along the hedgerow as we dared. I stuck the fan in the ground out next to our position and we tucked in along the honeysuckle in the hedgerow. I yelped a few times but we got no response, so we just sat and waited. It took about twenty minutes but we finally saw the top of a fan behind the crest of the hill. They were coming along slowly, and it was several more minutes before we saw the top of his white head, and then saw a second fan from another gobbler that we hadn't seen before. Once both birds had come far enough over the crest to see our fan they both started heading right for us, breaking into strut every few steps. At 26 yards I gobbled at the lead bird to get him to stick his head up, and my buddy flattened him. He weighed 19lbs 15oz, matching 1 1/4" spurs, and a stubby little beard only a few inches long because it had broken off. _DSC3895 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr _DSC3901 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr _DSC3905 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr

The app works great. Most of my birds the last couple years have been reported before they even made it back to the truck. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

A few pictures Del snapped on his cell phone of the areas we were hunting. PSX_20180516_081206 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr PSX_20180516_081254 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr PSX_20180516_081230 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr PSX_20180516_081130 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr PSX_20180516_080948 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr PSX_20180516_081107 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr

I may be getting ahead of myself with this since I might still get back out and call for a friend or two but I wanted to get this down while it's all still fresh in my head. Be warned, this is going to be a LONG read, but it covers 10 days of hunting across two states and 6 kills, so hopefully it's worth the read if you like turkey hunting stories. Scouting I was planning to do more scouting than usual this year because my good friend Del was finally coming up from Savannah to hunt NY after having hosted me several times down there, and I wanted to be sure I could put him on some good birds. Thanks to the late start to spring though we still had birds in winter flocks as late as the youth weekend. The only real scouting I ended up doing was the Saturday before the opener, and thankfully by then one of my two best spots, “the horse farm”, was looking more or less normal with at least four gobblers on it that I could see that day. My other prime spot still had very few birds on it though. I was planning to save both of those spots until Del would be here (on the 5th) so I intended to go back out on Sunday morning to scout a place or two for the opener but by Saturday afternoon I felt like I was coming down with the flu. I spent Sunday trying to recover and called in sick on Monday for the same reason. My throat was still sore but otherwise I felt ok. As long as I was still breathing Tuesday morning I was going hunting. May 1st and 2nd Another friend drove up from PA the night before the opener to hunt the first two days and we were up at 3:00am Tuesday morning to head out to our spot. We were going in blind due to the lack of scouting, but it’s a property we have taken a couple birds off of the last two years. The birds here typically roost along a ridge about 100 yards back into the woods off a field edge, with a beaver pond between the field and roosting area. Usually they hit the ground in the woods, work their way around the pond, and then move out into a second field adjacent to the first one, but that isn’t separated from the woods by the pond. Our goal was to try and get a double so we thought our best bet was to wait for them in that field that they seem to always end up in. This day though they had other plans and flew off the roost directly over the beaver pond and into the field that we weren’t in. Because of the lay of the land and a hedgerow between the fields we could hear them but not see them. It sounded like four or five gobblers and a large number of hens. We still felt pretty good and thought we just needed to wait them out, but after about three hours they got quiet and apparently all drifted back into the woods without us ever laying eyes on them. We drove to another spot for a late morning hunt but weren’t able to raise a single gobble. Day two found us up and out the door at the same time, but as we pulled up to the parking spot we saw another truck with a couple guys just getting out. I stopped and talked with them for a minute in the hopes that maybe they were planning to go to a different part of the property, but they said they were just going in to listen for birds and then try to move on them. I told them fair enough, they beat us there fair and square and we would go somewhere else. We wished them luck, and they actually seemed surprised that we weren’t going to be a**holes and try and hunt on top of them. Unfortunately by that time there were now trucks at two other spots I was considering when we rolled by, so out of desperation I decided to try one of the spots I was “saving” and went to the one that had only had a couple birds on it the weekend before. We got in and got set up, and then never heard a single gobble. I don’t remember too much else about that second morning but I know we moved around a couple times and never heard so much as a single yelp. The only silver lining was that we did see two gobblers out on the horse farm at around 11:30 when we drove past after calling it a day. The first two days ended up being a bit of a disappointment and the season was off to a slow start. Thursday and Friday I would be at work, but I would be back out Saturday morning. May 5th Del flew in Friday afternoon and after a quick stop at my property to check that his sights were still on we were all set to start hunting. We arrived at the horse farm at 4:00am Saturday morning only to find another truck already there. I couldn’t believe it. I never get beaten to spots that early in the season, and now it had happened two out of three mornings. I decided to go look at the spot I hunted the first day even though I figured we were probably too late, and sure enough there was a truck there as well. Eventually we went to a hilltop property that sits above another large but heavily pressured property I can hunt. By coming in from above I knew we wouldn’t walk through anyone else’s setup, and there aren’t too many guys that hunt near the property line there. We got into the woods in plenty of time and found a good spot to listen. The birds I was expecting to hear weren’t there, but we had two or three sounding off below us. The closest was within two-hundred yards, so we moved toward him a little ways and found a spot to set up. Eventually he hit the ground and was responding regularly to our calling and moving toward us. After about 20 minutes three shots suddenly rang out from the direction the bird was coming from and everything shut down after that. I can’t say for certain that whoever shot wasn’t sitting there the entire time, but they never made a single call and my suspicion is that they stalked in on that bird and took a long shot at him. If people are going to be dirtbags and bushwhack birds heading to another hunter it would be nice if they could at least have the decency to make a clean shot. We gave it about an hour more to see if anything would fire back up but nothing did. We went back up to the top of the hill, which is a large field, and worked our way about a quarter mile to the south where we set up along the edge of the field and a piece of hardwoods. After twenty minutes or so of blind calling we had a bird respond from below and behind us in the woods. After several minutes we called again and he fired back, closer this time. He closed to within 70 or 80 yards and gobbled one more time before going silent, and we were expecting him to walk out at any moment. He never did. After twenty minutes we picked ourselves up and moved in toward where we had last heard him. There was a small gully that runs up through the hardwoods and it seemed like he had come up the far side, gobbled, and then drifted away when the hen didn’t show up. We moved about 100 yards past the gully to an open piece of woods and sat down to try again. He responded immediately from probably 200 yards downhill. We shut up and when he gobbled again three minutes later he had cut the distance in half. He cut off the next series of yelps and sounded like he was marching in. The guns were up with safeties off waiting for him when he gobbled one last time just out of sight, he couldn’t have been more than 50 yards away but was just downhill enough that we couldn’t see him. Again he went silent, and 15 minutes later it was clear he had walked away again. It was getting late in the morning now, but we picked up and moved another time. We dropped down the hill to the edge of an abandoned field and set up about 20 yards from the edge. Again he responded as soon as we called after repositioning. This time he came up through the old field and we were able to put eyes on him and see that he was clearly a big bird. All he needed to do was continue along the edge of the field where he was walking and we would have him, but when he was about 60 yards out he drifted into the middle of the field, spent several minutes scratching around and pecking at the ground, then tucked his wings and slowly walked away for a third time. It was apparent he had pretty well lost interest at that point and we weren’t able to raise another gobble from him. It was also getting close to noon so we called it a day. We would tangle with him again not quite a week later but round two didn’t go much better for us either, and he’s now earned “the Yo-Yo gobbler” as his new name. May 6th Sunday we woke up at 2:30am, determined to not get beat to our spot again. We pulled up to the horse farm and thankfully were the first ones there. The next decision was whether to sit high in the upper part of the field in the blind, or down along the edge of the woods in the lower section. There was supposed to be a steady rain at daybreak so we opted for the blind. Also, if the birds come out high you need to be up high also to have a good chance at them, if they come low you still have a good chance sitting high, you just usually have to wait for it. As we waited, we saw something moving along the edge of the field even farther above us and realized it was a large bobcat. Thankfully it was moving away from us and the turkeys. Sure enough, the birds eventually started gobbling low, and twenty minutes after shooting light that’s where they came out. We could see two gobblers and a bunch of hens. There were also two gobblers and more hens that came out 600 yards away on the neighbor’s property. The birds on our side slowly worked their way around the low section of the field below us, but we knew that eventually they would probably come our way. At the same time, the birds on the other property were steadily working our way as well, and had been joined by five jakes. Those birds finally made it all the way across, and the dominant gobbler that had been below us decided to go challenge them. He charged right up to them but when he realized they were both buddied up and working together he thought better of it and backed down. The two buddies strutted out into the field and took center stage. Then we realized a hen was squatting for them, and soon after I got to see a gobbler breed a hen during the season for the first time. Once the gobbler mounted the hen the jakes came running along with a fifth gobbler that had entered the field. Before they could get to him though, his buddy came running from the other side, got between them, and went into full strut with an aggressive, angled tail fan display. That’s a seriously dedicated wingman. After the gobbler finished with the hen birds started slowly dispersing. Two gobblers came up toward us but drifted out into the field well out of range. Eventually the two buddies came up our way as well following a pair of hens. The hens worked right to the front of the blind, but the gobblers started to drift around toward the back. We had a bit of a scramble to turn around but I was able to get a back window open and Del shot the strutter at about 10 steps. I couldn’t quite get in position on the second bird fast enough and he ran out to about 65 yards before slowly walking away back down the hill where he came from. He made it over to the neighbor’s fields and collected a few hens, and we did eventually get in position to try and call them all into the woods but other than one hen that came right to us they wouldn’t budge the rest of the morning. We headed home and cleaned the bird which was a decent three-year old with 1” spurs, a 9” beard, and weighed 19lbs. Once the bird was taken care of we loaded up our gear and piled back into the truck because we were off to Maine for the next three days to hunt with my friend Al. May 7th - Maine (the best day of turkey hunting I’ve ever had) It was a little hard leaving NY not having put a bird on the ground yet myself and being almost a full week into the season, but I was hopeful to turn things around in Maine. I never could have guessed just how good it would end up being though. Al had already filled one of his Maine tags several days earlier and said there was a pair of gobblers roosting at the same spot that Del and I might be able to double on. We parked on the side of the road at about 4:20am and the birds started gobbling at 4:30 as we were walking in through the woods. The birds were roosting right on the edge of a small field surrounded by woods, and we worked our way toward the corner where Al said they like to fly down. There was a heavy fog in the air as I slipped out and stuck a single jake decoy out in the field 15 yards in front of us. The birds were gobbling non-stop, and a third started gobbling behind them in the woods. Then two more joined in further back in the woods several hundred yards from the field. Legal shooting time was 4:59am, and at about 5:01 both birds pitched into the field and started working toward us. One was hanging back a bit so I held off as the first bird approached the decoy. I was hoping he would walk up and flog the decoy which should have brought the second bird running, but he got to within a few feet and started to get nervous. He tucked his wings and started high stepping it back to our left. I heard Del start to hiss “Kill him!” just as I squeezed the trigger and anchored him in his tracks. We had both had to switch over to HeavyWeight #6’s instead or our usual #7’s in our 20’s due to the laws in Maine, and at all of about 13 yards they absolutely hammered that gobbler. He was a 17lb two-year old with blunt 3/4” spurs and a 8 1/2” beard, but I was more than happy to be on the board. We decided to move off toward the two gobblers we had heard farther into the woods, but they had gone silent. We crossed a clear cut and did get one gobble but it was far off on the wrong side of a large beaver pond that we couldn’t easily get around. We worked our way back toward the small fields because Al thought there was another gobbler that liked to show up there mid-morning, but when we got back to the field at about 7:30 we realized he was already out there with two hens. We snuck up to the corner of the field and began calling softly and scratching in the leaves. All three birds started slowly working toward us but as they got close to being in range Del raised his gun and realized his reflex sight had stopped working. He was using a new gun that he had bought earlier this year and it came with the sight on it. It was a cheap sight but had worked well all through the Georgia season so he hadn’t bothered to change it out for a FastFire or Vortex yet. Apparently though it got some water into it on this morning. I tried to hand him my gun, but one of the hens caught enough motion that she headed out of the field and took the gobbler with her. We actually came close to getting them turned back around and coming again but they eventually drifted off and away from us. We took a break to go get some breakfast and check my bird in at the tagging station (local hardware store). By 10:30 we were back out at a new spot near a fresh clear cut. Del’s sight had apparently dried out and was working perfectly again. We cut a gobble using a crow call about 50 feet from where we parked and started moving into position. Del and I slipped down into the cut with Al setting up about 70 yards behind us to our right. As soon as we started calling we realized it was two birds and they were hammering back at everything we gave them. If we went quiet they would start to drift away so we just started to pour it on. They worked their way in a big circle around the edge of the clear cut, staying back in the woods, until one finally stepped out at about 120 yards. He was acting nervous and finally stepped back into the trees, but the other bird was still gobbling. The second bird stepped out of a corner in the cut at about 95 yards and spent several minutes strutting back and forth. After some light yelping and scratching he finally broke and began slowly walking toward us. He disappeared briefly behind a downed tree with a giant root ball sticking up in the air, but when he stepped out again he was 35 yards away and Del flattened him. He was another 2-year old that weighed 18 lbs, with tiny 1/2” spurs, and a 9” beard. The guy at the hardware store was more than a little surprised to see us back again with another bird, but we told him we hoped to see him again later. Then we went for a quick lunch before heading back to the same spot where we had started the morning, by our count there were another 4 to 6 gobblers still there. We hiked back up near the fields where I shot my gobbler that morning and spread out with Del uphill near where his sight had malfunctioned. Al was between us along the edge between the field and a clearcut, and I was farther down with hardwoods at my back and the clearcut in front of me. Five minutes after my first series of calls a hen strolled up out of the cut and inspected the single hen decoy I had put out, before walking away again. Twenty minutes later a bird gobbled below and behind me to my left. Over the next hour he gobbled several more times and had worked over directly below me but he was still a couple hundred yards away, and then he went silent. Another thirty minutes passed and he gobbled again. He had moved back behind me and sounded like he was moving into the woods at my back, below the field. Again he went silent, and after 40 minutes we all got up and got back together near the bottom edge of the field in the hardwoods where there were turkey scratchings all over the place. We decided that Del and Al would sit in the area around the heavy sign, and I moved off toward the far corner where a small stream ran up from the hardwoods toward the corner of the field where the birds had roosted the night before, in case the gobbler was using it to travel along. After another half hour the bird started gobbling again, and it sounded like he was coming along the stream on my side. The cover was very thick directly below me though, and I thought it would probably push him up toward the open flat where Del and Al were waiting. He continued to gobble when they called from above, and I would occasionally ad some soft clucks and yelps from where I was sitting. Another hour passed with the bird moving slowly below us, when finally he gobbled close enough that I realized he was actually still on the opposite side of the stream. A few minutes passed and I heard the unmistakable pfft-vrrrmmm of a gobbler spitting and drumming, and seconds later I saw movement about 55 yards away as he strutted into view on the far side, followed by two hens. It took him another 5 minutes to walk his way into range, but when he stepped into a small opening at 37 yards another load of HeavyWeight #6’s found their mark. This one was 19lbs, with a 9” beard, a second 3" beard, and sharp cone shaped spurs, but still only around 3/4” long so probably another two-year old (although all three birds seemed to have small spurs for their body size, so maybe stubby spurs are just a Maine thing). Unfortunately the hardware store was now closed so we had to head to a small general store instead, I really would have liked to see that guys face if we could have brought him a third bird though. This was also my first afternoon bird, and my first time killing multiple birds in one day (not having spent a ton of time in states where either of those things is legal). May 8th and 9th - Maine We probably should have just packed up and gone home after the first day, and left like conquering heroes. The next two days mostly seemed to exist just to remind us that, no, we aren’t turkey killing gods with magical turkey whispering abilities. We heard a few distant gobbles Tuesday morning and tried to wait one out in his strut zone along a tote road where we found a ton of gobbler tracks, droppings, and wing drag marks. We sat for two hours and gave up 5 minutes too early; we saw him come walking around a bend 150 yards away as we discussed our next move while standing in the middle of the road like idiots. Silent birds suck! That was about as close as we came the last two days, other than dropping Del in unposted woods to try and call a bird out of a posted field just before leaving on Wednesday. The bird gobbled at him twice, but had other plans and walked off in the opposite direction. We ate a lot of good food, busted each others balls, watched the Georgia boy chase a porcupine across a field at high noon to get a picture of it with his cell phone, and generally had a lot of laughs before heading back to NY on Wednesday afternoon. May 10th Back in NY and up at 2:30 with plans to go back to the horse farm after some of the other gobblers we saw on Sunday. We were the first ones there again and this time we decided to sit down low. We put out a jake and hen decoy in the corner of the field and clipped out some openings in the honeysuckle to set up our gobbler loungers. As it started to get light a gobbler started up about 100 yards into the woods on our left. Soon after he was joined by another farther back and up the hill from us. The one closest double gobbled at some soft tree yelps and then gobbled hard as we did a couple wing fly-downs using the wing from the NY bird Del had shot on Sunday. We looked across the fields and saw that a gobbler and some hens had already pitched down on the neighbors side and were forming up in the field. Another wing fly-down got an immediate response and we could tell this gobbler meant business. A few hens started calling from the trees and we answered them, but the gobbler was convinced that three had already flown out into the field and thought he was missing out on the party. A few moments later he pitched into the decoys like a giant mallard, and hit the ground just a few steps behind the jake. I glanced over at Del on my right because I realized we hadn't even discussed who was shooting if we just had one bird come in, but I saw that he had his gun in his lap and was focusing on filming with his camera. I took that as a green light, but I waited to see if another bird might fly out for a double. The gobbler started to get nervous though and as he started to turn his back on the decoys to head back toward the woods I flattened him at 10 yards and had my first NY bird of the year on the ground. This one was probably the big boy on the farm and weighed 19 1/2 lbs, with a 9 1/2" beard and 1 1/4" and 1 1/8" spurs. We left him laying where he dropped and turned our attention to the birds on the neighbors, which hadn't reacted at all to the shot. The hens were heading toward us and bringing the gobbler with them, until a jake showed up and moved in behind them. The gobbler seemed more concerned with the jake than the hens and started moving toward the jake trying to drive him off. When the jake started chasing after some geese the gobbler went with him. It was funny to watch as the jake chased the geese for about 150 yards, but it drew the gobbler away and after the jake broke off and went back toward the woods the gobble followed him and never came back to the hens. It was unfortunate because the two hens came all the way across and ended up 5 yards in front of us walking around the decoys. It was still only a little after 7am, so I left Del sitting there and went back to the truck to drive around and see if I could find any other birds out, and to run to the gas station and get ice for the cooler to put my bird on. I hadn't gone far when I saw a gobbler and six hens working their way along the edge of a cornfield that follows along a small creek. I texted Del to grab the gear and meet me at the road and headed back for him as quick as I could. We used the creek to get as close as we could but couldn't quite get into position ahead of the birds where we needed to be before they went in the woods. We decided to go get the ice and had a rather amusing time at the gas station as we attracted a bit of a crowd with our gobbler, as at least three random guys walked over and congratulated us and wanted to talk turkey hunting. I told Del "See, we have plenty of rednecks here in NY too". Once the bird was on ice we headed back out, and were rather surprise to find the cornfield gobbler back out with two hens. We again tried to get close using the creek, but again they went back in the woods before we could get where we needed to be. I thought they might be heading across a lightly traveled seasonal road and up to a hill top hay field so we headed there to try and cut them off. When we got up there we found lots of gobbler sign in the corner closest to where the birds were coming from, but it was also very windy up in the exposed field. We started walking down the edge a little ways to see if there was more sign, and because it dropped down hill and was out of the wind a little more. We didn't find much sign going that way though and decided we should sit the upper corner despite the wind. Almost as soon as we turned around to head back toward the upper corner though we saw the gobbler stick his head up out of the grass and immediately launch himself into the air, headed back down into the valley and the cornfield. All we could do was look at each other and shake our heads, we couldn't believe he had gotten up there that fast. For the second time in several days, five minutes was all the difference in keeping us from getting a shot at a nice gobbler. By this time it was getting rather late in the morning and we headed for home. May 11th It was Friday, and probably the last day to hunt before Del's flight home Saturday, unless we tried to squeeze in a short hunt before going to the airport. We decided to go after the bird we had spooked out of the field the day before and see if we could hear him gobbling on the roost. We had considered going back the evening before but with sustained winds of 15-20 mph we didn't think there was much chance we would have located him. Thankfully it was almost perfectly calm this morning as we headed back up to the hill top field. We split up and each took an opposite end of the field to listen. Del didn't hear anything on his end though, and all I heard were a couple different birds gobbling in the distance on neighboring properties. We were back at the truck just as the sun started to come up and decided to head for a different spot. We headed to the property where I had been the second day of the season and not heard anything. I've killed more birds on that single property than any other, but this year it just wasn't hitting on all cylinders like usual. Even so, as soon as we walked up the little hill to where you can see out across most of the fields we spotted a gobbler moving across the field only 100 or so yards away. I immediately dropped to my knees and grabbed the jake decoy I was carrying and stuck it in front of me, just to try and give us some cover. The gobbler looked up and saw the decoy, but also realized something wasn't quite right and headed straight away from us at a brisk walk. I took the decoy back to the truck because I knew we would be heading for the woods now, and then after giving the bird a few minutes to work away from us and settle down we headed across the field. We got to the woods and were about to call when a bird sounded off all on his own a few hundred yards away. We closed the distance a bit and tried calling but he never answered again. We spent an hour or so calling, waiting, moving closer, calling again, etc. but never heard another peep. Eventually we circled back to the fields and were about to step out when I spotted a hen feeding toward us. I again dropped to a knee behind a tree and waited to see if anything was following her. The hen must have spotted something she didn't like, and dropped down into the grass with just her head visible. After five minutes we decided nothing was coming behind her and didn't feel like being in a Mexican standoff any longer with a hen buried in the grass. We got up and she ran off to our left up and over a small rise in the field. Seconds later a gobbler, that must have been ahead of her, came running from behind the same rise and took off into the woods on our left well out of range. Again we were left kicking ourselves. We spent some time driving around looking for birds that might be out in the fields in workable locations but didn't find any. The only play we had left was to go after Yo-Yo, the bird that had bested us the previous Sunday. We dropped into the hardwoods above the old field where we had last seen him, but this time I stayed back in the woods to call and Del moved down closer to the field. My first series of yelps didn't get a response, but when I called again several minutes later I thought I heard a gobble far down below us. I waited another five minutes before calling again, and this time there was no mistaking what I heard, Yo-Yo was on his way. Over the next twenty minutes he worked in closer, gobbling occasionally when I called. Unfortunately it became clear that he was drifting off to my left and wasn't going to walk past Del. I got up and repositioned to try to keep Del between me and the bird, but the next time he gobbled it sounded like he had made it all the way up to the level I had been calling from, but still off the side of where I had been. He stood his ground there and gobbled at us for the next 10 minutes but wouldn't come any closer. Eventually he went silent and walked away just like he had done previously. This time repositioning didn't make any difference though and we never heard from him again. It was after 11 at this point so we headed back toward the truck, hoping we might still catch a gobbler out in a field somewhere that we could approach for a quick hunt. Luck wasn't on our side though, and our morning came to an end. May 12th The weatherman was calling for steady rain all morning so Del decided to call it a hunt and sleep in the next morning. Of course, weathermen are all notorious liars and the rain didn't actually move in until about 10am, but sleeping in after a week of getting up early felt pretty darn good and we didn't exactly have any regrets with our decision. The whole family went to the airport to see Del off, and after saying our goodbyes he was on his way through security at about 11:00. We stayed in the observation area so the kids could watch a couple planes land and take off, and then headed for home. I got the text that evening that he had arrived safely home in Savannah. May 13th Sunday was Mother's Day, but it was also the first chance I'd had all season to hunt on my own. Even though I'd been sharing the woods with some of my best turkey hunting buddies it's still nice to get out solo, and I've made something of a habit of going out and getting quick kills on Mother's Day and being home before anyone else even wakes up. I thought the gobbler we bumped on Friday morning was a good candidate for a quick hunt, so that's where I headed. I got out into the fields well before first light and waited for a gobble. When I still hadn't heard anything 10 minutes before shooting light I was starting to get a little nervous, and it didn't help when I hit the owl call and still didn't get a response. It was an overcast morning though so it was still relatively dark when shooting light came, and about 5 minutes later I finally got a gobble when I hooted again. It was light enough that I couldn't get too close, but I snuck up along the edge of the field as far as I dared and put out a jake and hen decoy. I got tucked in under some pines and gave him a few soft yelps which he ignored. I waited until it got a bit lighter and then called again, followed by some wing fly-downs, and that drew a response. He gobbled again after a second fly-down and I sat back and waited. Ten minutes later I saw a bird fly down into the field 150 yards away, followed moments later by another. The first turned out to be a hen that had been silent, but she started walking in my direction. She was walking out close to the middle of the field and the gobbler was trailing about 50 yards behind her, but as they got closer he started to drift a bit toward the decoys. As he got out in front of me I put the rangefinder on him just to be sure and got 41.5 yards. He took a couple more steps angling slightly toward me as I put the rangefinder down and got my head down on my gun, and he was probably standing just about on the 40 yard mark when I sent him a swarm of #7's and ended my season. He weighed 18 lbs, had 7/8" spurs, and a thick 10 1/2" beard. I can't decide if he was a three-year old with scrubby spurs, or a two-year old with a monster beard, but it's one of the better beards I've ever gotten on a NY bird. Even though I'm tagged out I'd still like to get back out and would be really happy to see Yo-Yo take a dirt nap this year, so I may have to recruit a friend to go after him. The weather doesn't look great this weekend, but maybe the long Memorial Day weekend will provide something to work with. Even if it ends here, it's been a great season. That first day we had in Maine is probably the single best day I've ever had in the turkey woods, and one I will always remember. Already looking forward to next year as well. It's been a few years since I made the trip down south, I think a road trip may be in order next spring... Here's a few pictures of the birds we killed. A lot of these were just taken with cell phones because most of the time we were in a hurry to move on and find other birds, but I got out the good camera for a few of them. Del's NY bird. _DSC3876-1024x682 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr My first Maine bird. ME bird 1 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr Del's Maine bird from the clearcut. _DSC3882-682x1024 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr My second Maine bird. ME bird 2 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr A great day in the woods. Maine birds by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr My first NY bird. NY bird 1 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr Nice hooks! 0510180630b-576x1024 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr He had a busted up toe too. 20180510_131825-576x1024 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr Mother's Day gobbler. _DSC3891-682x1024 by Shadow Hills Photography, on Flickr

The two shots with my birds are off a tripod. I leave it and the camera in the car rather than carrying them with me. A couple years ago I had a Sony RX1 that I would carry in my vest and it was awesome, but I ended up selling it when I was buying some other camera equipment. I think I need to get another one before next season though, it was perfect for carrying around without giving up any quality, and I could use it with one of the small flexible Joby tripods.