alloutdoors

Yeah, there was a fair bit of traffic yesterday but the birds weren't paying any mind to the people. I'm sure as they get further into the nesting season that will change. They were spending most of their time stooping toward the canopy at the base of the cliffs, probably trying to flush something out since it didn't appear that they were actually going after a specific target. I didn't see them come up with anything while I was there, but they were also out of sight quite a bit so maybe they were having some luck.

Made my first visit of the year to our local peregrine falcon pair yesterday, they were quite active.

Great shots! First shot of the second series you posted is a winner!

I should add, the trumpet in the photos above was made by Billy McCallister. He and Del are business partners and run Natural Addiction Custom Calls together. https://m.facebook.com/macdaddycustomcalls/ Their trumpets placed first and third at this year's NWTF Grand Nationals. They make a nasty glass pot too.

Here's a good place to start, my buddy Del in GA put these videos together to help people get started. I was also going to link you to John Dangerfield's site because he used to have a clip on there that included him doing purrs on a trumpet which was amazing, but sadly I don't see the clip anymore. Del's videos will get you started though. I mostly cluck and yelp on mine with some cutts and kee-kee's mixed in (yes I mix in kee-kee notes even in spring).

Thanks, it was made by my friend Billy McCallister from GA, it was his personal call but he gave it to me in exchange for a wingbone I made him. His calls are getting to be better known now, his trumpets took 1st and 3rd at this year's Grand Nationals in Nashville. I have a lot of excellent trumpets but this one just suits me.

I don't shoot it myself, but there's no doubt it's devastating stuff. One problem is that the best choice for TSS is #9 shot, which isn't legal in NY (of course, I've never heard of an ECO running around with a micrometer cutting open handloads either...). I'm shooting HeavyWeight 7's from my 20ga and frankly that's already a bit overkill since I won't shoot past 40 yards. On the other hand, if I ever wanted to build a 40 yard .410 the TSS would be a great choice. Make sure you share some pattern pictures if you end up loading it, they are always impressive.

Choke is a SumToy .562-5. If you're going to shoot the Federals in a 20 I definitely recommend giving them a call, William at SumToy has those shells figured out. http://www.sumtoycustoms.com/index.php/chokes The Indian Creek .555 is another good choice, it actually puts up slightly higher numbers in my gun but I prefer the overall SumToy pattern.

I won't shoot until they cross the 40 yard mark, but at that range I'm getting 170+ hits in a 10" circle (if it's a really cold morning with temps close to freezing, it's more like 135-140 hits). I've patterned it at 50 just out of curiosity and it's still more than capable of getting the job done, I haven't bothered shooting farther. In practice, the vast majority of my birds are shot between 15 and 30 yards. The first year carrying the 20 though I had a gobbler try and skirt my setup at 38 yards, he dropped in his tracks as hard as any of the rest.

Yeah, this is my third year carrying the 20, will never go back to a 12.

Haha! Actually the vest is pretty much the only piece of gear I have that you can pick up at Cabela's. The camo is all Ol' Tom. I do really like my Tat'r vest though.

Ended up having a great hunt this morning, even though it got off to a rough start. I was supposed to take a guy from work who is just starting hunting, this would have been his first time out. He wasn't where we were supposed to meet at 4:00, I gave him 10 minutes but after getting no response when I called and texted I decided he must have overslept so I headed out. I found out later he was running 15 minutes behind and had left his phone at home... oh well, that was lesson one I guess. Since I didn't have anyone with me I decided to go back after a bird I've been on several times this season, but when I got near his roost it was dead silence. No amount of hooting could draw a response so I decided to walk back to the car and go where I was planning to take the other guy after all. When I got over there it was already shooting light, and I still needed to cross about half a mile of open fields to get to the woods. By the time I got out there I was pretty sure the birds would be on the ground, and at first I wasn't getting any response to any of my calling. I entered the block of woods from the north along a woods road that divides the block into an east and west side. The west side is bordered on the north by a beaver swamp that runs right up to the woods road I was walking on. I was alternating between crow calls and yelps on my trumpet and when I got roughly 100 yards past the back side of the swamp a bird gobbled from the west half of the block on my right. I quickly scrambled up the slope to get on the ridge he was on and gave another series of yelps. He hammered back immediately and had already begun closing the distance. I looked around and found a good tree, I was about 25 yards south of an east/west ridgeline and could see roughly 35 yards out toward the west in the direction the gobbler was coming from, it was a perfect setup. Approximately 5 minutes went by and I was starting to worry he might stay below the ridgeline and get too far to my right where I wouldn't be able to swing for a shot, so I carefully gave a couple of soft clucks on the trumpet. The response was instantaneous, he was no more than 50 yards straight in front of me and I could hear his gobble trail off into a low rattling rumble. I spent the next 15 minutes not moving a muscle, safety off, gun trained at the group of trees where I expected him to step out on one side or the other... but nothing happened. I waited another 10 minutes and tried lightly scratching in the leaves. Nothing. A few soft yelps, and again, nothing. 10 more minutes ticked by and I pulled out my crow call, and again I was met with silence. My best guess is that when he gobbled from so close he expected the hen to come right to him at that point, and when no hen showed he bugged out. If it wasn't for that last series of clucks he may have walked right into my lap. I was a little mad at myself for messing up on a bird that was coming in on a string but it was still early so I backed out and went over to the eastern half of the block. I made a loop around the perimeter and on the far east side I ran into 4 hens by themselves in a field. I got them going with some aggressive cutting and they came in to about 5 steps of where I was leaned against a maple before they finally spooked. Despite all of the back and forth calling no gobblers were heard from. I continued my loop and wound up back at the woods road near where I had struck the gobbler earlier. As I was considering my next move I thought I heard him sound off a bit farther out than he had been earlier and closer to the swamp. Rather than trying to call him back to the same spot I decided to swing to his south to try and come at him from a new angle. When I got to the southern edge of the block I switched to a glass pot call and tried a few calling sequences but got no answer. I continued to circle around toward the last place I had hear him, calling every few minutes as I went. Eventually I made it all the way up to where I could see the edge of the swamp and still hadn't made contact with him. I slowly worked my way along the swamp back toward the woods road and was thinking about what area I should head to for the second half of the morning. I picked up the woods road and began walking it toward the fields, there is a small clearing along the road about 60 yards before you get to the fields and I stopped at the edge to call one last time. I got a gobble in response, he was out in the fields and had probably walked up the road that I was now standing on just minutes before. I quickly found a spot to sit in a small stand of hemlocks that borders the road and provided deep shade. With the swamp on one side and thick brush on the other he was going to have to walk up the road if he wanted to come find me. I called again once I was in position and he sounded a bit closer when he answered. Several minutes later he gobbled one last time where the woods road enters the field and I knew he was coming. Thirty seconds later and I could see his red head bobbing down the road, at 26 yards he stepped into enough of an opening that I could see his beard and a load of Federal HW 7's dropped him in his tracks. My NY tags are filled but I may try to hit PA, VT or ME for a few days before the end of the month. Hopefully I'm not quite done yet.

Yeah, stop calling to them on the roost. At most, a couple clucks to let them know where you are, maybe a soft three note series of yelps, then shut up. If there aren't any hens around then I wouldn't even call to them until they hit the ground. You're also over calling when they are on the ground. How do I know? Because you're a new turkey hunter, it's pretty much a sure thing. However much you've been calling try to cut it in half, and then cut that amount in half again. That should be a good place to start.

Had one gobbling a little bit from the roost, probably the 2-year old I let walk the other day when my buddy tagged his friend. Dead silence once he hit the ground. I'd like to know where the other four gobblers we saw opening day went. Called two jakes in to eight yards around 8:30 but that was it. Driving home I saw strutters out all over the place, and that was around 11.

Sometimes they do, but plenty of turkey nests aren't lined at all. The primary purpose of the brood patch is to facilitate incubation, in most species the feathers are shed automatically during the nesting season. Feathers are an excellent insulator and do a wonderful job trapping heat against a birds body. During incubation however, a bird needs to transfer that heat to its eggs, which the brood patch accomplishes.

Wish I could have been out there today. Was planning to take today off but realized my son has a dentist appointment tomorrow so taking that instead, and of course now it's calling for more rain. Guess I'll be getting wet again.

It's 100% a hen, there is no question of that. Hens strut, full strut is not very common but they half and quarter strut regularly. Also, it's been very wet so far this season and someone calling in their first turkey who doesn't know the difference between a hen and a jake/gobbler probably would mistake a bird puffing out its feathers to dry off as "strutting".

Regarding the missing feathers, you are probably describing the brood patch. It let's the hen get bare skin on her eggs to incubate them.

870

Congrats!

Congrats!

Congrats!

Given the forecast for rain my buddy and I decided to go after some field birds and take the blind, figuring we could at least stay dry if nothing else. We had some distant gobbling early and then after a while some hen talk from the treeline at the edge of the field. It was after 6:00 when the nearby gobblers finally joined in. They flew down and went silent for a little while and then two birds started gobbling from near the field edge. We had thick fog and couldn't see more than about 70 yards but they hammered back at a short series of yelps and clucks. We could tell from the gobbling that they were working closer and when the fog finally thinned a bit we could see them at about 120 yards. At that point we could see it was just the two gobblers on their own and they locked on to the decoys and started making a deliberate approach. I put the binoculars on them when they reached the decoys and could see it was another pair of two-year old birds. Tim let one of them have it and we let the other one go. I finished my season in the first two days last year and didn't really want to do that again. I'll go back on a nicer day and get after them in the woods, and with a bit of luck I'll get on one of the older birds that we've seen there. It's been a good start to the season though with three birds in two days, and now Tim has his NY tags filled and can try to add a couple more in PA. I'm looking forward to getting back out, and hoping that the sun actually makes an appearance sometime this month. 16lbs, 1/2" spurs, 8 1/2" beard (and looking like a drowned rat) The two lines running diagonally through the photo are the tracks left by the gobblers as they knocked the dew off the grass on their way through the field.

I put a couple birds to bed last night and then met up with my buddy Tim who drove up from PA. We got right in under them this morning and they gobbled a little from the roost before heading right to us once they hit the ground. Had both birds down at 6:50 this morning and managed to get out before the rain started.