Birds down in my area still - crossing fingers in zone 1
If we are lucky enough to get a bird with some time left, I'll get my daughter out too.....if not, she waits until her normal season...same as last year. My daughters have tagged along since they were both 3, so I focus more on kids that come from non-turkey hunting families or non-hunting families, through our local learn to hunt. My daughters are 9 and 12.
The low is supposed to be 19 degrees....heater in the turkey blind! No snow predicted...which is good!
Got it set up by 1:00 PM and backed out - wind was terrible and I almost did a Mary Poppins with it in hand!
Freezing cold morning scheduled at 19 degrees! Heater is in the blind awaiting!
I had fun in the wind storm today. In your honor Pete...I did place some brush up against the blind....just in case!! LOL
God, I hope the blind is there in the morning!
Off to bed....Good luck kids!
Well the two boys did awesome for their first time. I know they learned a lot. And also had many hard lessons learned. We never got a bird. But had so many close calls. They didn't want to shoot a jake so we passed up a total of 6 on two different occasions. We had 6 toms within 40 yards on 5 different sets. 2 came in behind us. And we should have had a double but that was my fault because I should have moved to the back of them so that they could get a shot. I thought they would have seen me move, along with a big camera and tripod. Needless to say the one Tom got 5 yards behind me and all of a sudden "putt"
We finished up this morning at 10. And we had 5 hens and a Tom work. But the way our set up was. They had to work past us from right to left in order to get a shot. The hens lead first of course. And the one hen saw one of the boys move a bit. And she walks off and the rest of them, along with the Tom followed. Of course when he walked off. I had the only angle to get a shot. So we got some footage of him for the boys to see after.
They had a ball out there and so did I. Although we didn't take one. The hunting was fantastic. It's nice working birds that haven't received and pressure. We had them all to ourselves. Now they want to go during Their regular time zone. So I'll be playing guide again last weekend of April.
As I am doing so..I turn around and two big toms appear to our left just about 70 yards away. I don't think they noticed us right away as our decoys were still out and they were focused on those.
Lo and behold they slowly turned around and walked away as I quietly swear to myself. This has happened to me on a couple of occasions...you think I would learn! Only if we would have stayed in the blind another 5-10 minutes.
A learning lesson for the boy and a the life of a hunter I guess.
My son has been turkey and deer hunting with me since he was 3, he is 9 now and this was his first year to be able to shoot on a recent trip we took to Nebraska. We left WI on April 6th after school and went to South Dakota for a short 1 1/2 day hunt, where I took a tom with my bow on the first afternoon. We then had all day Friday to get to Nebraska and scout the rest of the day. He was pretty pumped for Saturday morning, his first day of hunting! We hunted hard all day long in 3 different set ups, but the wind was 40+mph and it was a long day with not much turkey activity.
Sunday was a different story as it was a great weather day. Initially we had a group of multiple hens, toms and jakes come close but they would not fully commit to our set up. Shortly after that a single tom returned our calls and eventually was strutting into our decoys at 20 yards. My son was very patient and waited for the right opportunity. Finally the tom stuck his neck up out of strut and he shot and had his first turkey!
We got back out that afternoon about 4pm and set up our blind along a barbed wire fence and put the decoys out in a field where we figured some birds would cross on the way to roost. We had a few hens come in and try and assault the decoys about 5pm. About 6pm we heard some gobbles about 400 yards away where they stayed for about 30 minutes. Finally, they came into the same field as us about 250 yards away. They stood in the same spot and just gobbled repeatedly expecting the hens to come to them. After about twenty minutes they appeared to be leaving so I gobbled at them and they then headed our way slowly. They got to about 75 yards and sprinted right to the decoys and started attacking the jake. It was tough for my son as they were close together and jumping and twisting. He again was very patient and waited for them to separate a bit and stop moving. He made another great shot and had the 2nd tom of the day and of his life! April 10th was a day he and I will never forget!
A controversial bill to allow any age to hunt in WI has been available for scheduling for more than three months, but no "on the record" action has been taken since. My opinion is that 10 is a good starting age for turkeys and deer. Any lower and I'd recommend small game only. Good for a whole host of reasons, including learning skills (and patience) that help "hook" you for life. Small game hunting is how most of us in the 50+ crowd started out. Not so for many youths today, and I believe it's part of the reason many never fully connect with the hunting lifestyle.
Rarely if ever do I encounter anyone while flying my red tail hawk in pursuit of those same game animals. Tracks in the snow show that very few people are looking for winter squirrels and rabbits anymore and me and my Nala have the woodlots basically to ourselves.
NAZ makes a good point I believe regarding small game.
I disagree on the age restriction on turkeys as I have seen plenty of youth safely and successfully harvest Gobblers in southern states at ages less than 10.
Father of the week award goes to our friend, C G and his young son on some fine turkey hunting! Good job fella's!
