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Gobbling/Hen talk?

Well, the first full season archery turkey season is almost upon us. Just wondering how much gobbling you are hearing and are the hens pulling the gobblers away yet, or will we get some hot early-morning action the first week before serious breeding starts? I am just SW of the cities and the gobbling lately has been sparse.

I'm seeing some broke up but mainly in large flocks yet. Some breeding going on now.

If we get some normal weather patterns put your ear plugs on! It should be a good week. BC

A buddy just sent me the above link to a smartphone app that tracks gobbling around the US. Of course it is only as good as what people take the time to record. Kind of like this thread.

Oh, been hiding out the bad weather in my basement so haven't heard a thing! :

Got my first bow-turkey & first Tom today. In the truck by 8AM.

Off with his head!

Congrat's I just need one to come in like that.

Nice and Congratulation on the first bird!! Is that cam remote activated? Keep them coming and I'm hoping to add one here, too.

Yes, use a smartphone or tablet with bluetooth 4.0 and android version 5.0 & higher.

My buddy got one this morning with his recurve at 8:30AM. It was part of a group of three mature longbeards that did minimal gobbling at first light from the roost and then were back and forth around him all morning with no additional gobbling. They would fan out when they saw his decoy for a bit but wouldn't come in until he did some purring which pulled them in nicely. They went past him a couple times out of range and didn't even seem interested in the decoy. A hen was with them early but they left her to come over to his decoy the first time. He saw another lone longbeard that didn't present a shot. How do you guys interpret this? It seems to me that breeding doesn't seem to be on yet, at least in this area. What do you think?

I've been out the last 3 mornings and have be seeing the same thing, not much gobbling and indifference to hens. The first morning we(wife and I) saw 16 legal birds, jakes and toms and the only ones to come in were jakes. At on time we had 4 jakes and 2 toms fighting 40 yards in front of us. Good show but no shots, yesterday only one gobbler and 2 hens and today 2 gobblers walked by at 50 yards and showed no interest, tommorow will be better!

Had two toms come right into the decoys Friday AM and PM. Missed the tom in the morning my son shot the bird in the PM.

The one I missed was trying to get the 5-6 hens from his competitor who almost came in range then left. The challenger saw the decoys and came right in, sounding off the whole way.

The one my son shot came in silently..

ZERO turkey sounds this morning in one of my favorite spots.

Went out last Sat morning and things are heating up. Heard more gobbling but also heard more hens. Couldn't get one to come to me though and stayed out until noon. Sunday morning was a downpour and I hunted from the mattress blind.

managed to take this jake last Friday at about 10 yards, glad I got him early as my blind would have been an oven later in the day. Birds were extremely vocal in the AM.

Nice bird, Andy! He has a very nice solid black band on his tail. Most jakes and young birds have a band that fades out near the middle, but your bird is solid black all the way across.

Anybody having hens pulling the gobblers away? Had that happen last weekend.

Yea, pretty hard to compete with the real deal, Monday my wife and I had 6 gobblers in strut lined up like the front line of the vikings walking straight at us when a hen opened up 40 yards to the left of us. She walked away and the gobblers did to. I/We've hunted just about everyday since opener and today I slept in but plan on going out in about an hr to try some mid day hunting.

Wow, had an amazing weekend for turkey action and was taught a couple lessons by them, too. The gobblers schooled me that they don't like to walk through tall grass. My blind faces a small grass meadow with a narrow gap that worked great when the grass was short in the early season. It was also the reason that I didn't get a shot this weekend even though had birds all around me within 10 yards, just not in front of me where it mattered. I had a big gobbler on full display in front of my hen decoy for 3 1/2 hours on Sunday! Unfortunately, I had set my decoy up in a spot where I couldn't shoot, in hopes of luring them through the tall grass gap. Didn't work. I finally had to sneak out of my blind, circle around and chase the tom away from my decoy so I could put it away and leave. I'll be moving my blind for next weekend.

The new blind worked! My SpongeBob SquarePants arrow punched completely through the engine room.

Last weekend is coming up. Hope a few more MN hunters connect and post a pic for all of us to enjoy. Good luck out there, guys.

Really screwed up season, ended by sitting in a roost area for the last evening. Had 5 hens walk by and heard a couple fly up at 8:10, decided to call it quits only to leave the blind and find out 2 gobblers were within 15 yards directly behind me. Oh well, next fall season is only 5 months away.

Randy, You are not the only one that has had that happen, including me a couple times. I was reading the latest statistics from the MNDNR and the average archery success rate is about 11%. When I started turkey hunting back in the early 80's I remember going to one of those turkey seminars from the DNR. The CO doing the seminar asked if anyone is using a bow to hunt turkeys. Me and my buddy were the only one to raise our hands out of about 30 people. The CO smiled and said that we could expect about a 3% success rate and the gun hunters about a 25% success rate. Kind of puts it in perspective. The gun success rate is still only 27% per the current info but us archers are getting better! And, back then I remember only drawing a tag in the lottery about every 5 years initially. Wild turkeys have been an incredible success in MN and it is only going to get better in the future. Good luck this fall and I just may get a tag, too. Too much fun to pass up.

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