Turkey Season
Contributors to this thread:Indiana
From: INbowdude
21-Apr-20
Best of luck tomorrow and the rest of the season. Be safe and have fun.
From: INbowdude
26-Apr-20
Not a bow-kill but I did take a nice Tom opening morning and then Saturday, I called in a jake for a buddy who had never killed a turkey before. Very cool to be the "guide".
From: sticksender
27-Apr-20
Congrats Mike!
From: bas
27-Apr-20
After a great season last year, the turkey's are kicking our butt this year. Seeing and hearing more birds than normal but they won't close the distance and shut up every day by 9 am. Lots of hens too. Actually passed on a bearded hen because I had 3 toms about 150 yards out. They never came in... Hope everyone else's season is going great!
From: INbowdude
27-Apr-20
Thanks Greg. Good luck to you guys. Those toms will get lonely as those hens get bred.
From: Zim
28-Apr-20
INDNR really needs to update the system for public land permit distribution. Been scouting Kingsbury & JP for the last two months while hiking. Got several great places for turkey but a guy only gets one choice on the application and that's for a 2 or 3 day hunt until noon only. This weekend I checked the sign-up sheet at KB and a grand total of zero of the 12 people that drew permits showed up..........on both Saturday & Sunday! And Sunday was picture perfect weather. They need to start charging some kind of application fee so these guys have some skin in the game. Nothing to lose with a $0.00 fee. Also opens a wide door for PETA activists. Very dumb system. Even a modest fee would weed out some of those not serious, while funds generated would go to a good cause. Nobody can tell me all 12 guys tagged out on private or had some other valid excuse for wasting public opportunity. My hunt is May 3-5. The only upside is I'm going to get into some unpressured toms, but what a waste.
From: INbowdude
28-Apr-20
Best of luck!
From: shamsmehra90
30-Apr-20
Be safe and have fun.
From: Zim
07-May-20
Scored at 9:45 am on the third morning with two hours left in my hunt.
Scored at 9:45 am on the third morning with two hours left in my hunt.
Red tailed hawk landed next to my decoy but was run off immediately by the live hen.
Red tailed hawk landed next to my decoy but was run off immediately by the live hen.
Tom first appeared at 9:00 am but got no closer than 50 yards.
Tom first appeared at 9:00 am but got no closer than 50 yards.
Had my first two Illinois public land turkey hunts this year stolen by Gov. Pritzker, without even a refund check! What a thief! But Indiana came through with an eventful three day hunt. Used both my pop-up and Ghost Blinds combined with decoys with great success. Nothing like Wisconsin, where toms will avoid or run like hell from anything artificial due to heavy hunter pressure. I actually quit using decoys entirely there. But in low pressure Indiana it seemed everything in the woods came to check them out. A first for me was to see a live hen befriend my decoy and charge in to defend it later when a red tailed hawk swooped in landing next to it, apparently planning to attack? That hen got all puffed up and hissed at the hawk, as you can see in the photo.
Indiana’s deer management is horrible, with 16 shotgun days in the rut and three months of crossguns pressure, but state turkey management is very conservative. Just one Tom per hunter per season. This makes for a real quality hunt even on public land. I’d highly recommend giving it a try.
My Tom first made an appearance at 9:00 am, strutting for a hen tucked in behind the hedge to the left. But he was just out of range at 50 yards. I just made sure he knew I was there by yelping twice and viewing my decoy. I knew he would then return later after his hen went to her nest mid morning.
Now it’s on to Wisconsin with two 2D tags in hand.
