CW’s 2025 Spring Turkey Season (Updated 5/3)

[CurtisWalker]

My turkey season kicked off in Iowa on Friday. I met up with Rob and his son to try and get Dakota his first turkey. We came very close last year so the hopes were high. The birds didn’t gobble much on the roost and went pretty quiet once they flew down but we knew we were in the right area of the birds kept their patterns. Unfortunately they had a change of hearts and didn’t cooperate at all as sometimes happens during the early season . We did see a hen and 3 jakes though but none of them showed any interest in the decoys.
After hunting with Rob and Dakota. I drove back home and loaded my escape up to make the journey west to Nebraska with good friend Chase. I made it home with 30 minutes to pack before Chase showed up and we hit the road. We stopped at fleet farm to grab me a new gun sling and another box of shells just in case something went wrong and I needed more than the 3 I had. We arrived to where we hunt in Nebraska around 6:45-7pm and went right to scouting. I have been hunting the area for a few years now and have a good idea of where we can find turkeys but it’s always nice to confirm it the night before season opens. So we go to our first glassing knob and glassed up a strutter with 3 hens. Then another group of 3 turkeys that looked to be jakes. With where they were in the food we knew where they’d be heading to roost(not many trees in the area) so we left them to try to put some more turkeys to bed. We drove around and located a group of hens but they didn’t have a tom that we could see with them so we just noted where they’d were for a spot to come back to if needed.

We continued on and went to a roost area we watched turkeys roost in last year. Unfortunately we didn’t see any turkeys roost there or hear any gobbles so we had one option for the morning.
The next morning we made our trek in with a blind and decoys to the corn field we saw the turkeys in the night before. In the past the turkeys usually head up into the field after strutting for a bit below the roost trees. We knew it wouldn’t happen fast but if we were patient enough they’d probably show. Now some will be like you are using shotguns why are you using a blind. Well because we are hunting grassland turkeys and the property we are hunting has less than 50 trees on 750 acres so there’s no easy hiding. So we set up in the cornfield and are met with quite a bit of gobbling. Eventually it got light enough I could see the turkeys rooster through my binos and confirmed 2 for sure toms and maybe more in the roost. The birds eventually flew down and the gobbling continued. Before we knew it the gobbling was getting closer and closer until I could see 3 turkeys crest the hill and make their way towards the decoys. When they crested the hill they gobbled again and I knew immediately they were jakes. They had fooled us with great gobbles until they got closer. But there was another full gobble not far behind them so we were still hopeful. The jakes made their way to the decoys and began their tough guy acts strutting around and beating up the jake decoy before knocking it down and humping it. They got bored with it and moved on to the hen decoys and did the same. Some laughs were shared in the blind and they eventually left. When they got out of sight we decided we’d get out and fix the decoys and do some glassing as over an hour had passed and we hadn’t heard the closer tom anymore. We eventually glassed up a tom, Jake, and 2 hens moving down a valley away from us and we made the decision we’d try to beat them to the road they were about 400 yards from. We had to make it about 3/4 of a mile before they made it the 400 yards so we hoofed it made it to the road and got to the valley they were in. I peaked over the ledge and could see we had only beat them by about 100 yards and they were closing. I told Chase to crawl under the fence and be ready because they are coming. I decided I’d loop back to the next valley over incase they for some reason decided to go over top the hill rather than going to the road so I’m sitting there waiting for the boom and nothing so I walks little bit further into the property to another fenceline thinking maybe they turned and were cutting east rather than staying on their southern coordinates next thing I know I hear boom, boom. And I look back and see a tom running down the fence next to the road running into the fence with his wings out. So I take off running to catch up to this thing and try to shoot it a few times as it’s running and just whiff three times. I then see Chase running to join me and we are both after this tom next thing I know the turkey is turned around and sprinting at me and I panic when it gets to like 3 yards and just jump out of the way. It runs out and I try to shoot it again and my pattern the size of a golf ball flies next to it. Chase told me to save my ammo and he’d shoot it and he misses a third time and is now out of shells so I told him I’d get it and I miss with my last shot. Then Chase just tries to hit it and whiffs so I decided at this point I’m just going to tackle the thing. I chase it down and tackle it and Chase trips on my legs and falls on top of me and the turkey. We are dying out of breath but thankful we got the thing. 40 yards from the road. Turns out he had hit it with his first shot in the head and blinded the turkey but didn’t kill it and it went to fly and he shot it again out of the air with the second shot. The whole thing went western fast. But we were on the board opening day.

We had left our vests and the keys to the car in the blind so we were excited to be 150 yards from the car when we killed the turkey but then realized we still had to walk back and get the vests. So we retrieved our vests. Took some photos and headed to get lunch before heading back to the place we stay to clean the bird before it got too hot. Well on our way back to the house I spotted to toms right off of public and we could make a play on them and hopefully get them to cross the fence. We got in where we wanted to and they gobbled instantly. And next thing I know I can hear them spitting and drumming. Close like what seemed to be right on top of me. Then it vanished and they made it past us and gobbled again. We tried for about 30 minutes to get them to budge but they lost interest and worked off. Turns out they walked 20 yards from me but there was a little cut out ditch that we didn’t see that they walked in and made it around us out of sight. We got back to the house and Chase cleaned his bird and we took a little break before coming up with a plan for the afternoon.

We ultimately decided to go back to the property we hunted in the morning and grab the blind and decoys and walk another 3/4 of a mile into the property to a place we call the fence gap roost. It’s a corner of the property that’s fenced to where you can drive through it and move cattle through it and there’s a small water hole right at the corner. With it being 95 degrees we thought maybe turkeys would be stopping there to get a drink through out the afternoon and if not there was a roost that I killed my tom out of last year 100 yards away. So we got in and set up around 4:45pm and man is it hot. I forgot to switch boots and I can feel hot spots forming so I take my boots off and socks off to let my feet dry out and cool off. We have the windows in the back of the blind open to let the breeze in but all the mesh windows shut including the front windows. I have no service and am just sitting there watching the hill tops around us because we are down in a bowl but not seeing anything. I call once and hear nothing. Next thing I know Chase says “there’s a turkey right here” I think he’s kidding of course but he says no I’m serious there’s a hen 15 yards away by the hen decoy. So I lean forward so I can see out the front of the blind and sure enough there’s a hen and she’s walking towards us. She ends up walking to my side of the blind so I peak out the side window to watch her and there stands a tom strutting at 5 yards. Never made a sound. So I tell Chase there’s a tom and he of course doesn’t believe me but I tell him he should be able to see him out of the blind soon. Well sure enough he works to the front of the blind but something is up his head turned the all red color like they do when they are nervous and his whole attitude seemed like he was ready to bug out so I slowly grab my gun and begin to slide the mesh window open so I can slide my barrel out the blind and shoot him. He just slowly walks away and I finally get my gun up and call him with my mouth so he’d lift his head and I hammered him. Well after I shot three Jake’s came gobbling from where the tom was so we figured they had boogered him. I recovered him and he is definitely my biggest Nebraska bird to date and we were tagged out at 5:45pm on opening day less than hour into our afternoon sit.

https://youtube.com/shorts/uGB_lacWIvg?si=PHgruGQ27bT_6UmN


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[deerhunter93]

Heck of a start and some good stories to go with it! Good luck the rest of the season!

 

[JNRBRONC]

Congrats Curtis!

 

[Rjack]

Great story telling. Thanks for sharing. I only chased one down - my oldest son's first - and it was quite a chase as well.

 

[CurtisWalker]

On Tuesday(4/15) I met up with Matt and we headed to a public spot I found way back in college. It’s a pretty consistent spot but it makes you work trying to get to it. We got there plenty early but the moon was bright which is never good and we ended up bumping two turkeys off the roost as we were walking in halfway down the ridge from the flat we were going to set up on. My heart sank a bit but I knew there’d be other birds in the area even if they weren’t extremely close. We made our way in and sat up on a big multi stemmed tree that made hiding two guys extremely easy. As we sat and waited for the sun to come up we were met by gobbles, yes they were a ways off but no they weren’t out of play. We sat there discussing how with the wind being strong the turkeys we bumped were probably rooster where they were to get out of the wind. Once it got closer to fly down Matt let out a few yelps and I followed with some of my own. Just to let the birds know where we were. We thought one bird was getting a little closer and I could start to hear a hen yelping. Matt let out another yelp, GOBBLE!!, two toms fired right back. Now this is where our story might differ a bit. These turkeys obviously shock gobbled at Matt’s yelping. Because shortly after blue heron flew over us and they shock gobbled again at it. That’s when I let out the most sexy soft yelps these two toms had ever heard. Before we knew it they were in Matt’s lap. I got my phone out to record but Matt had other plans and jelly headed the strutter at the first opportunity he had. After taking some glorious photos (if you need timer tips, I’ll sell them cheap) we walked back to the truck. The morning finished off with Matt buying me breakfast and telling me that I’m probably the best turkey hunter he’s ever met.

Matt’s version:
https://iowawhitetail.com/community/threads/opening-morning-for-me-bird.65076/

 

[Matthewfox_45]

You left out the part where I said you’re as handsome as you are good at turkey hunting. I always look forward to our adventures, even if they aren’t productive they’re always good for a lot of laughs.

 

[jkratz5]

Getting after them, congrats bud!

 

[CurtisWalker]

2nd season updates.

Last Friday I went out for a quick afternoon hunt with Chase and his wife Connie. They got permission to a property in southern Iowa so we made the two hour journey down to check it out. We were met by a bittersweet sight when we pulled up of a couple strutters and a field full of hens. So we made our plan to sneak in just under the field looking at topo maps and we sat up to call. I backed off a little more and called and was answered by a fired up hen that eventually couldn’t handle the back talk and had to come find out who this new lady was. She marched right in front of Connie and checked out the decoys before working into the timber with me. Now we agreed at the beginning we’d give it 20 minutes before we moved and that was before the hen came through. She was there in under 5 minutes and 5 min later Chase was ready to move. I feel like he was feeling the pressure on trying to get Connie her fourth turkey after last year was the first year she hadn’t filled her tag. Wasn’t my property or hunt so I just followed the leader. We made it less than 20 yards and had to lay down because we saw two toms working our direction. My biggest tip when it comes to turkey hunting is patience and I always say it. So we lay in the grass in the wide open and eventually lose sight of them. So we continue, we get to the spot we had originally wanted to sit in and got set up and not long after a tom and 3 hens enter the field about 50 yards away. Chase is mad because we can’t get the windows open on the blind with so many turkey eyes and the toms not going to the decoys. The tom struts from our east all the way south of us and shows no interest in the decoys. But hey that happens and we still have two hours of shooting light. So we wait it out and once and awhile a new hen would show up and walk through our decoys and head to the tom strutting. Eventually they all started heading back our direction. My job was to call and film so I started filming.

The birds worked all the way to thirty yards and I’m expecting Chase to tell Connie to shoot the tom but nothing

So the tom starts to skirt us when the hens are literally in the decoys. Out of frustration Chase gets short with me and asks if she should shoot it and to stop filming and tell him how far the turkey was. Granted I’m sitting on the floor of the blind and the only way I can see anything is looking at the screen of my phone recording. So I slowly get up and look and I was thinking the tom was about 35 yards and it’s whatever they want to do because it is their hunt. So Chase tells her to shoot it. Eventually she took a shot and missed. In her mind though she thinks she wounded the turkey and so then it’s just a negative fest. Which I’m a positive person and hate negativity. I reassure her she missed but she doesn’t believe me and Chase is saying now she’ll never hunt again. So I go and look for any signs of the turkey being wounded and find nothing. The turkey ended up being 47 yards when she ended up shooting which is way further than I even thought it was but it covered some distance the last little bit when skirting us. This hunt left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth with all the negativity though.
So Rob texted me Friday to and asked if I’d want to hunt Saturday instead of Sunday because the forecast was supposed to be rainy. Of course I said yes because I love taking youth hunters out and I also wanted to wash all that negativity out of my mind. So Saturday morning after getting 2-3 hours of sleep I was back on the road to southern Iowa to meet Rob and Dakota. We arrived to the blind we had hunted on youth opener and placed the decoys and the wait for the first gobble began. Not much of a wait later we began hearing gobbles unfortunately nothing too close like we had during youth season. However there was one tom I thought to be 4-500 yards away that was definitely still in play. After fly down things went quiet. This is where that patience comes in though. Just because you aren’t hearing them or seeing them doesn’t mean they aren’t around. At 7:30 I let out a series of yelps and was answered by what we assuming was the tom we heard on the roost and he had gotten closer. So I wait 15 minutes and call again and the bird gobbles in about the same spot but another tom gobbles in front of us up on the ridge. Wait a little bit and I call again and the ridge bird gobbles again. He was working his way across the ridge kind of away from us. Around 8 I yelped and the original tom had closed the distance and was less than a couple hundred yards away. Then he was under 100 but on the wrong side of the fence and behind cedar trees I could hear him but not see him. 10 minutes later we can see the ridge tom headed our direction down the side of the ridge. And I finally put eyes on the original tom buggering out of the area. Once the ridge tom entered the field his jake buddy and him marched their way all the way to the decoys. Dakota’s breathing depended and it was all over from there. He spent no time putting a perfect shot on his first tom. It was definitely an awesome moment, especially after “his heart was beating to hard to shoot” hunt last year.

Monday I decided I’d hunt again with Chase and Connie trying to help get Connie a bird and we went back to the property we had hunted on Friday. However we sat in a blind about 150 yards straight south of the blind we had sat in previously. My thought was it puts us on a hill and more wide open so the turkeys could see the decoys better. The added difficulty of this hunt was we had their one year old daughter with us. Right away we heard some gobbles not far to the north of us and thought this should be good. After fly down they got pretty quiet though and eventually we had a few hens enter the field with us and hang out around the decoys. Eventually I put eyes on two toms about 600 yards away and they began hammering but working away. Not long after that I see a tom headed to our field. Literally as he was about to enter a field another tom comes out of no where and chases him off and the two other toms ran back and started in the chase too. Great the birds are fired up this morning and aggressive. They should want to fight the jake decoy if they enter the field. Around 8:15 the pair of toms enter the field and begin working our direction. This was short lived and they stalled out strutting in front of the blind we had sat in on Friday. Of course this pisses Chase off and there goes his positive attitude. The one tom wanted to come to the decoys he was fired up but the other seemed scared and wouldn’t leave the hens which held them in their spots. They ended up working our way up until around 10:30 where they stalled out at about 80 yards with a couple hens

They spent an hour or two there before the hens went back to the north taking the toms with them and out of our sight. At this point the one year old had enough and it was time to go. There was a few times where she screamed and the turkeys could hear it so I don’t know if that was part of the reason they wouldn’t break but hard telling.

Now on to third season. I think I’m waiting to go 4th season for myself but have an old coworker I’ll take out sometime this week and maybe some youth kids on the weekend depending on if we get a turkey down during the week and the forecast. Good luck to those still hunting.

 

[CurtisWalker]

Third season my one and only goal was to hunt with [mention]Matthewfox_45 [/mention] and our friend Christian to try and get Christian his first bird in 10 or so years. Matt and I have been trying to convince him to go for a few years now but it just didn’t line up right until this year. Friday morning (4/25) we were finally able to line everyone up and we made our way to the same spot Matt killed his turkey at during 1st season. This time we got in without spooking any turkeys. It had rained all night and was still sprinkling as we sat and waited to hear the first gobble of the morning. We didn’t know if it’d be one of those mornings where the rain shut them off or fired them up. It didn’t take long to figure out it was the latter of the two. Gobbles started ringing out and some close enough we thought there’d be a good chance we’d see some. The one thing I was worried about though was the sprinkling and wetness. I was worried it’d cause the birds to go to open fields and hang out like they do while we were tucked up on a timber ridge. The turkeys gobbled good all morning and seemed to get closer but then work away. We could hear one tom gobbling to our east that sounded like maybe he was down close to a public field and we discussed whether we wanted to move or wait him out and see if he works his way back up the ridge to us when he dried off. While we called at that bird another bird fired off to our NW and when we called again he was definitely closer. So we repositioned ourselves so Christian was on the right side of the tree. We called again and to me it sounded like he was under 100 yards and just out of sight down the ridge to our west. But then Christian says “I can see him, he’s coming straight to us” the bird was still coming from our NW and closing quickly. Then I can finally put eyes on him when he is around 75 yards away. The tom keeps working in to about 30 yards but then angles to walk parallel to us so I tell Matt to call to try to change the course of the turkey. The tom stopped and I had a beautiful shot from where I was sitting but unfortunately it stopped behind a tree for Christian. The birds course did not change and he continued moving west to east not offering Christian a shot until he got back out of range. Christian was beating himself up about not making it happen but Matt and I both agreed that not shooting and not wounding a turkey was a way better choice than making a tough shot. After the bird left we decided to try and make a move on the bird that was still gobbling down the hill to our east. Well on our move, we ran into two bowhunters that had been trying to work that bird and were headed to where we had been because they thought the bird was moving uphill. We took this as a good sign to go and get some breakfast and come up with a new game plan.
After breakfast we decided we’d walk in to a ridge that I had deer hunted a couple falls ago on another piece of public that was tore up with turkey scratching. As we were walking in I swear I could see a strutter down in a valley. I got my binos out and looked and what I originally thought wasn’t a strutter but then I could see a strutter a little further back. I then lost sight of it so I convinced myself I was seeing things and we continued our walk in. Well we made it about 50 yards and GOBBLE. Crap it had been a strutter. And then another gobble. So we make our way back to where we had initially saw the tom from and sat up behind this small ridge and laid so we could see into the valley ahead of us. We called and silence. Made a few moves to where the tom had been and no responses. So we continued on and made it to the original ridge we planned on getting to. We no longer got sat down and from our west here comes a… old man with a walking stick in a blue plaid shirt. We are assuming he came off the private land because it’s no small feat to walk in from any of the other accesses and there was no cars parked at them when we got there. He finally sees us and turns around and leaves. Now the tree we sat on was rather comfy and well I couldn’t resist a midday nap so the details after that were blurry for a while.

After a nice nap. We decided nothing was coming and we’d bail of the ridge and walk down the valley to see if we could find the tom we had left on the walk in. While I was bailing max speed down this steep ridge a blew past some morels. Christian noticed them and picked a hand full. This turned into a full blown mushroom hunt. I mountain goated up and down ridge sides checking different micro climates with no luck until I finally stumbled across two.

I finally caught back up to Matt and Christian and I found a third morel right next to their boot tracks 50 yards behind them. After that it was a short walk to the truck.

Matt couldn’t hunt Saturday but Christian and I still planned on going out but that changed when he got home and felt things out with the wife and kids but the plan was for all three of us to hunt again Sunday. Unfortunately though Matt had to back out with plans changing for him. So it was just Christian and I. Originally the forecast said rain so I told Christian let’s head down to a farm I can hunt in southern Iowa. It’s a big ag field that I know turkeys venture in to. So Sunday morning that’s what we did. This is the same farm Dakota killed his bird at so I knew there’d be birds. What I didn’t expect was them to be rooster on the west side of the field. And we got there later than I had wanted. So as we are walking across the middle of the ag field turkeys start gobbling under 200 yards away. Great we are going to be busted I thought. But the birds never stop gobbling and we set up in the same blind we had used for Dakota. That’s when I could see the turkeys roosted in the trees in front of us at 175 yards. They were still gobbling though which in my experience is a good thing. A short while later we watch 3 birds pitch down into the timber. Couple minutes later a hen pitches into the field with us and another walks into the field after her. Perfect we have the hens the toms shouldn’t be long after them. The gobbles got closer for a bit then went silent. From 7-10 we didn’t hear another gobble. So we decided we’d pick up and walk over to the timber edge and call before driving down the road and run and gunning some public. We walk 134 yards to the timber edge and call and nothing. I say let’s just walk a little bit further and call. We make it 10 yards and there’s a decent sized ditch so before crossing I call and a gobble fires right back. Here we go. But then I could here putting or clucking and then could see two turkeys walking on the top of the ridge. Crap we are busted. But they kept clucking and made it out of sight but didn’t seem like they were in a hurry to leave so I called again. Told Christian cross the ditch and make it up to a pile of deadfall and then I’d follow we get there and I call again and was answered by a gobble down the ridge but on top of the ridge from us. Christian moved to the front of the deadfall and I backed off from him a bit as we were running out of real estate of property boundaries and I didn’t want them to hang up on us on the other property so we get sat and I call they gobbled closer perfect they are coming. At this point I thought I could hear drumming just up the hill from me. I called on final time and the gobble was so loud it made me jump. They were close and then I see Christian swing his gun and shoot. Then shoot again. Bird down.

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[Matthewfox_45]

Awesome hunt!!! Wish I could’ve been there.

 

[CurtisWalker]

I was back in the saddle again Wednesday the opening day of fourth season. I decided to go to a farm I went to last year during fourth season and saw a bunch of birds. I hadn’t been there this year and knew it was being put into CRP rather than the ag it was in previously so I was a bit worried if it would be huntable or not. When I pulled in it my heart sank because the vegetation was pretty tall but I decided to walk in anyways. About 30 yards I could tell things had recently been burned. Perfect! But this feeling of optimism was soon met with tall vegetation soon later. However I did stumble into a green rye plot and thought it’d be a good as spot as any and turkeys were already gobbling so better get set up quick. I carried in my decoys, blind, chair, and camera gear. I was sweaty!!!! I get set up and not very long after I see a strutter on the next ridge over. I call and this bird begins running from 300 yards away. And not long after he’s strutting at 100 yards. Another yelp and he was on his way in. He marched into the decoys and two other birds came out of nowhere and joined him. I thought about filling both my tags with one shot but decided against it in fear of wounding a bird. So when they separated I shot the first tom. Now usually the birds hang around long enough for a second shot but not this time. They were out of there. I did get some awesome footage though. Not very long after four strutters appeared on the ridge where the first bird came from so I waited to see if they would work in but they never did. I ended up hunting the rest of the morning seeing 11 toms, 4 hens, and 3 jakes in total but nothing wanted to finish into the decoys.

I’ll post the video up at some point when I get the chance to upload it to YouTube.

Thursday Matt and I teamed up to go out and we went to a farm I killed my fourth season bird on last year. Once again another CRP farm that I wasn’t sure what it’d look like this year. But once again we were surprised it had been burned this spring. There was a food plot that I had been planning on going to anyways. With wet rainy weather we elected to sit in a blind. Right away we were met with gobbles. On the neighbors but that’s where they roost. One was close enough that I knew we’d eventually see him. I didn’t expect to see him as early as we did though. He hammered to the calling and closed the distance fast after fly down. As he approached 60 yards a few deer blew at the turkey decoys as they do and put him on edge as a pile of deer exited our immediate area. He went from a fired up to a timid quiet bird. I let him start to leave before calling at him again and he responded but kept walking away once he got behind some cedar trees I really gave him the dirty talk and that was enough. He had to come into the field. He came into the field and strutted his stuff and pecked around under 50 yards for awhile. When he gained his confidence back it was all over as he marched into the decoys. Matt put a perfect shot on him.

We decided we’d go and try an ihap piece a couple miles away to fill my tag. On our way there we saw turkeys literally everywhere. As we pull into the ihap we learned that it was no longer Ihap unfortunately so we decided we’d hit another piece of public on the way home. We got to the public but parked short of the parking lot due to a muddy road. As we walked in and got in the parking lot I could see a tom and three hens not far away. Unfortunately the tom saw us about the same time. And they were gone in a flash. We stumbled into another strutter walking in but he never played the game but another tom was gobbling his head off so we tried to make a play on him and he disappeared into thin air. I did put a heck of a stalk on a black angus bull though. Unfortunately the video of that seemed to have gotten lost.

 

[CurtisWalker]

Today I was headed down to try and fill my final tag when a buddy reached out. So I decided to join him. I was only 20 minutes from his house so I changed course and met up with him. We went to one of his farms and located a bird on the roost and set up on him. We wasn’t a talkative bird but that’s okay. After daybreak we had a hen talking and we eventually called her up the ridge to us. The tom followed her up closer but then seemed to just hang up. We tried calling at him a few times but he’d just gobble at about 100 yards and wouldn’t budge. All this time we could hear a few birds on the other side of the farm just lighting it up. We decided we’d go silent on our bird and if that didn’t work we’d make a move on the other birds. Well that plan was soon disrupted when a gunshot rang out in the direction of the other birds and they went silent. So we decided to just keep waiting our bird out. After awhile you could tell the silence was killing him because he started hammering and getting closer. I let out a quiet yelp and was surprised by a hen answering me 10 yards away the opposite direction of the tom. She went into the decoys clucking and we thought this has to do it. The drumming was getting louder and he let out a gobble. Had to be under 50 yards but we still couldn’t get eyes on him. Eventually he worked his way back down the ridge to his strut zone and just hung out again. We decided we’d go try to find another bird that wanted to cooperate more. Unfortunately we never found a bird that’d cooperate.
I’ll be back after em tomorrow.


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[CurtisWalker]

This morning I hunted with Chase and Connie again trying to end the string of no harvests the last few times she’s been out. We went back to the farm I killed my bird on Wednesday. I thought our best bet would be to sit on the ridge where I watched all but 1 of the 11 turkeys I saw strut on. We got down to the farm a little later than we probably should have but the first gobble didn’t ring out until after I placed the last decoy. We got situated in the blind and began our wait. None of the gobbles we were hearing were relatively close but that doesn’t worry me on this particular farm. The motto of the day was Positive Vibes Only. I do a couple series of calls from 6-6:30 and eventually it sounded like a tom was getting closer so I called again at 6:45 and it wasn’t definitely closer but still a few hundred yards away. I decided to just sit and see what happens around 7 I feel like I can hear drumming but wasn’t confident and the bird that was gobbling was still gobbling in the same spot so I just kept listening. There it was again. I asked Chase if he could hear it too. He said he thought he was too but wasn’t sure of it. Well he peaked out the window over his shoulder and said “there’s a white faced gobbler right here and he’s coming.” We all know white faces are the best sign. The drumming kept getting louder and next thing you know you can hear the wings dragging just outside the blind. The bird makes his line straight into the DSD jake and Connie wastes no time on putting him down. With it only being 7:07 we snapped a couple pics and crawled back into the blind. We didn’t hear another gobble the rest of the morning and I had to leave by 9:30 to get back to a birthday party so we packed it up and started back to the car. As we crested the top of the primary ridge we bump 3 toms that were headed our direction. Bummer. But happy wife = happy life and lots of hunting for Curtis so it’s a good thing, we packed up when we did.

https://youtube.com/shorts/SZM04bH5IWM?si=a22Q7nCvsfl18LSr

I’ll be out again in the morning with another friend who has gone through a lot with his wife and their newborn the last few months so hopefully another good update tomorrow.


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