The sleepless night

[Gopherlongbeards]

This is great, I'm just as excited as I am the night before a spring hunt. Good luck to everyone in the morning

[charlie elk]

I'm just as excited as I am the night before a spring hun

Good for you. I hope you have a great hunt tomorrow and all the days that follow.
Vic & I just got in from busting up some flocks... There are a lot of turkeys out there this year.
Good hunting everyone.

[grizzly]

i want to wish all my Wis. friends good luck and good hunting . i still have 15 more days before turkey season starts here . have fun and stay safe....wayne

[eggshell]

instead of the confused this really the Jealous, very jealous face.... huge sigh

Good luck all you Wisconsin turkey hunters, and to top it off ya'll got a pocket full of tags. Think I'll go sit in a corner and pout

[dewey]

Good luck to you Gopher and all of the other Wisconsin hunters. I am looking forward to seeing pictures and hearing the stories.

Dewey

[WillowRidgeCalls]

I had an interesting first day. Had a guy open up on my jake decoy with a 22, when he hit it, it spun around on the stake and the guy took off running with me behind him. I'm not as fast as I used to be but I gave him a good chase, all the way back to his truck, which he jumped in and took off down the road. I had my binoes with me so I got a good look at the truck and the bumper sticker on the tailgate and some of the plate. There was another squirrel hunter that saw the guy shoot at it, then take off runnin and me chasing him, so he got up and went to see what he was shooting at, and was there waiting for me to get back. He stayed sitting there and watched my stuff so no one would steal it. He asked if I caught the SOB, and I told him nope but I know what his truck looks like. Living next door to the gas station helps, sooner or later he'll need gas. If he'd of shot at it with a shotgun or bow, I could understand, but a 22 is pure pouching.
Anyway back to the hunt. There were a few birds roosted on the island this morning, but didn't hear the gobblers I saw on it Thur. They may have been off the island in the big woods. This island is only about 20 acers in size but the birds spend time on it, there are two rivers the run down both sides of it. Thursday there were 3 good gobblers on it, but today just hens.

[grizzly]

i'm glad you weren't hit Scott that's always been one of my fears when using decoys. you hope that there aren't to many of those guys out there but one is to many . the man who watched over your gear sounded like a stand up guy..good luck with the rest of your season...wayne

[kygobbler]

Scott sorry to hear about the SOB, but glad to hear that you came out unharmed. I hope you are able to get poaching charges on the guy. Goog luck with getting the gobblers on the island.

[Gopherlongbeards]

Wow Scott, glad that you're OK. That's the number one reason I don't think I'll ever use a decoy in the fall. Too many idiots out there. My weekend went well. No birds tagged, but good action both days. It seems the roost areas I found are not used every day. both mornings there were no birds in the roost I was sitting on. I know they are still using them because there is plenty of fresh sign around (there were gobbler tracks inside my footprints from Saturday morning when I checked that roost again this afternoon ) Saturday I called a flock of 11 jakes in to about 15 yards. Unfortunately they were on the wrong side of the fence, and wouldn't cross. I haven't seen any gobblers around yet, but judging by all the mondo sized footprints and the size of the primary flight feathers I'm finding (many have the tips squared off from strutting as well) I know they're around. Finding birds seems to be the most difficult part of this fall hunting. Every time That I've spotted some and managed to get close they have been pretty easy to call in. A bit tougher to find when you can't hear them gobbling a couple miles away. I think I'm going to be around there quite a bit this fall

[charlie elk]

My opening did not have the kind of adrenaline rush Willow's did, thank goodness!
Late Friday evening Vic and I busted a couple of flocks off their roosts one of which sounded like bigger birds so we returned to that one Saturday morning and setup. After a couple of minutes I smelled cigarette smoke, it was dark, Vic's nose was sniffing all around with low level growls directed upwards. I flipped on a flashlight to scan the nearby trees and low and behold a painted faced bowhunter about 30' up a tree on private property, thought he was trespassing but found out he too had gotten permission to hunt Friday afternoon so the landowner could not get a hold of me. He was there first so we left and setup in the direction some the the turkeys had flown off and called for awhile. Birds that sounded tom's answered the Willowridge deep-tone call but they went back to the bowhunter. Who told the landowner about all the turkeys he saw as he was scampering off to buy some turkey tags.
It is one thing to find the turkeys and Vic found a lot of them; quite another to get a shot, we experienced a comedy of errors on both our parts. We had a ton fun.
There was one flock of birds of the year that came into the Willowridge "bird of the year" call 7 times! Each time I could not see them, Vic could smell them and hear them as they were really close making a ruckus. Vic shook so hard the tree was rocking while his lips were clapping and he could not contain some whines of his own. Needless to say the birds kept fading in and out even after we moved locations around for a better view which wasn't when the birds came back in. A turkey dog does not make turkey hunting easier, just a whole lot more fun.

Saturday I called a flock of 11 jakes in to about 15 yards. Unfortunately they were on the wrong side of the fence, and wouldn't cross.

A hat tip to you gopher, that is the mark of a good hunter there.