Early Bird Does Not Always Get the Worm
Posted by
Scott Mensing
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Posted in
Still Imagery
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Turkeys
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Posted on
Monday, May 03, 2010
Very early mornings, long hours in a blind, quiet mornings off of the roost, and henned up gobblers. This pretty much describes what the last week or two have been like for us. It's definitely been a frustraiting run, but hopefully our luck will change with one weekend left in season.
On Friday morning, Bo and I hunted a brand new property that we honestly did not see much turkey sign during our two hour shed hunting outing a month or so ago. But, with the high winds, we felt we had a good chance at knowing where any potential birds would be roosting. Well we guessed right and were greeted to the sounds of five or six different birds sounding off close to our setup prior to sunrise. Upon fly down, two strutters started making their way towards our setup. We thought for sure this was a done deal and going to be a quick morning.
However, another gobbler soon flew into the same small field and the other two quickly chased him off. As they started back towards us again, three hens and a jake dropped into the field. That pretty much ended our day right there. Those two toms pushed the jake and hens around for an hour or so and proceeded to strut in the middle of the field and would not leave the hens to come into our setup. While the birds were just outside of sight, we tried to mix things up some and get our strutting tom decoy out of the set....pretty tough to do with over a dozen eyes looking for any movement. Bo got out to the decoy and then a head pops up and Bo had to freeze. Luckily he had something to hide behind! He was only stuck for a minute or so before the hen went back to feeding and allowed Bo to get back into the blind.
It is really getting frustrating knowing that we were so close and those hens had to mess everything up - again. One bright note, we did see another bearded hen with the group and this one must have had a seven to eight inch beard on her! That's the second bearded hen we've seen in as many weeks.
On Sunday, Bo took his wife Sarah out in her first attempt for a gobbler. While they were chasing birds in one spot, Chad (http://www.apassionorobsession.blogspot.com/) and I hit up a property he has permission on. We had high hopes for this property as it has had very light pressure and we had numerous trail cam pics of some big gobblers. Chad's hunted this property for a couple years now and we thought we had them figured out. But the tough luck decided to follow us. We had a few gobbles from the roost, but it turned to silence once they hit the ground. It sure is pretty hard to hunt these birds when they're henned up and don't talk...
We still have one more week left in the Missouri season and three unfilled tags. Hopefully the birds will cooperate and we'll be able to put a few more drumsticks on the table.
A lot can change in a week. I've got my fingers crossed that most of the hens will have been bred by this weekend. We've had gobblers within 100 yards on every hunt so far this season, unfortunately, we've seen a bunch of hens too! Our luck has to change at some point, right? Regardless, it has been a blast chasing the thunder chickens this year.
Earlier in the year it seemed so easy and now it is getting difficult. I enjoy hunting in early April before everything turns green. Also, the birds aren't henned up. I wish Missouri would lengthen their season like Nebraska does. In Nebraska you have from March 25-May 31. The key to getting one now is finding one on roost the night before and setting up close to him.