WI Turkey Thread

OhHeyThereBen

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It's a little late to be putting this up, but I figured I'd start it in case anyone from old Sconnieland has anything to add!

My friend and I both traveled back to the valley that we grew up in for a fourth season turkey hunt. Saturday morning there were turkeys gobbling everywhere (we counted at least 10 different birds within listening range) but as soon as they left the roosts they went silent. Frustrated, we covered quite a few miles that day trying to locate some birds that wanted to interact to no avail. We got in a couple of stalks but didn't end up being successful.

Sunday morning found us in a different location with some birds that again were gobbling to beat the band, but mostly going silent after they left the roost. There were a couple of birds that responded to calling, but they moved in an opposite direction that we didn't have access to hunt. Frustrated, we waited by the decoys for another couple of hours and decided that we needed some coffee. We drove back to my parents' house, brewed up a pot, and took their side-by-side up to the top of the hill across from their house to enjoy our coffee and catch up before we had to part ways. We put the decoys down the sidehill a ways where they toms usually strut during the day and proceeded to enjoy some coffee and much needed conversation. Around 20 minutes later I heard a twig snap down the hill to the right and looked just in time to see an old tom rushing out of the brush to confront our tom decoy! He puffed up (showing one tail feather sticking straight up in the air), circled the decoy, and managed to not notice both of us scrambling for our shotguns, spilling our coffee, and getting our firing line in place. One well placed shot by my friend and he was sent back flipping down the hill.

I've never experienced anything like this before in my life! After spending the past day and a half working our butts off to try to find a gobbler, all it took was us giving up to make one show up :) You can see in the pictures where we were sitting. All in all, it was a great weekend with one of my best friends that ended with a surprising exclamation point.

Turkey 1.jpg

Turkey 2.jpg

Turkey 3.jpg

We didn't measure his beard or weigh the tom, but I can say that it was probably the heaviest bird I've ever lifted. I'd guess he was at minimum 25 lbs but possibly closer to 30. I'm not sure what happened to his tail but he was in the middle of growing it back. I would guess an encounter with a coyote last winter, but it could have been from fighting judging by his behavior. He looked old and had some good spurs on him (1 1/8 to 1 1/4 inches depending on where you measure them from). If I can get someone back home to measure the beard I'll update the thread to show the correct beard length, but I'd say somewhere in the 10" range.

I hope everyone has been having a great spring in the woods!

-Ben
 
Here's me and the wife's from this year
 

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I had my first Wisconsin turkey hunt after moving back last summer from Colorado. Last weekend in April. Got to the woods just as the sun was peaking out, could hear turkeys everywhere around us. That was a good feeling. Had a short walk down the edge of a field where I became stuck in mud and promptly fell over as my boot was suctioned in like a vise. Pretty glad my buddy didn't take a picture of that.

We both got set up about 20 yards apart and started calling and could hear one tom working our way for sure. A few minutes later I could hear a flock working thier way behind me to us. They popped out into the field about 60 yards from me and immediately b-lined it to our decoys set up in front of me. There were 8 toms in the flock, and they perfectly strung themselves out into a single line as they were headed to the decoys. When the last one was infornt of my buddy in full strut, he shot, all the turkeys jumped a few feet, and then I shot the biggest of the front of the flock.

My first wisconsin turkey hunt, my first double.

Total time of hunt from door to door of my truck, 45 minutes. Kind of anti-climatic once it was all over, but fun none the less
Mine is on the left, buddies is no the right

I need to work getting the fans spread out with one hand. I thought it was pretty neat how the fans are so different colored. Not sure why that is?
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That's awesome! I think we missed peak time by a couple of weeks. The birds were hen'd up but still willing to fight if they saw a tom. I heard a bunch of my buddies did well "reaping" some toms, but we never did try that. Beautiful birds all!
 
OhHeyThereBen I was guessing the edge of a golf course for location. Turkeys can be so smart and so stupid all at the same time. Congratulations
 
Not a golf course but it might as well have been! It was across the valley and we were sitting in those lawn chairs you can see on the top of the hill. The picture was taken from my parents' lawn.
 
Made the most of my 5th season leftover tag
 

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I saw a ridiculous number of big toms last weekend while up around Lodi shooting a match. Looks like mighty good hunting up there right now.
 
Beautiful bird! You ever hunt the Shequamegon National Forest? I haven't seen much life in there when hiking through, but that means very little.

Never hunted there. You gotta put allot of time in there to find good hunting. I've got really good public land a couple miles from my house, so I've never really needed to branch out into other public land around the state.
 
Never hunted there. You gotta put allot of time in there to find good hunting. I've got really good public land a couple miles from my house, so I've never really needed to branch out into other public land around the state.

Good deal. My wife is from Owen, so we know Clark County fairly well. Never hunted up there though.
 
Filled one of two tags in Zone 4 this week. Should have filled the other but had a few failed stalks on new public ground. Ill have to try to post a picture this evening. See how it goes, the forumn hasn't been allowing me lately.
 
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