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Turkeys and Open Water

Well the only good thing about turkey season versus this long drawn out ice season is that turkey season has a date set in stone when it will start! So, which to concentrate on? Since the end of Feb. I have been dreaming of long casts and running jerkbaits and crankbaits and catching those big egg filled green monsters of Spring but I don’t think it’s in the cards before April 15th. Actually that’s still a long ways out and looking at the extended forecast we are definitely heating up. However, turkey season is quickly approaching too and that’s where my concentration should head. I should be practicing my clucks and purrs, I should be organizing the Wild Thing pack to make sure nothing is broken and everything is stowed away neatly and where it should be. I should also be practicing with the bow. Getting my sight picture converted from the big vitals of a deer to the small baseball sized money spot on a slobbering love sick Thunder Chicken! I should make sure my batteries are primed and charged and ready to go on Robo-Hen and Robo-Tom and make sure the controls still work with a year of sitting around. I should setup the blind and make sure nothing is ripped or got eaten by a mouse. That’s what I should be doing! But I have some time. This weekend is Easter and I will be scouting though. I will be up early (not as early as in season) but out on the highest ground I can find and will be listening and counting. I have found the last couple years my success from Gobble Scouting has definitely improved my success. Well, it has helped on the properties where the birds actually roost on the property I Hunt anyways. I have one piece that the birds have NEVER roosted on but it is a travel corridor and thus it almost always pans out for an opportunity. On these other properties it has helped because I have gotten a fairly good count of the birds and have found roost trees that save me guessing where the birds might be early in the mornings during season when I show up in the pitch black. But what about putting birds to bed the night before you may ask? Well, I have never been any good at it at all! I know lots of people do it and have success doing it but I am not one of them. Maybe I go too early or stay too late but it just doesn’t work for me. That doesn’t stop me from trying but I don’t have the faith in the process. Maybe someday I’ll stumble across the magic formula. But anyways, this weekend will be the start of Gobble Scout 2013. Watch for the tweets and I will do my best to keep everyone updated. This turkey season is hopefully turning into a busy one for me and hopefully a successful one too. As of right now I have the possibility of filming 6 turkey tags with 4 hunters. I’m hopeful to add 2 more to each of those categories but we shall see how things pan out. I suppose I should switch gears and get thru that to do list before April 15th arrives. Hope everyone has a safe turkey season and i will wish for ice to melt where you are!

Mike
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2012 Turkey Season

As I am sure most of you read this weekend Gobble Scout was in full swing in Eastern Iowa. I was out a little late Saturday morning, but was very excited to hear 5 gobblers. These 5 birds were in the same timber as last year and I believe that should give me a good opportunity at them. I also heard 2 birds on a second property. They are close to the group of 5 and with a slight move it might make them accessible. I visited a third property and have gotten text updates from my inlaws at this property and they have been seeing birds in the afternoons and could offer both a morning setup and an afternoon setup. This weekend I am planning on visiting our Jasper County property in hopes of hearing birds and maybe formulate a plan for opening day with Tyler.
Tyler has been hunting the past 3 years with me and I feel this is his year! I have two new decoys and I hope with these decoys it will seal the deal on any bird that sees them. I will post video of them when I am ready to put them out on the market.
FYI I will try to continue to comment and keep this blog current as the season progresses.

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Deer Season Slowing Coming to an End

With first archery, early muzzleloaders and first shotgun seasons over the deer hunting is coming to a close. There are a couple more days of second shotgun season before the late archery and late muzzleloaders seasons open up for the last 23 days of the season. Let me sum up what has happened for us so far this year. Then I will end with my thoughts for the last and coldest season of the year. Archery was pretty slow to get started. Deer were not moving and the deer that were moving were not big. Numbers definitely seem to be down in the areas we hunt. Whether from the excessive doe harvests or from the extremely rough winter we had last year. Either way numbers are down. Once Nov. hit temps finally started to drop and like always the rut got hot and everyone was still unprepared. Dad was on the money with almost every outing. He found deer and deer found him. However, for whatever reason, he was not one with the target. He was able to harvest a small doe with the bow but it only went down hill from there. Granted he got some fantastic footage this year, but none is of a kill shot. Me on the other hand, I could not find the deer, until the weekend before Thanksgiving, but even then I was still hundreds of yards away. I managed to film some good bucks that weekend with one of them being a giant with an 11″ drop tine. I know it was an 11″ drop tine because that buck is now at the taxidermist. Unfortunately, that buck had broken its left main beam just have the G2 but depending on what was there prior to the break the buck may have gone 200″. Oh well. Shotgun season went pretty well surprisingly. We ended up with 4 deer out of 7 tags. Those 4 deer were 3 small bucks and the 4th was about a 100″ 8-point. So considering the rain all day saturday and then the cold Sunday we did very well. My college buddy and a friend were hunting a monster this year and opening day of first shotgun the friend of my friend shot him with his shotgun. It was a giant 230″ buck! Second season was good to my college buddy as he shot a really nice buck was well. They must have something good going out there! So that is the quick wrap up. With just a few more days before I can hit the woods I am filled with anticipation and excitement. I will get to do a little hunting in Eastern Iowa over the Xmas break and then will have a few days back around Central Iowa before the hunting season will come to a completely close for us. My thoughts on how I’m going to be successful are as follows… COLD! I need the temps to drop big time and the snow to fly. Otherwise, the deer will not yard the way they normally do and I’ll be stuck looking at bare crop fields. So cross your fingers and we’ll see how the year wraps up!

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Hunting Season Fast Approaching

Hunting season is approaching really fast like always!  This past weekend Dad and I got out and put up a tree stand and did some lane trimming for it.  I feel it’s in a really good spot for a NW wind.  We also set my trail-cam up close to it on two major trail crossings and there was one much lighter trail that had a big set of tracks that crossed at that location too.  I’m hoping its a buck trail as it has all the signs of easy travel and crosses multiple doe trails.  We’ll check the trail-cam once before season and hopefully we’ll have something nice and maybe even have a pattern that we can exploit early, but that never happens (to us anyways).  We also need to get out to all the other stands and make sure shooting lanes are still there and that the tree stand is still in safe working order.  Also, we need to get out and do some shooting as I haven’t touched my bow since turkey season and that was May.  Last but not least we need to finish the Hunting DVD from last year to get everyone fired up!  Cuts are mostly done just need to reorganize, add transitions, overlays, replays, menus, chapters, cover design, and packaging… Lots to do yet!   Hopefully, all gets done by Oct 1 which is the goal.  Time to sign off and get to cracking on my list of things to do.