2024 Spring Turkey hunt

yes congrats to her!!!

What a great picture of that young girl with her first turkey! Happy day!

Had way to much extra time on my hands so took her and her little sister trout fishing. Time to smoke some little buggers.

Now finish my beer and get my butt to bed 345 gonna come early.

Congrats to your little lady Jeremy!

We had one big Tom skirt around us so well, I’m sure we’ve played with him before. Gonna be on a mission to outsmart this dude and see how old he is.
He answered my second round of calls which was 15-20 minutes after my first. I’m thinking he came in quiet after the first round but was over a ridge 80 yards out. So I had no idea he was around. Then after gobbling once after the second calls he strutted for 5 minutes and looped around about 65 yards out.
I think next time we’ll split up and I’ll call 40 yards behind the shooter. Fun first hunt anyhow.

Awesome Jeremy congrats to your daughter and who cares Jake or Tom never worry about that.

Hoyt4 wrote:

Awesome Jeremy congrats to your daughter and who cares Jake or Tom never worry about that.

I agree, legal turkeys are difficult to tag, regardless of what it is. I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to shoot a jake. You rarely get more than one good chance.

I’ve gotten four legal turkeys in my 8 or so seasons chasing them. Every one has been a big tom, and I mean a 3 year old bird at least based on large spurs with sharp points. One of these years I’m hoping to get a jake. There’d be no hesitation on my part!

Since it was so “easy” her almost 7 year old sister wants to try. Guy at the license store in town won’t sell me a license for her cause she wasn’t with me. I said she’s 6 and in school. Still wouldnt.

Congrats to your daughter Jeremy that is awesome! Went out for the first two hours this morning, but didn’t see anything. Heard some distant gobbles so might get deeper in/come from a different angle tomorrow.

JEREMY wrote:

Since it was so “easy” her almost 7 year old sister wants to try. Guy at the license store in town won’t sell me a license for her cause she wasn’t with me. I said she’s 6 and in school. Still wouldnt.

Cam they get a license to hunt that young ? Thought apprentice was 10. I buy my kids license when he’s not with me every season

Is there a minimum age for youth to hunt turkey and can youth hunt in any area? There is no minimum age for youth hunters. Hunters age 17 and under may purchase a reduced-price license (free license if under age 13) and may hunt any of the A-F seasons conducted during the spring wild turkey hunt.

found this BC

I think you have to declare a zone when you purchase the license, but you aren’t limited to hunting in that zone. They do ask what zone when you register the bird afterwards too for population harvest purposes.

The good – Went out this morning and heard more gobbling than I think I have ever heard before.

The bad – had at least 2 toms and 1 or more jakes within about 100 yards on the other side of a bunch of thick stuff.

The ugly – never seen a male turkey all day!

The turkeys seemed to gobble in 30 minute increments today. from 8:00a.m. until I left at 10:45 I had turkeys gobble like they were coming in hot for 30 minutes and then not say a word for 30 minutes. Even had a real hen in my decoys calling for me and that didn’t work. Had to be back to work by noon or it would have been the perfect opportunity to go find them. They were being so vocal I think I could have gotten pretty close without spooking them. Oh well, next time. Cold and windy tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow morning they remember where all that calling was coming from.

What a morning! Started out walking in kinda blind to a different area of the same public we have been hunting the last few days. I know the area pretty well and we had a field area we were trying to get to that we were assuming they have been roosting near. Without the cloud cover this morning it got light way sooner than the past few mornings and we definitely were behind schedule. Ended up stopping to pull out the decoys from our bags and happened to be pretty near a roosted bird that we didn’t realize and it flew down. Walking up to our planned spot and turned the corner and there was a couple decoys out that someone had already beat us to so we backed out and went away from the guy down a different field. As we were walking down a different field edge about 150 yards away 3 birds flew down so we quickly setup, but they never gobbled and more than likely saw us. Ended up sitting for about 1 hour with my father in law with the decoys out and bailed on him to go chase a distant gobble I had hear. Ended up getting one to respond and it sounded like it was coming closer so I setup in a narrow trail and waited. Couple minutes later a hen comes screaming down the trail and walked within 4 yards of me. Figured the gobbler would pop out next, but all of a sudden another hunter shows up and kinda blew up that setup. Talked to him briefly and he pushed back out the way he came which I appreciated. Figured that was a bust so I started walking up a trail to a pretty tall peak/high point. Was to steep to go down the way I wanted so I backtracked and cut into the woods half way back down. As I am about 30 yards into the woods I hear some wing beats and threw some really gnarly stuff I could make out two fans. Happened to be two toms that were fighting one another. They had no idea I was there and I was already about 25 yards away from them. I belly crawled to a downed tree and got my gun up and watched them fight for about 5 minutes until I had an opportunity at a shot on one of them. Im going to call this just dumb luck on my part and being in the right place at the right time. Pic is from the tree I was hiding behind when I shot him.

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good!
Congratulations.

JEREMY wrote:

Had way to much extra time on my hands so took her and her little sister trout fishing. Time to smoke some little buggers.

Congrats to your little one and you on the turkey Jeremy! I didn’t know the Minnesota River had trout in it tho, will you show me your hot spot?!?

Belly crawling? Dang. That’s like military style in the trenches with all the mud and the ticks out. Nice work you earned that one.

Sealed the deal today. Birds started in gobbling at about 5:38. That was about 25 minutes earlier than the previous two days. Was totally surrounded by gobbling, but closest was maybe 300 yds. All went quiet about 6:30 with a sporadic gobble here and there. At about 7:30 there was a gobble within about 125 yds. Called back and a minute later it sounded a lot closer. Another minute and they were walking up on me. Gobbling and drumming the whole way in. Great show. 3 identical Tom’s. They hesitated when they seen the jake decoy with the 2 hens which totally surprised me but were within 14 yds of my tent by the time they did that. Had to walk past the tent to get to the decoys. So, I let one have it. Really glad I don’t have to sit out in that cold again tomorrow morning!

Here is some very crude video of the whole deal. I am no youtuber! Just try to document the hunt for myself.

congrats guys!

Good job on the turkeys guys. I’m hoping tomorrow is a good day and I can get the kid on a birthday turkey

Got my lazy butt out of bed this am and called in and shot my first turkey! Watched it strut and gobble down a power line on my land. 45 yards with my R10. I’m sure it would have come in closer. It flopped over dead after a couple twitches after I shot it. Today was the first day out. Was done in 1 hr. Lots of gobbling.

I’m out right now by Scandia. Windy and cold. Only seen hens and a really big pheasant. No gobbles.

We had 2 Tom’s come in from different directions both gobbling at my calls. They both came from opposite tree lines about a 100 yards apart, they seen each other and both ran right back in the directions they came from. That was at about 7am, after that is was silent. We only had time to sit till 930ish. Walking out we kicked out 6 hens still roosted

Had a Jake a Tom and a hen 75 yards away and didn’t like what they saw. Anyway, I would have bet money that this “warm” spring would have no affect on timing however I have never seen this the third week of April!!

Is it a duck nest?

Turkey. And with no grass growing yet, easy pickin’s for coon skunk and possum.

Weird. There’s generally more of a stick nest built and usually under our around blow down trees from everything I’ve ever found.
I have seen more lone hens this week. I’d take that as they’ve already bred.

I wish where I’m hunting the hens have already nested, it makes hunting a lot easier on my opinion. This is my first time hunting the early season in MN. I like late season much better.

TH wrote:

45 yards with my R10. I’m sure it would have come in closer.

I am not really familiar with crossbow range for turkey but 45 yards seems pretty far, even for a shotgun. Nice shot.