Empty tag, but learned some things

Well, I’ll be eating turkey tag sandwich this year, but I did learn some things.

After posting late last week about birds that suddenly went silent, I took the advice of several posters here and was rewarded for it.

After two days of silent birds, my hunting buddy and I hit it again Friday evening and were rewarded with some active birds. We called in a tom and a hen to our setup, but couldn’t get the tom to commit or come within range. He turned around at about 35 yards (through brush that didn’t offer a good shot) and went the other direction. We also had a gobbler respond to our calls and head toward us across an open field, but he didn’t like something about our setup and came no closer than about 80 yards.

Saturday morning the birds were going nuts from the roost and shortly after flydown…after that they were quiet and I had to leave for my son’s baseball games. I wasn’t able to hunt Sunday so my tag will go unfilled.

The biggest thing I learned was to not neglect the afternoon and evening hours. I only had the chance to hunt one evening due to other commitments, but I know if the future I’m going to spend more time hunting later in the day. The early morning is great, but I’ve personally short changed the opportunities that come later.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice on my other posts.

Good luck to the guys who have yet to have their season. I’ll be checking in often to see how its going…oh yeah, and I’ll be chewing on my turkey tag sandwich.

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We called in a tom and a hen to our setup, but couldn’t get the tom to commit or come within range. He turned around at about 35 yards (through brush that didn’t offer a good shot) and went the other direction.

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My hats off to you for waiting for a good clean shot….even though he didn’t present you with one! A lot of temptation there to possibly risk the shot and wound the bird!

Don’t feel bad about not filling your tag, We’ve all been there. A tag sandwich isn’t the worst thing. Alot of guys didn’t draw a tag, so no sandwich at all for them. Thanks for sharing your hunt.

Thanks…I don’t feel too bad. I had a blast. I was rather surprised to be drawn anyway since that was my second straight time of being drawn. Since I hunt an area without a great deal of permits, it was a pleasant surprise to be out there in the first place.

I’m already looking forward to my next opportunity…whenever that may come.

Or you could draw a tag and just not be able to get out to do anything about it. It is great that you had the opportunity to hunt and used it as much as you could!!!

I know that the first good thing that happened for me was WI enlarged its zones and went to 7 of them. This greatly improves your chances of getting onto land that you could have hunted with permission, but couldn’t hunt as it was out of your zone. By having that in the back pocket, at least one could pull up stakes if the birds weren’t cooperating.

I know I was happy to pull a tag for the north, that enabled me to concentrate on hunting the whole week which was the first time I had done so. Why, because I was hunting along the Miss. R. and couldn’t bring myself to focus on one. In fact I may have focused on the fishing more then the hunting.

Mark

sory bout the luck marble eye but sounds like you had fun good luck on future turkey hunts

Another great post Marbleeye2! With your positive attitude, there’s no doubt your time will come!

Filling your tag or not, you obviously did your homework and spent just as much time learning as you did hunting. That’s what turkey hunting is all about IMO. When I stop learning about them, I think it will become less interesting for me personally. Hearing your story reminds me of the many times my tag has gone unfilled, and also reminds me of how much sweeter it is when everything comes together!

Congrats on a season well-hunted.

Joel

I agree with the above Marble Eye. Great Season and thanks for sharing.

I also ate my tag this MN season. However, the things I learned and experiences I had will only make me a better hunter in the long run. I it will also make me appreciate it even more when it all comes together.

If you can learn just one good lesson each year…you will become a better hunter for it in the future . You have the right attitude Marble Eye and your day in the sun will come sooner than you think .