MrMogollon

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Anyone out in 6A this past weekend? I'm headed up Thursday for the hunt, and was wondering how vocal the birds are right now / how responsive they are. I have not been up in the area since last spring and was planning on trying to roost a bird the first night. If you knocked a bird down, lets see the grip and grins!

That's good to hear! Sounds like you were in the southern part of the unit. I will be near Mormon Lake so a pretty good distance away!

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A big group of my hunting buddies and I drove up to the San Carlos Reservation on Friday morning to chase turkeys for the weekend. We got to our campsite around 2:30pm and got the wall tent and kitchen set up. After consulting OnX, we figured out where each group was going and hit the road for a little evening scouting. It was the first weekend of the first season on the San Carlos, so we couldn’t actually hunt until Saturday morning. My hunting partner and I opted for a spot close to camp, hoping to minimize the drive time the next morning. We drove our road from about 4pm until just before sundown, without locating any birds (about 10 miles out-and-back with no gobbles). We had the windows down, heading back towards camp when I thought I heard a gobble. We stopped the car and listened for 5 minutes… nothing. I was sure I heard a tom! My hunting partner climbed back in the rig, probably thinking I was pulling his chain. He shut the door and BOOM - gobbles. Perfect. We had at least two toms roosted and were even able to see one of them roosted halfway up a ponderosa. We dropped a waypoint on OnX and made our way back to camp. After a good night’s sleep, we were up and at ‘em at 4:15am with coffee and premade breakfast burritos on the wood stove. While we were packing the truck, it started to snow (NOT IN THE FORECAST!). We made the short drive to our spot, parking 600 yards from where we had roosted the birds the night before, and heard the gobblers going off! That made it easier to pick a good spot to set up in the dark. The snow was really starting to come down as we made it into our spot and set up our decoys. I only started hunting turkeys in the past few years, so I was unsure how the weather would affect the birds. But I was convinced our toms would just hangout on the roost all day because I sure as heck wanted to be back in the warm truck! We made a few quiet yelps to let the gobblers know where we were and sat back. They gobbled for the next 30 minutes, without us prompting them. We felt like we were in a good position and made another quiet yelp sequence to keep them intrigued. 15 minutes before sunrise we heard some gobbles 100 yards to the north of where our birds were roosted. It was either another set of toms that we hadn’t known about OR our birds had gotten down out of the roost without us hearing them. It ended up being the latter! The next 5 minutes was chaos, with the gobbles getting closer and closer. Each time they gobbled, I could feel it more and more in my chest. I understand the thunder chicken moniker now! I began seeing movement 75 yards out, which was a feat with the snow coming down in droves. I didn’t know it in the moment, but I think the snow covered up our decoys making it harder for the three incoming toms to know where we were. They missed the “X” and were moving to my left. In doing so, they forced me to rotate my sitting position and turn my shotgun towards the birds who were in the open at 25 yards. Aiming at the middle tom, I squeezed the trigger and CLICK. While trying to be quiet at the truck earlier that morning, I guess I hadn’t let the bolt slam all the way closed on my 3.5” shell and had a misfire. Trying to not the let moment pass me up, I cycled the bolt on my shotgun and got another round in the chamber. With all that noise, the turkeys knew something was up. They were confused and fixin to leave, but not before I got a shot off! What a cool morning! I had my first tom on the ground after an exciting hunt and the pictures in the snow will remind of this weekend forever. Side note: we filled my buddies tag in a similar fashion on Sunday morning, after it had warmed up a bunch. I’m hooked - and we will be back in the turkey woods next spring. CHEERS and thanks for reading! -MM

Hoping to hunt Rio's next year! Was on the hunt with my brother when he took his Rio in 2021, but I still need to get redemption in Texas. Then Osceola's! I've been putting in for points here in AZ for some years now, and will hopefully get lucky at some point on Gould's!

After catching the turkey bug last year, I was fortunate enough to get invited to hunt Easterns in Georgia this spring, and I jumped at the opportunity! Flight was booked within the hour. I left AZ last Thursday and was in the turkey woods Friday morning. Through a family connection we were able to gain access to some private ground, 40 minutes outside of Atlanta. The property was well manicured as you can see from the pictures and from what I could tell, the prescribed burning they had done in recent years created some excellent turkey habitat. On the first morning, the gobbles from the roost started pretty late, but after chasing a vocal bird for the first hour of daylight with nothing to show for it, we decided to cruise around the property on foot and try to get some other birds talking. We checked two different spots that seemed promising with no response and headed to a field that we had scouted the night before. We let out the first calling sequence, immediately heard a gobble from deep in the woods and we headed off in that direction to close the distance. We set up about 75 yards into the timber and after some considerable back and forth calling, the gobbles didn't seem to be getting any close. So we decided to close the distance even further. As we are slowing picking our way through the hardwood bottom, we see some movement about 80 yards ahead of us and drop to the deck. Two hens, scratching and bugging. They come within 40 yards of us, and then slowly make their way back out of range. We take the opportunity to give up our prone positions and sit up against the closest tree. After a few soft yelps we had the big tom screaming again and can tell we are within shooting range (or close to), but still have no sight of him. We gave him the silent treatment for a few minutes and out of nowhere, he pops out in front of us at 40 yards - strutting in the only good shooting lane I have. My buddy let out a few soft yelps, hoping for him to pop out of strut and gobble - BOOM. Bird down. My brother was able to tag out in Georgia the next day on a nice bird as well, and we spent the rest of the weekend fishing for bass and enjoying the weather. An epic weekend of turkey hunting, in some new habitat and it was a trip that I will not soon forget. As you may be able to tell, the bug bit me BAD and I'm hoping to get the chance to hunt turkeys in some new places again next year. Merriam's √ Eastern √

Looking to sell my semi-custom Tikka takeoff barrel, chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. Started its life as a T3X Stainless and had Todd at Southern Xpress flute and cerakote. Less than 125 rounds through the barrel. Has some blemishes from the vise, but can probably be touched up/hidden. Shoot me an offer in my PMs. Cash and FTF preferred. Located in Central Phoenix.

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TTT - make me an offer.

Nice work. Were they responding to calls/working the decoys? We had a pretty tough time finding responsive birds and didn't hear much gobbling at all, even from the roost. I ended up getting lucky on Sunday, but that was about all of the notable action we had in our group.

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Sending PM.

Headed back to the San Carlos on Friday! Can't wait to hear the thunder again!! Will update the thread next week, hopefully with some good news.

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