Coach

Awesome job, Ashlyn! Sounds like a great time with your dad you will not soon forget. Great job on your story - it's like we were right there with you guys. Huge congrats on your first turkey.

+1, big congrats to Hunter. And thanks to you getting him out there. If you get the chance, I'd love to hear the story of his hunt.

Wow...

A friend of mine hunted with his kids in Unit 1 over this last weekend and said he was totally amazed by the proliferation of wolves there - and the effect they were having on the Turkeys. Personally, I've only encountered a few wolves over the past 20+ years of hunting in unit 1, but this guy has been hunting there longer than I have and I don't doubt his observations.

Very cool - huge congrats to Matthew on a gorgeous bird.

I hope you youth turkey hunters had a great opening weekend. My boys worked really hard - I'm, talking 3:00 AM to dark every day for three days, but they hit it out of the park. Some "power naps" in the camper, the truck even the bottom of the ground blind when it was raining or snowing too hard to keep pushing. They worked their tails off, learned a lot about turkeys and their behavior, learned a lot from my mistakes and wrong assumptions, and one-by-one the missed chances turned into birds on the ground. Having some issues with the pictures formatting, but hopefully they'll be visible.

Man - you guys slayed 'em. Great job!!!

One day they are sitting in you lap, learning the basics. The next they're driving out with you, learning on their own and teaching you new things.

Used your calls this weekend, and they did a great job. We had a few FUBARs, but that's just hunting. The calls were great. Look for a PM from me. That diaphragm is, as Guy Fieri, would say, "out of bounds". Had more runners right in with that than anything, but switching between the diaphragm and the slate just seemed to keep them going all day. As another member pointed out, hunting turkeys is a lot of "coulda, shoulda, woulda..." Seems you pile mistakes on top of eachother, but learn from all of them.

Posted this in the campfire because the other related forums don't get a lot of traffic. Here's the scoop. I have a Cabela's right hand Hawken flint-lock. A couple years back I was shooting it with a friend and we determined a shot had not fired. After multiple attempts to clear the barrel with C02, and other means to clear the charge, I drilled out the "frizzen hole" because it couldn't be removed any other way, only to find out there was no charge in the barrel. So I've got this barrel, in great shape but a bored out frizzen and no matching parts. Are there any good gunsmiths out there who work on black powder rifles and can fix this? The alternative is to replace the entire barrel. I've seen a couple on Ebay around $200 with shipping. This flint-lock has some history to it, and I'd like to get it back to shooting shape. Any ideas and suggestions are much appreciated.

Nicely done, sir.

Really loved this film. If you haven't watched it, you really should. I'd love to see this pinned in the Turkey forum.

Bought 3 Jr. tags today at lunch. We'll be out early Friday in spots I saw gobblers in unit 1 a couple days ago. Then pulling the trailer up to higher country to see if we can fill some tags. Good luck to all the youth hunters headed out this weekend.

Happy Birthday Lance, I hope you get to do something fun!

Happy Birthday!

Wowser - HUGE congrats on a awesome addition to you family. She's already stunningly beautiful.

As far as "target score", I don't have an answer for you. I know he would really like to make the best of it, and while there will be some hard choices, I trust that he will make the decision of what is right for him. Honestly, some of my best elk hunting experiences result in a 'non-trophy' bull at close range. What I want for him, being his first elk-in-the-rut hunt, is to embrace the parts of hunting he loves, try to avoid the pressure of inches of horn growth, kill-or-no-kill, take his time to learn and observe the world away from what we are all used to. If we somehow get a big bull to make a mistake, I'm good with that. If we can only manage to spend hours on hours together with a common goal, and nothing is killed, I'm good with that.

Honestly, coming from ranching families on both sides, I didn't have much empathy for the Bundy family in this case. They chose to stop paying for grazing rights. They broke the law, they lost in court multiple times yet they are still defiant. In come the feds. They are using military tactics and assets to show "who is in charge around here". My grandfathers ran cattle and did it on their own land. I respect that. They never got big enough to expect the public to subsidize their expansion. Here's where the rub comes in. The rancher in question did what he was allowed to do for a very long time. Times change, the rules change, we've all been there in some capacity. He didn't comply. In comes the Feds. What could they possibly care about some rancher in the middle of nowhere. Turns out, there's a lot more to it than cows and tortoises. Google "Harry Reid Land Grab" and you'll see why this has even come to our attention. Now, those who side with the rancher are being called Militias. The family operates out of their home on a daily basis with sniper rifles trained on them. So who really is in charge? The Bundy family has made it clear that they are standing their ground. The united states government has placed military marksmen and teams of soldiers in place to be sure nobody steps out of line while Bundy's cattle are legally seized. Here's the question I have to ask - forget about what the fight is between the Bundy ranch and the gov't for just a minute. At what point is your government acting within your interest when they assign military troops to hold you under surveillance, assign elite fighting men to intimidate you and your family, or use threats of death to you and your family? IMO, the feds are just drooling over the prospect of another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Just more evidence that the old hold-outs are dangerous, and must be "put down" to keep others in their place. My prediction, the feds will incite a violent reaction, and will respond accordingly. It will be meant as a lesson to anyone who challenges the powers of our constitution. Lower case intentional.

BTW, we'll be there with you. My oldest son drew this tag. He's young but very enthusiastic. I know he will prep for this hunt. He's only hunted Javi's with his bow, and has done, well realistically, only OK. He's great at calling, finding and stalking, but when it comes to making the shot, his nerves sometimes override his practice. That's what we'll be working on this summer. Hope to see you out there.

1 - Be realistic. Unit 1 has lots of good bulls, a few really big bulls. A solid 360+ bull is doable, but probably actually harvested by under 5% of hunters, and that's being conservative. 2 - Be patient - you'll have lots of situations where you are in the middle of some awesome rut activity, and opportunities arise, but they aren't quite what you are after. Ending the hunt on day one or two takes away the rest of the hunt. 3 - Be aggressive - I've never hunted the WMAT, but I have friends who have. Their guides go balls out after every bugle, when the bugles stop they pound the bedding areas and wallows. Rutting bulls are like a UFC fighter on speed. Don't hunt the morning, take a long nap, hunt the evening, and sip crown and coke by the fire. Hunt hard every minute. Try to think like a testosterone filled teenager, cause that's what you're after. 4 - Have fun - this should probably be #1, but it isn't. Being in Unit 1 during the peak of the rut as the aspens turn to gold, is one of the most incredible experiences around - but only if you take the time to relax, experience it all, and let it soak in. The moonlit night, the campfire, the sound of distant bugles that will enter your dreams, the first cup of coffee in the morning, the dew or frost, wind or still, the little things that remind you that you are hunting. It's hard to be relaxed when you have a numbers-based goal in mind, running on a breakfast burro and the snickers in your pack. It's all GO-GO, this place or that place - questioning every move. Take time out to "smell the roses". It might just change the way you view the success or failure of a hunt.

I was gonna say above the fish hatchery in 23, NE corner.

I've had pretty good luck with IMR 4350 in my .270 and .300 WSM but am going to try some H4831 SC, as it seems to get a lot of recommendations for the WSM.

Awesome picture!

I don't make it to the valley all that often, but last week I went to Bass Pro with a $25 gift card and figured I might as well pick up some ammo. I ended up with a 10 pack of turkey loads and 20 Hornady Personal Defense rounds in .45 ACP, and still paid an extra $18. Do the math. What blew me away were some of the turkey loads going for $42+ for a package of 10. This is where I get to sound like an old codger, but my grandpa and cousins killed more turkeys out of break-over .410 and 20 gauge shooting quail and duck loads than most of our die-hard turkey hunters will ever see. And they rarely, if ever, lost a bird. So what exactly justifies spending $5 per round on a turkey load? I mean, I get it if you are hunting cape buffalo or rhinos or hippos with your .404 Jeffrey, or other H&H Nitro Express rifles, designed specifically for stopping a charging elephant or African Plains lion, but for a ... turkey? Maybe I'm missing something. Fill me in.

In case you haven't seen it. Fair warning - language. It's George Carlin.