And just like that, turkey season is over

“About quarter to six I knew the bird flew down from the roost and stopped gobbling. I called once and he gobbled back. Several minutes later I called again and he gobbled closer but I couldn’t see him,” one hunter told me. He hunted the second from that last time period. “After a couple more minutes I did a really soft purr and he gobbled so close I could feel it in my chest. I moved the muzzle in the direction of the gobble and he stepped out 11 yards away. I shot and the bird fell over flopping. I climbed out of the blind and when I got over to where I shot it, the bird wasn’t there. I looked for over an hour but I couldn’t find the tom.”

“A couple hours later a jake came strolling by and I shot him dead,” he told me.

My turkey hunting story’s different. I was only able to hunt Tuesday of my week. I had a jake come in just before six in the morning and passed on him. My second set up struck up a nice tom which came to 50 yards with brush in between us. He had two hens with him and they wanted to go another direction. He ended up choosing the bird in hand instead of the one he couldn’t see and walked off with them without presenting a shot. The Wisconsin Spring Turkey season ended last evening. I didn’t see a whole lot of hunters out chasing turkey during the last period. I suspect it being Memorial Day weekend had a lot to do with it. But I saw four birds on the way home from work last Wednesday morning and another three on the way back that evening that really wanted someone to set up and call them in.

If you can handle the heat and the mosquitoes last period turkey hunting can be pretty good. This year we had warm conditions and plenty of mosquitoes.

I know three other hunters who were successful the second to the last season. One hunted zone 1 in the southwestern driftless part of the state, one hunted zone 4 just to our west, and the other hunted in zone 7 in northern Wisconsin.

“There are less hunters which I like,” my Zone 7 buddy told me.

My friend who hunted in zone 4 said his son had success during the youth turkey hunt. “The weather predicted for the youth hunt looked horrible,” he told me. “The day before the youth hunt was a beautiful day and I was wishing we had that day to hunt. But the weather held and Saturday morning was fabulous. My son and my niece killed their birds by 6:45 in the morning. My other brother’s son got his about 8:30 in the morning, all three birds from the same farm we grew up on.”

“My son’s hunt was pretty exciting for him,” he continued. “The tom was gobbling in the tree about 125 yards from us. When he flew down he landed about 40 yards from us, I could feel my son start to shake. The bird strutted around for about 20 minutes but wasn’t getting any closer so I gave a couple soft yelps and he picked his head up, looked our direction and strutted towards us. When he was 20 yards away the bird broke his strut to gobble and my son shot the turkey just liked we talked about. He was shaking and jumping up and down. We were packing up when we heard my niece shoot. About the time we got back to the house and were showing off the turkeys to grandma and grandpa we heard my nephew shoot.” My friend couldn’t hunt his drawn season due to having to be out of the country on business. So, he bought a tag for the later time period. He hunted four days and was in a tent blind on the fourth day in a comfortable chair and sitting in a spot they often see turkeys. He was tired and fell asleep and awoke a couple hours later to a sound. He looked up and a whole flock of turkeys were in front of him with a tom at 35 yards. “I woke up, saw the birds, saw the tom, slowly raised the gun and bang I was done,” he said.

And just like that so is the turkey season.

Through a

Decoy’s

E

ye