Turkeyslayer's journal

[turkeyslayer]

This will be a log of all my hunting experiences for the year 2006.

[turkeyslayer]

Here is a picture of me, my dad and my bird.

And another

Here's the entire story of my hunt (trust me, it's pretty short). Well, my dad and I got to Florida at 9:30 in the morning and got our car and left from the airport to go straight to our hotel. Well after two hours of driving, we arrived at our hotel and rested until our guide got there at 4. By the way our guide was Mike Tussey of Osceola Outdoors. Anyway, we talked for a little bit about the hunt and got dressed and headed out for an afternoon hunt. The drive took an hour and forty five minutes. Once we arrived at the field, we walked about 200 yards in to another field where he said that the turkey would be back to roost in around 7:00. Well, by the time we sat down, it was 6:00 p.m. Mike started calling right away and after about 15-20 minutes, he got up and walked into a bordering orange grove and called a couple of times. Nothing made a noise. Not 10 minutes later, a hen walks under a fence at only 8-10 feet and starts clucking and walking along. Hoping that a gobbler was in trail, I waited silently and stayed very still. Well another ten minutes went by and I figured that there was no tom, but then out of no-where, a nice tom came out of the fence at about 40 yards. This tom didn't even hesitate, because once he saw the stuffer tom decoy and the stuffer hen decoy, he got eye to eye with the tom, hit it once, and I let the hammer down on him at 25 yards. It was a quick and fun 45 minute hunt.

[turkeyslayer]

Scouting Report:
Well, I went out at 6:00 to my property in southern Ohio on Friday and I seen enough to be excited for a kill on opening day. When we got there before sunrise, we (me, my dad, cousin, and uncle) went in different directions and tried to hear birds on the roost and see where the turkey were roosting. Well, I think we only heard one gobble but that was too far away for any of us to tell where exactly it was at. Other than that, after sunrise, we seen turkey tracks and crap everywhere. In addition to that we saw 2 jakes, 3 hens, and 2 un-identified strutters (too far to see if it was a tom or jake). Then after getting done scouting, we decided to check out the place where my dad and I had seen two hens in a field and at that exact second that we pulled up, 9+ turkey walked out of the woods straight to the hens. Immeadiately 5 of the turkey starting strutting. After getting out the spotting scope, we were able to identify two huge toms and 3 nice sized jakes along with a lot of hens. The cool thing about seeing all these turkey was that with the window rolled down you would hear 3-4 hens yelp and every single tom in that field gobble right away. Unfortuantely for us though, that particular field was not yet in our permission. But we got lucky and caught the guy at his sons house and he gladly gave us permission. Ohio youth turkey season is looking great.

[turkeyslayer]

Well, I sure am excited. I have got only 4 days unitl I will be in the woods for the Ohio Youth Turkey season. It is definitely shaping up to be a good season.

[turkeyslayer]

The spring season is rolling around quick and I can't wait. I have a trip planned for the remainder of the subspecies I need for the Grand Slam. That includes the eastern, rio and merriam. I will first be headingout in early april to oklahoma for the rio, in mid april I will be hunting easterns in Ohio, and then finally the last week of april I am going to montana and wyoming for my merriam. I can't wait. I am actually going to achieve my goal of taking my Grand Slam by the time I am 18. I am so pumped. Only 34 more days left and I will be in Oklahoma, heck yeah.

[turkeyslayer]

I've got my Ohio State Turkey Calling Competition coming up on March 17. I am ready for this to come. I have practiced plenty and will try competing in the JAKES and Intermediate divisions. First year for the Intermediate. Hoping to do well. I have definetely improved greatly from last year so I am hoping to do well. Will post up later.

[turkeyslayer]

Well, I ended up getting first in the JAKES (under 17 division) and second in the Intermediate division. I beat out eight other competitors in the JAKES and 11 in the intermediate. Very excited!!!!

[turkeyslayer]

16 DAYS!!!!!! I can't wait. 16 days until I leave for Oklahoma for eight days. Got a limit of two rios. Hope we fill our tags. Going to be a fun hunt for sure.