Spring is just around corner!

Tuesday checked out a couple lakes for ice.Saw a group of 40 ish birds,the last 8 where fat jakes followed by a giant strutting tom..I guess he thinks it's spring. I learned a long time ago Turkey's gobble and strut year round not just in the spring.

Okay so we are waiting for spring gobbler.
I came home to this. My son caught 2 turkey ON the front porch.
I am taking bids on who wants to be in the chair on the right????
Whats the offers????
Oh there were ten more in the yard....
 

I have been hearing the toms gobbling for weeks now. Just yesterday noticed the first Turkey Vultures(3/13). They may have been out earlier however I didn't notice or see them.
 
As for gobblers I occasionally hear them all year long. 

Turkeys are talking a **** load every morning and every evening around my house...
 

GOOD MORNING TO ME..........
25 feet from my rocking chair.......
 

Sweet.

It just can't get any better then that!  Heck, I'm feeling lucky I'm still seeing the same flock of birds everyday in the pasture across the road.  Keep the pictures coming Wags.

BT gettin out this time of the year in search of the ever elusive PA. Meleagris gallopavo is half the fun of hunting.  I have some fond memories from scouting turkey when my kids were at home.  In fact, most of the memories come from early season scouting in the spring as we never really got into hunting and harvesting a bird.  We would dress up in our camo, go sit in the woods and try to strike up a conversation with old Mr. Tom or, stand along an old logging road early mornings/evenings and beller away on a owl hooter hoping to hear the response of gobbles rippling across the hill tops and ridge lines.
 
Can't beat the expression on a kids face the first time they use a owl/crow/turkey call and get a response from the birds.  Best time with my daughter was when we were sitting on the edge of a logging road, all dressed up like trees and bushes, when my daughter called in a flock of birds that came running at, around and, past us.  I thought she was going to climb a tree she was so nervous.  
 
My son located a gobbler and worked the bird assuring it was still there for opening morning when he set up on a power right away.  I walked in with him but, set up about twenty yards behind him.  First light, my boy started with his reed call which was a perfect representation of a seal pup.  But, the bird answered and didn't take long to fly down and begin hammering for a response from a hot hen. My boy would answer, the Tom would fire back, followed by a yelp then answered by a gobble and I waited and waited and waited for the shot that never happened.
 
When the music finally came to an end, I didn't need to ask, the look on my boy's face and the excitement in his voice was enough to tell me he just witnessed a dance in nature, most people will never ever see.
 
As for me, well never shot a turkey but one morning I was working a bird, had it coming straight into me when a few yards directly behind me a Jake cut loose that dam near had me climbing a tree.  Can't wait to get out and try it again this year and I still don't know if I'll squeeze the trigger.
 
Ahhh; the memories.

the woods are going to be so thick you are going to have to call them into fields to shoot!

I think this is the best time of year to brush up on your cadence. Try a few different reeds. Break in a new one.
Get them talking and not running away..
 

Gobblers were in the same roost this AM.  Was darker today as I was coming in to work a little earlier but I could still see them puffed out and sky lined.

Well they are not on the porch yet. BUT they run across the yard and taunt the wife's cat
1st flock 15. 2nd had 16. 3rd had 19....all within 20 minutes....

I had a gobbler with about a 8 inch beard in the yard this morning. First turkey we've seen here!

All I heard this morning was beeping of IV machines and thump thump thump of a heart monitor.... come on baby daddy hates hospitals

9am made 24 hours since the wife was induced. We are hoping he shows up pretty soon.