Posted by Brian Lovett, Contributing Editor

I tossed and turned all night worrying about the setup. Then I fretted over it while driving to the woods. And when it came time to decide, I still didn’t know.

While scouting April 22, the day before my first Wisconsin season opened, two friends and I found loads of turkey sign around a corn-stubble field surrounded by pines and a hardwood ridge. The area was a no-brainer, but all those big trees posed a problem. After all, the birds could roost right off the field edge, and because the moon was almost full, the area would be brighter than a firefly long before flydown.

The safe play would be to sneak up a logging road and listen from a remote corner of the field, far from paranoid eyes in the trees. The aggressive move would be to slip along the pines at the field’s northern edge so I was closer to the suspected roost areas.

Well, at 4:45 a.m., I was still hemming and hawing. So, perhaps being a bit anxious, I chose the aggressive option, and friend Craig Netzer and I slipped along the pines until we reached the base of the connecting ridge.

Within minutes, several birds fired up from some big white pines across the field. Good deal. We slipped back into the red pines and set up, and I scratched out some soft tree-yelping. And that’s about when another bird fired up — directly over Craig’s head. I swear it rained needles down on his camo cap.

The turkey didn’t gobble much, so I think he was a bit “off” because of the shadowy shapes he’d just seen on the field edge. However, the gobblers across the field choked themselves for 15 minutes. Then, heavy wingbeats indicated they were headed toward the ground.

Two birds landed in the field about 100 steps away. After gobbling twice and strutting and drumming a bit, the birds marched in, and I shot the lead longbeard at 28 steps.

It was 5:35 a.m., and honestly, I could barely make out the green and red on my fiber-optic sights.

Had we been any later or made one stupid move, we probably would have busted countless turkeys out of the area. But thankfully, we had been early — and fortunate — enough to pull it off.

To make the day even better, I joined landowner Steve Pethke for a midmorning hunt. After several fruitless calling sequences, we hiked to the top of a long ridge, called and then listened. I started saying something to Steve when I heard what I thought was a crow. Steve knew better.

“Gobble!” he said. “Let’s get up on top of the ridge and get a fix on him.”

We did, and the next calling sequence was met by a thunderous response — about 80 steps away on a wooded point. The bird was just out of sight over the rise.

Steve scrambled for a large boulder, and I settled behind him at a birch tree. Figuring we were OK, I eased out some soft yelps on a glass call, and the longbeard hammered back. Good. He was headed directly toward us.
After a bit of purring, some great spitting and drumming and a tense 90 seconds, Steve’s gun roared, and longbeard No. 2 was flopping.

Again, had we rushed in or taken that proverbial “one step too many,” we would have boogered that lonely gobbler. But thankfully, someone up above must have been looking out for us.

Maybe this marks the start of a new trend. Could I possibly go an entire season without bumping, boogering or spooking a gobbler? Ha! We all know better.

But for that day at least, the sight of two gobblers in the truck and the smile on Steve’s face helped me avoid such gloomy thoughts.
 

Posted by Brian Lovett, Contributing Editor

An old turkey hunting cliché tells us that every day is opening day. Yeah, I know that’s pretty lame. But there’s also a lot of truth there.

I was reminded of that this past week, when I joined co-workers Craig Netzer and Dustin Reid for an opening-week Wisconsin hunt. The pair had been seeing wads of gobblers at a nearby property, much of which consisted of open fields and pastures. We planned to set up in a fence-line blind and try to lure the birds across a field and into range — something they had been doing on their own, anyway.

Of course, nothing went as planned. “Our” turkeys were roosted in a swamp across the field, and they tore it up that morning.

Unfortunately, they pitched down the other way and pretty much disappeared. Meanwhile, a bird that was roosted to the north sailed into the pasture and landed 75 steps behind us, catching me flat-footed. As we slowly turned to face the gobbler, a hen joined him in the pasture, and he began strutting and gobbling for her. After a few minutes, the disinterested hen flew over the pasture fence and walked directly behind us in the field. I figured the gobbler would follow at any minute … but no. Instead, he dropped out of strut and slowly walked away over the rise.

It was 5:45 a.m., and our morning was pretty much finished.

Lacking a better plan, we returned to the pasture blind the next day, and things took a turn for the worse. First, two hunters walked directly under the turkeys on the neighboring property — while wearing headlamps — and then climbed into a tree stand about two trees over from where the birds were roosted. Then, they began cutting and yelping incessantly. Believe it or not, the birds gobbled once or twice at it. But as you probably guessed, they flew down the other way and clammed up.

Meanwhile, there was nothing gobbling at our place. Figuring we’d wait 15 minutes and then hit another area, I called a bit and then set my slate call down. That’s when I saw it.

“Dustin, is that a turkey on top of the hill?” I whispered.

Sure enough. Within minutes, three jakes made a beeline for our decoys.

Dustin eased slowly to his right, got the gun into position and then made a great shot on the lead bird.

Sweet. A seemingly rotten morning was suddenly a day to remember.
Of course, Craig still had a tag, so we went to another spot and immediately heard a bird gobble on its own. Slipping into a small pine grove bordered by a hayfield, Craig set up, and I called again to get a fix on the turkeys. They were several hundred yards away, past another thick pine stand.

For a while, the gobblers — I figured there were two, maybe three — hit every call. Then, they gobbled intermittently, sometimes at calling but also at crows, a garbage truck and seemingly nothing at all. And they never moved.
Figuring the setup was hopeless, Dustin and I had never gotten into position. In fact, we were kneeling at the field edge about 10 steps behind Craig. I was about to suggest that we leave when a gobble erupted 200 yards in front of us. Holy smokes — it was from the field edge. However, that was followed by a half-gobble and raucous jake yelping, so I pretty much disregarded the first gobble.

And minutes later, when I saw a turkey slipping toward us through the pines, I expected a jake to appear. Imagine my surprise when I glimpsed golden-brown feathers and heard the prettiest little hen yelp in the world.

That’s when I heard the drumming. Great. The hen had brought along a strutter. No wait — two strutters. Better, the birds were over the rise and out of sight from Craig, headed straight toward me and Dustin, who were kneeling like altar boys in the open. There was no doubt that we’d be busted shortly.

Within seconds, two hens and the strutters popped into the field behind us. One gobbler must have seen us move, because he rubber-necked it across the field into some hardwoods. Still, the hens and remaining longbeard slowly circled around behind us and to the left.

Dustin and I frantically hissed at Craig to crawl up toward us so he could shoot the turkey. Meanwhile, the birds were slowly moving out of range, so I called once. The gobbler responded, actually turned away from the hen and began walking toward us.

As Craig slithered to get into position, I alternately glimpsed the bird’s fan and head as he angled toward us, strutting just below the lip of the hill. When the gun went off, I jumped up, saw the flopping turkey and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Somehow, we’d pulled it off.

The moral of the story? Maybe every day really is opening day. Or maybe you’d better be ready to accept good fortune when it falls in your lap.

Posted by Brad Rucks, Publisher

Wisconsin's youth turkey season took place this past weekend, a few days before the opening of our state's regular season. During this special weekend, any youth age 12-16 with a tag for the regular season can hunt. If the youth doesn't get a turkey on youth weekend, he or she can still use their tag during the regular season. The season couldn't get here fast enough for me because I finally had a 12-year-old I could take afield -- my daughter Cassie.

Unfortunately, the forecast called for some nasty weather. During the past week we'd had nothing but rain and high winds. To make matters worse, the weatherman was calling for snow. By Saturday morning the ground was completely covered in white. Snow fell throughout the day, and turkey activity on our hunting ground was non-existent. I told Cassie before she went to bed Saturday night that the weather was supposed to clear and the turkeys should be gobbling in the morning.

Well, I was partially right. The skies had cleared but the birds were silent on the roost. In fact, we never heard a gobble, not even in the distance, that morning. It was sunny but windy. Patience has never been a virtue of mine, so it wasn't long before we were walking and trying to strike a bird. At the second spot we stopped to call I thought I heard a gobble. We set up and I called again. The response was immediate and sounded closer. I waited a few minutes and hit the call again and once again he gobbled. There was creek between us and the bird. It sounded like the bird was headed for a dike that would bring him across the creek. The next time I called, to my surprise two birds gobbled. Now we had the original gobbler coming from one direction and pair coming from another.

I told Cassie to swing her gun toward a birch tree on the left because that bird sounded closest. Seconds later we saw him running toward us. At 35 yards he stopped. Cassie was aiming but she had forgotten to take the safety off. I whispered, "Take the gun off safety." She tried frantically but couldn't reach the button. I watched her fingers work toward it and finally she was able to push the button. At the click the bird stopped and lifted his head for a better look. This gave Cassie time to put the red dot on his neck. A second later the gun roared and the turkey was knocked backward. I knew she had made a great shot. I jumped to my feet and she asked, "Should I shoot him again?" I told that bird wasn't going anyplace. She was jumping up and down and all she could say was, "I shot a turkey! I shot a turkey!" I gave her a high-five and a big hug and told her it just doesn't get any better than this.

It was a great hunt that will make the memory of a lifetime. When we got to the bird we saw it was a beautiful 2-year-old with an 8.5" beard. He weighed 20 pounds. 

Some in the hunting community frown on allowing someone to hunt before the regular season, but in my eyes it's much better to let our youngsters experience turkey hunting when the birds are responding well to calling so they can catch the fever. If hunting is to grow it has to come from us getting more youths involved. I know one young hunter who already can't wait for the next season to start!