2015 spring turkey season reports

Hey guys Saturday the 28th @ 10am any permits still remaining for all zones go on sale. One permit per person per day.Resident $10.00 Nonresident $15.00 you must already have purchased your spring turkey licenses to buy extra tags. Guys looking to book a spring turkey hunt in zone 1 or 3? I have a few openings left. I have lots of land to hunt in both zones. Both private and public land. We have been out the last few weeks checking hunting spots over. Lots of birds around with the mild winter. Couple of the areas we have been hunting for years with good sucess. These pictures are from 2014 spring turkey season in zone 1 and 3

Is it just me or did turkey numbers seem to be down this year? In all three different areas i hunt it just seemed like the numbers were not there compared to past years.

hunted yesterday AM was a bit soggy and then began raining steady, so the wrap to my season was sitting in the rain for a few hours and getting soaked never saw a bird only one deer. so over all was a good hunt over the weekend but tough, I do believe birds were call shy and tough to get in close, I did harvest 2 nice birds this season so I cant complain, I even saw a freshly birthed fawn on sunday which was a first for me and very cool to see up-close. was a good fun season and the weather was good and skeeters were not very bad at all, I did however not see many birds throught the season has I have in years past so idk what that all means but still gatta love spring in the turkey woods! good job to all who got birds and had fun hunts that's what its all about! goodhuntin all! bring on September!!

I hunted pretty hard Wed. through Fri. Birds seemed call shy. Saturday my son and I were to get up at 4 am and head out. He said make it 6. Turned out my wife was sick and my daughter needed a ride to work at 7. So we headed out at around 9! I saw birds everyday I was out so we went where I knew they'd pass through. I took a hen and jake decoy and set them right where he got his 1st bird last year. We agreed he gets 1st shot and if there's more than 1 I'd still shoot 2nd. I called one set and nothing. 15 minutes later I tried again and nothing. I told him we're not calling anymore today. 15 minutes later here comes a group of about 8 -10 jakes. They didn't even seem to see the decoys they were walking/feeding by. The lead bird had the best beard so I knew he'd be shooting that one. I held my old side by side 20 gauge on a smaller bird and was waiting for him to shoot. It was another 10 seconds or so before he did. The birds were running circles and I pulled the front trigger on the 20 and got a click. A second later the back trigger pulled and Bam! 2 birds down. We picked a lucky shell for each other that morning, Mine was lucky for the birds! Anyways it turned out to be a great day. About an hour in the woods and 2 birds to bring home.

Zone 3 Shawano cty. Actually heard quite a bit of gobbling this morning. Probably at least 5 different gobblers. Sat most of the day no turkeys seen.

just in for a warm shower and some chow sat for a few hours late morning from 10am-3:30ish no sightings or sounds either. maybe in the AM post rain. beer thirty for me!

Same thing as yesterday. Not a sound dang birds. Don't want to play by my rules.

back out this am same spot and had 2 gobblers going, but ofcourse across the road and on other land, typical, saw some deer and a few hummingbirds upclose so that was cool, left early from there about 9is and went to another spot and had a tom going within 50-60 yds, tried to do a sneek to cut the distance, that didn't work I spooked um , dum move should've just sat and waited um out but I thought he was down further in holler than I expected, o well, maybe tomorrow if the rain holds off, gunna sleep in though 4am gets old after awhile. goodhuntin all!

Wow the woods is quite this morning. Not one gobbler yet.

zone 3 Waupaca co; sat last evening on some private land that I tagged a bird on during B, seen a small doe and had a raccoon try and ambush me but that went south fast. didn't hear or see a thing turkey wise. back out before dawn today and boy it was a bit chilly before sun up, didn't hear anything no gobbles, pretty boring until 8am and I thought I heard a faint gobble so picked up and moved that way quickly. sat back down and had 2 maybe 3 gobblers going in the thick swampy hardwoods, one must have been only 45yds out but I couldn't see um, had him responds to my calls so I shut up and waited, and waited and waited, they vanished, only saw one lone hen cluckin away, back at er in the AM, off to poygan for some eyes hopefully! goodhuntin all!

Got this guy this morning!my first bird no gobbling no nothing today. First bird came out a roost at 7am 2hens and then another hen. 10 min. Later 2 Tom's came running at my funky chicken decoy. And the rest is history! My daughter wishing she came with now. Hopefully she can fill her tag sat morning

Fishmeister & Fetch-um-up - That's very interesting because last year I had the same experience during the last week of season. I was bow hunting so had my decoys close, one hen decoy was 5 yards in front of my blind. A live hen came in and pecked at the legs and head of that decoy for over an hour non-stop. At first I was very discrete with movement and noise so I didn't spook her, figuring a live hen in the decoys was a good thing. Anyway, after a while I eventually started calling and eventually had the volume of my calls amped all the way up. Well that did the trick because three toms came charging my jake decoy, while the hen was still going psych on my hen decoy. It was game over, the hen did her part. I just think sometimes turkeys get so locked in on something they obsessed to the point of psychosis and become oblivious to any thing else. Here's a link to a video clip of the psycho hen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cgn1rQPxG0

I had a neat experience on my last day also. I had a hen sneak up to my 3 Decs, a hen,a jake and a tom in strut. I was calling and had my head turned to the right and she snuck up in the taller grass and was right in front of me at 15 yrds and she saw me move a bit and started to putt but didn't run off. She started to walk off a little and I clucked and purred and she came back and started to check out my hen and tom and wouldn't leave. She then started to make a real low toned cluck/purr sound and started to puff up her feathers and basically laded down right in front of the tom dec. It sure looked to me that she was ready for that tom to mount her and give her a little. I felt bad for her as she hung around for about 1 hour waiting for that stupid tom to get busy. It was neat to watch but it didn't help me fill my tag. Oh well next year! Dean

Had a very unlikely experience yesterday morning. Hunted couple hours before work. When it was time to pack up, I had a hen beating up my decoy. She came in and went into a full strut and did 2 complete circles around the plastic hen with wings dragging and all. That was cool enough, but wait, it gets better! When I couldn't wait any longer, I tried to gently scare her off. I started talking to her I a calm voice and stood up. At 32 yards she totally ignored me. When I walked 10 steps toward her and she still didn't leave I started recording her with my phone. I was able to walk in the wide open corn field to within 15 yards of her before she finally decided to leave. She saw me and at one time turned to leave, but when I used my voice to purr to her, she came back and made another circle around the fake hen, pecking at its head! Made a most memorable hunt, even better that slinging a big tom over my shoulder!.............

Well, my turkey season came to an end even before it started. Had planned on hunting the same property that I've been hunting for the last 10 years or so with my daughter(3rd year hunter). Called the landowner and asked about hunting Friday and the weekend.. His response was instead of "sure glad to have you" was "no", I leased the land out for turkeys. My heart just sank. Yep, his land, can do what he wants. Looks like state land for the time being until I can find something else.

I'm heading out tomorrow, Thursday May 21 after work in zone 5 near a common roosting area on a buddy's farm. I've never hunted zone 5 before, any update on how the birds are responding or tactics you might suggest given the area and time of year?