Gobble gobble, no luck

Hey MM community,

Previous lurker, new member and new hunter here. Used this spring turkey season to kick off my hunting journey and it was rough. Hunted 3 days in unit 36 (white mountain area) and 4 days in unit 34 Sacramento mts. Put in many many miles over some rough country but wasn't able to fill my tag despite a few close encounters. Hard pill to swallow when others make it look so easy. Yet, I'm grateful to just have the ability to go on my own adventure in the mountains and experience other wildlife which is an important part of what hunting is to me. For all of you experienced hunters out there, did yall have rocky starts? How long did it take yall to successfully harvest your first animal doing DIY public land hunting?


J

DIY on public land is hard not only are you learning a unit you are competing with other hunters. It takes time and you learn a lot from your mistakes. Ck areas other hunters may overlook some times these areas everyone drives right by. As for turkey this year is hard I believe because of water every where,, however my son did bag one last weekend 9 inch beard and 1 inch Spurs he is doing a full mount. Good luck and remember bagging an animal is icing on the cake eating it benining in the woods is the meat of the cake IMO

Dude even if you know a unit and have patterned animals it's not a sure thing much less on public land. But for my first turkey I called in on public land for spring took me 5 years. Not saying it can't happen sooner that's just when it happened. But I killed my first public land animal (antelope) my second year with archery equipment

Thanks for the info and congrats to your son

Appreciate the perspective Tom

I've killed seven now, but I've never actually called a tom in on my own. My first turkey was with my mentor sitting right next to me showing me how it's done. That was probably 12 years ago. After that, I was mostly on my own. The next one I got was during an archery elk hunt when I had a bunch cross the road in front of me while I was driving to my elk hunting spot--no calling involved. Just pulled the truck over and got out on the opposite side, drew back my bow and then let the arrow fly at the closest one. My third was up on a rocky hill gobbling back at the thunder each time the thunder clapped during a dry thunder storm--again, no calling involved--was just able to stalk within shotgun range by only taking steps while the thunder was going. My 4th and 5th were actually coming to a different buddy's skilled calling. He was trying to bring them to his twin boys. The problem was that a group of about a dozen toms came from the direction where I was between the birds and his boys. I tried to let them all go by and the first four did, but then the fifth one decided to take a shortcut to the calls, and that put him literally in my lap. I had to pull the trigger because he was about to sound the alarm and then to my shock, I saw another bird go down that was immediately behind the first that I didn't even know was there. So I killed two toms with one shot (I was very lucky that the second one that I didn't see was also a tom). One of the twins also got a nice tom out of that group, but after all that I felt little bit like I'd messed it up for my friend and his twins--if I could have waited another 10 or 15 seconds, I think everyone in our group could have got at least one right there. My 6th and 7th were last week sitting on a trail that led to water--no calling involved. The first one came by on the heels of a single hen. Neither bird was making a sound, but he was in full strut. That was 8:00 in the morning. Ten hours later, the second pair came within range, again neither bird making a sound, but the tom was in full strut. I attached a pic of both birds in the other thread about any turkeys down yet.

So what I would tell you is if you stay with it, even if you have no calling skills (like me), sometimes things have a way of all coming together for you. In the meantime, do not take for granted any time you get to spend in God's country, and just enjoy that part of it for what it is.

Thanks for the wisdom mozey. I can echo that, any time I'm able to get to the mountains is priceless to me


J