Leo

What weight head you shooting. For 125s I like the Rocket Stricknines For 100s the Rocket Sidewinder is a good one. 65lbs is plenty to shoot deer with an expandable. Some fixed blades just won't shoot well with certain setups. If you decide to stick with fixed try some different ones. The G5 Montec is a good flyer for lots of folks and the G5 Striker flies great too (and scary SHARP!) But setup does make a difference. Fletchings changes can turn rotten shooting broadheads into stars. Blazers really seem to shine there. Good luck. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the info. I did not know that. Does that mean any OTC tags are ones left over from the drawings?

Not just hype. They work.

Didn't think Colorado DNR had PP's

Kudos to you for remembering to "brush" yourself in. That's such an automatic thing for me now I'll failed to mention it. When the birds come in there will be multiple eyes to contend with. Most crucial is obstructing your back plane to eliminate being silhouetted. Hope TG knows to do this. I think she's probably in the woods now. If not chances of getting busted are pretty high.

Go back to where you found the fresh scratchings first thing in the morning. No matter what you hear sit there until your butt tries to crawl out the top of your head! Not really joking, you need to camp on that spot for several hours. If it's an active feeding site let them come to you. Just wait it out clucks and purrs (no yelping) only every 15 minutes. If a flock thinks another flock is feeding where they found food the day before they will come. You're trying to make those hens mad, they will fight over food before fighting over a gobbler. If you succeed they will quite often pull in a couple long beards in tow.

Easiest one: 1 part Dicalcium Phosphate (fertilizer grade NOT FEED GRADE) 2 parts Rock salt or water softener salt. Dig a hole, pour ingredients in, mix it with a shovel. Put it in NOW! After the horns have growth it does little good. Don't put it further than 200 yards from a water source. They often won't touch it until after the first good rain. They also tend to ignore such licks when it cools down below 60F (they do around here anyway.) The feed grade stuff is formulated for cattle. Deer seem to particularly dislike this. Hope this helps.

The point is TG. They get USED to some noises. Once that happens "Shock" gobbles stop as a response to that particular noise. I've hunted plenty of areas loaded with crows, you can blow your lungs out on a crow call and get no response, in these places. A different but "natural" noise is the best bet when that happens. Unnatural but loud noises like a "dog-whistle" will elicit shock gobbles. But honestly, I've found, shock gobbles in general put the birds on alert and unnatural noises do so even more. Birds that have been "shocked" into gobbling by myself have always been much harder to call in. If you don't need to get the shock gobble to know where the bird is then DON'T. This has always been the best policy for me. You can still successfully kill that bird after a shock gobble response but I've noticed it's ALWAYS harder (sometimes impossible). Your sweetest and best hen imitation doesn't make them want to run head long into danger. I'm not a big fan of getting "shock" gobbles for this reason. Finding a roosted bird is different. After a night on the roost they typically calm down. But a "shocked" mid day bird is IMHO extremely wary and obstinate! My two-cents.

A duck call and a goose call can absolutely be GREAT locator calls in the right areas. You are thinking right. TV and magazine rules DO NOT apply. Listen to what your local birds like and react to!

Probably didn't hurt a thing. I might have pushed him in the water though...

You should at least have a straight offset. Even fieldpoint accuracy can suffer at ranges beyond 25 yds with perfectly straight fletching. What you are probably seeing is wind planing effect and you'll find out, it's not consistent. Fixed blades are more susceptable to this. Sighting in for a little left won't help you if the wind is a little different the day you are hunting. Getting the arrow to spin is critical for outdoor accuracy regardless of the head type you are shooting.

There is NO season to kill hens here in my area of South Carolina EVER. As a result dealing with TONS of hens is a fact of every single season. The best advice I can give you is hunt every daylight hour you can. Eventually, the hens will leave the gobblers. It just takes a long time. I kill more henned up birds after 9:00am than before.

Rio's have a reputation for being easy. I think that is absolutely not always the case. They are still turkeys and you will encounter one that tests your patience regardless of species. Look forward to a tough Rio story.

With a really tight shooting quality turkey choke, I'd say sights are absolutely necessary. Inside 25yds you absolutely will miss birds if you don't have the gun sighted in. A saddle mount is a decent compromise if you don't want to permanently modify your gun. Some receivers do not take drilling and tapping well (in particular the Brownings and Winchesters, guns from them tapped at the factory have steel inserts in the receivers). Bare minimum with a tight turkey choke you should use at least fiber optic open sights. Spend some time shooting at pattern targets at different ranges and you'll quickly appreciate the difference being able to aim your shotgun like a rifle makes.

Can't kill one from the couch! Turkeys do not become nocturnal ever! So all daylight hours are fair game.

I like moose! Moose steaks, moose burger... GOOD! You were smart to return for him, obviously you found his area. You did good!

Hmmm, opening day of deer season here. Even though it is South Dakota it is still quite aways from South Carolina. Keep us posted though Tim. I'll make an effort to meet up with you sometime! Every now and then I get out of my cave.

Sometimes blowing the crow call hard doesn't cause a shock gobble because the birds have been so bombarded with loud crow caws they are immune to it. Sometimes just doing a "Ta-Ta" on the crow call makes the difference. This is the noise crows make at each other when they are just relaxing flying together. Just say "Ta-Ta" into the crow call. It's not real loud but I've gotten shock gobbles from a "Ta-Ta" right after in the same position loud bursts of "Caws" produced nothing.

Good point. I've heard them gobble on the roost up to 45minutes before official sunrise. On pressured lands it is quite common for these "roost" gobbles to be the only ones you hear. Don't let that discourage you.

Yep! Good places to start. Often big fields that you see turkeys in have one particular corner they prefer to strut in.

A common rookie mistake. Stop scouting with your ears only! What I'm gathering from your post is you are desperate to hear gobbles. If you find tracks and signs of strutting in an area, then hunt there regardless of perplexing silence from your quarry. I've found especially on birds older than two years they can be extremely closed beaked. They can't however hide their tracks and strut marks. Hearing gobbles is exciting but NOT necessary to succeed. Silent birds will still come into calls. I've had this beaten into me with such thoroughness, I simply no longer care if I hear a gobble first thing in the morning or not. If I've identified a hot strut zone I sit it, regardless of what I don't hear. Confidence in the sign I find is what keeps me there. Even if they don't answer, these birds still come in. Not with TV show bravado but the sneakers are still fair game You don't give up if you don't hear a deer grunt but turkey hunters seem to really get depressed when they don't hear a gobble. I'm telling you, gobbles are merely icing not the cake!

Well... good news is if you didn't get the goat tag, pressure is off to hunt one! Goat country starts where sheep country ends. Guys who get their goat have my respect! Don't think I'm up to handling that physically demanding a hunt anymore. I know there are some gimme places for goats but I don't know where they are and I honestly don't know if I could handle even the easy ones anyhow. I'm living at 25ft above sea level, and having suffered a brain injury in 2003, elevation really KICKS MY TAIL!!! I went to Colorado Springs this past year. Just tagged along with my wife on a conference trip. Fabulous country! I love it there. Colorado, should be on everyones must go list. Even if you can't hunt, you should go! I did find out, the lack of humidity and elevation does affect me strongly. I need a couple days to acclimate. I learned first hand. If I had been on a hunt. I would have been in serious trouble! My water intake quadrupled and eye drops were absolutely necessary! Good luck on that sheep tag! Bighorns are really cool! Ranch sheep are merely the "Light Beer" versions. May be all I get to do. If the Lord wills it, maybe it will be different. I can thank the DHNA for the one I have! I know a guy that has been trying for almost a decade to get that Wyoming Shiras Moose tag and hasn't. He's located a whopper in a specific area and he ain't spilling the beans where. Hope he gets the tag before the moose keels over due to old age! Let me tell you though, you were quite fortunate to get that tag!

Those guys did GOOD! I like that song! I've been trying to hack out an acoustic version. It's tough because there's lots of guitar sounding keyboard and some of the actual guitar notes are really reversed (I've learned they probably used a digital effects pedal). That was driving me nuts with the Tabs I was able to find, until I found some comments on the song to that effect. I'd have never figured it out, myself. So that leaves me with hacking out a rhythm by ear. Honestly, I don't think I'm that good at that but I may get some semblance of the song if I succeed.

If you're in New England this place might be a good option for you. http://www.bearslairhunting.com/welcome.html#bear I've haven't hunted with them but I've personally met the McAskills in Memphis and they are darn nice folks. I have no qualms recommending them. The area their camp is located in New Brunswick is POLLUTED with bears. Everyone I've talked to confirms this with absolute affirmation! Many of the locals there have gotten sick of killing bears. They don't seem to have color phase bears of western Canada nor are they all whoppers (though there are some good ones taken there). It's a bait/blind bear hunt which means LONG SITS. I've done that before and it is way more challenging than I expected. It won't wear you out physically but it will try your patience. Mentally and emotionally it's a very draining hunt. Close range encounters with bears are exciting especially when they spot you (which they are extremely good at). So expect it. A big one will often circle the area several times before coming in. When they start doing that you just catch glimpses of them in the distance, in front, beside, behind and around again. It will light your nerves on FIRE! Bears move through the woods quieter than any other critter I've ever hunted. They walk through crunchy leaves with such silence you think you're dreaming he's there. They sneak up on you with amazing ease. When a deer surprises you like that, you think, "where'd he come from." When a bear does it, your neck hair stands up and you feel your heart beat in your head. It would be a good hunt, pretty convenient for you and reasonably priced. Don McAskill can easily handle hunters who are less mobile. I was still in a wheelchair when I met him. He proved to me he knows what it takes.

Depends what's in it. If the bear can knock the barrel around the tree and shake some goody out, he'll stick with it. You can fill it with barley put a 2in hole in it and bears will just keep coming back to shake the heck out of it. A buddy of mine puts meats, grease and pastries around the barley barrel. They come for the free goodies then work for the barley. Works for him.