Squirrelhunter91

The birds are all screwed up this year Luke. I've had birds gobbling on the roost, well within 100 yards then they fly down and go the other way. It doesn't help that it's been raining here for the last 2 weeks. It supposed to clear up tomorrow night and make for some really nice weather this weekend. The birds I gonna be hot I think. I'll be in my Ameristep Saturday morning with my DXT and hopefully I can locate a gobbler. The birds around here have been gobbling though despite the rain, but the hens have been very active as well. Lots of hen competition and I hate it. I have a theory with all of this rain we've been getting. My theory is... The turkeys have been breeding for say the last 2-3 weeks. I'm sure that some of them, and hopefully not most of them had/have nests before this rain. Many nests I'm sure have been flooded out already, forcing the hens to breed and re-nest. This means increased competition between hens and hunters late in the season and it could mean the turkeys are gonna breed well into June. In turn this could potentially give us smaller poults come late Fall then lead to a high winter poult mortality rate and leaving us with fewer birds to hunt next year. But of course everything is on a cycle and it should bounce back in a year or two if my theory were to prove correct.

Strut.. I had the same thing happen to me this morning. I had one on the roost fly down to about 50 yards away, then walk away from me. He gobbled twice on the ground then shut up the rest of the morning. They all gobbled good on the roost. Then once they hit the ground, instant lockjaw.

I've had this stand for 4 years and I cannot complain at all. Only once did I have my cam hit the bar and thats when I shot a 36.5" ATA bow. I've since switched to a 29 3/4" ATA (Mathews DXT). I'm not saying that you need to shoot a short ATA bow to not have the cam hit the bar, but set your platform higher up than you normally would and the extra height of the platform will compensate for the height of the bar and you should clear it no problem. A lesson I learned the hard way.

Yesterday, May 1st was opening day here in NY. My buddy Mike had to work and so did my dad so I couldn't skip school like originally planned. Besides the weather was crappy anyway. So we decided last night that we would head out this morning and see what we could do. We went to a place he has access to in Orange County, only about a 30min drive from where we live here in Rockland County. It was pouring rain this morning so on the ride upstate we were debating on wheter or not we made the right decision, but we quickly agreed that a rained out morning turkey hunting sounds better than sleeping and thinking about what could've been. He said he knew where the birds were roosted and sure enough, he did. We got there around 5:00 am as the rain slowed down and eventually stopped and went for a little hike. At about 5:15 we look up in the trees and there was a turkey sitting on the limb about 75 yards away. We get set up real slowly as the turkey is waking up, I throw some soft tree yelps out there the bird stands up on the limb, shakes off the rain from the night and turns around looking our way. All we saw was the sillhouette of a beard on the bird. I throw some more yelps out there and the bird pitches down 15 minutes later about 10 yards in front of the decoys. He took a few steps closer towards the dekes and at that point I didn't have a shot because there were trees in my way and I was facing differently. I told Mike I had no shot so he took the shot. He shot and down the bird went. When we got up to him we had no idea how big of a bird it was. 11 1/4" beard, one spur was 1 3/8" and the other spur was 3/4". The one spur was broken and missing probably a half an inch. We later weighed him in at 22lb. So basically, Mike had his bird down at roughly 5:30am. We worked a few more birds the rest of the morning, only one coming close, about 55 yards according to Mike. I didn't see this other gobbler either. I certainly heard him though. This bird pitched down off the roost towards the hens that were yelping behind us. He had another gobbler with him too. We're gonna see if we can get back on them tomorrow morning. But anyway, here's the pics:

I'm headed outta here in a few!!! Taking the 835 this morning and going to Orange County,NY with my buddy to see if we can't get on some birds. The rain might have them acting weird but we'll see!!!

LMAO a few names come to mind.

We're looking at one **** of a wash out tomorrow here in Southern NY. Rain tonight through Saturday evening. The hunting this weekend is gonna be terrible.

New York's Opening Day is tomorrow and hopefully the weather holds out. They're saying its supposed to thunderstorm all through Saturday night, but they're usually wrong. I'm really hoping the weather holds out til tomorrow afternoon because we can only hunt til noon here anyway.

I really can't wait til this Friday when we can get on them birds again. I won't be hunting near our place upstate, about 1/2 hour more South in Orange County, NY, but I'll be up there on Saturday and Sunday! As I was working these birds I was looking around and found a few spots to put my ground blind in on Friday evening.

Just bought a new Stealth Cam and these are a few off the first batch of pics I got off it from last night.. looks to me like the velvet is starting!!! I'm almost having a deer & turkey overload!!! NY Youth Hunt is this weekend, taking my brother out, then May 1st starts the actualy NY Turkey Season but now I'm seeing velvet bucks and they're making me think about October!!! AHHH.. I don't know what to do lol Anyway.. I'm not sure what I think of the picture quality.. oddly enough it's not as good as my Wildview 5.0 I don't think but the flash is a million times brighter.. Here's a buck that looks like he'll be decent. His body looks real healthy too: A nice sized doe:

Never mind that! NY Turkey Season starts next Friday, May 1st! Oh well Dad.. I guess they couldn't give you all of deer season AND turkey season off right?

Hey Luke.. my dad's up at the property upstate getting some fishing and turkey scouting done but he wanted me to come on here and let you know that you're very welcome!!

Drove up to the property Wednesday evening with my girlfriend, Melissa and met my dad up there. We planned to stay overnight and come home yesterday evening. Me and Melissa got up at 5:15am and went out yesterday morning to go listen for gobbles. It was a brisk 20 degrees, but gorgeous. No wind. Awesome morning for a November rut hunt. You know, one of those mornings that you break the silence with the rattling antlers. But anyway, the whole reason for bringing her was to have her listen to the thunder chickens sounding off in the morning. It would be the first time she would hear a gobble in person and the birds didn't disappoint. We only found 2 gobblers, one jake and a tom, about 200 yards from our listenting spot and man did they gobble their heads off. They hit the ground around 5:50am, good information to know for the youth hunt next weekend. These two birds were so hot for female company that if yesterday was opening day, both of them would've been in the bag. The gobbled at anything and everything. Crows, owls, woodpecker pecking on a tree, you name it they would gobble at it. Only 1 more week til I can get my brothers on some birds.

I think I'm gonna give the Bullheads a try.. Only a few weeks til hammer time.

I'm in.. I won't be turkey hunting til May 1st, well technically the last weekend in April (Youth hunt for my brothers), but I wouldn't mind getting texts from you folks who are hunting already.. Shane.. I'll PM you my number now because I won't be around to do it tomorrow. I'm working all day.

A 9 foot beard!? That's one for the record books. Congrats on an awesome bird.. no spurs? That sounds like a trophy in itself.

Yea.. I got an 80%.. can't say that I knew much about other countries and where turkeys are.. didn't know that poults fly at 2-3 weeks either.. and I disagree completely about the strutting turkey in the field.. I would set up there the next day because that tom is on a routine and will be there the next day out of habit in my experience. and I got the one wrong about the tom pitching uphill instead of downhill.. maybe that's why the one setup we use every year doesn't work, because the tom flys uphill... hmmm...

I like a big set of hooks. It's a true indicator of a mature bird and a trophy. I mean don't get me wrong, a big beard is great to watch but a nice set over 1" is real nice.

My initial thought was a Thermacell, but then I realized that my calls would definitely be most important, more specifically, my mouth calls.

and a little bit of chicken fried...

Well.. a few won't be in my vest, but they'll be out with me!! Mathews DXT Ameristep Brickhouse Blind More than a few Purdy's Custom Calls A few HS Strut diaphragms A few custom box calls 4 or 5 strikers Crow, owl, coyote & woodpecker locator calls Field dressing gloves Knife/Multi tool Water & Snack Tags & zip ties B Mobile Jake Deke Hen Deke A folding chair It's alot of stuff to carry but it'll be well worth it when that tom hits the ground.

Any team name works for me.

Hey everyone.. just checkin in.. I'm Joe.. ADjam5 is my dad.. we'll be hunting together here for some NY Easterns this May.. hopefully we can knock down a few toms. Good luck to all this spring!!!

Go check out the Monster Bucks DVD of the 2007 season, released in 2008. I don't know what the exact roman numeral is on it. But if you pay attention to the hunts, David Blanton doesn't get a single pass through with his Bowtech General. They never had that problem when they shot Mathews bows. The only reason they switched bow companies was because Mathews came out with the Lost Camo pattern because I'm sure they got tired of paying royalties to Realtree for the patterns on their bows. But I witnessed firsthand the lack of penetrating power of the Bowtech General. I had a friend of mine bowhunt with me here in NY last year. He shoots a 30"/70lb General and at 30 yards on a 1.5 y.o, broadside spike the arrow did not penetrate a single bit of what it should have. It was a 400gr arrow that definitely should've blown through the deer. He hit right where the lungs were and although a deflection was possible off a rib, I still feel that it should've blown right through the deer. Some of you might come on here and blame it on the broadhead, he was shooting those UnderTaker heads in 100gr, he didn't have a problem with those heads performing on deer in Georgia off his Mathews LX, so he knew the heads worked. But we fully blame lack of penetration on this deer on the bow. We never did recover that deer either.

Should've bought a Mathews