2022 Spring Turkey Season -

Its pretty neat to be that close. I wonder why I treestand sometimes....but then if I had to draw a bow I couldn't do it without them seeing. So that's why.

Sounds like your becoming pretty good at stand hunting, originally you were a drive hunter no?
You have a great memory. Yes was a drive deer hunter for a long time.....I find I have missed the drives the last couple seasons but mostly because of the social part of it. For actual hunting I have begun to love sitting for deer especially after doing some scouting and finding those "highways" as I call them were deer are traveling....nothing like a good ambush and sitting still enough that they get so close.
 
My turkey season was a bust. Didn't get out as much as I wanted; but I did get to hear some sunrise gobbling on a couple of occasions....Gets the blood flowing and I'll be back next year.

I hunt deer in NY and PA and our tradition is to stand hunt until about 10am, meet for coffee and then "push" (drive) the brush lots and hardwoods until 2:30 or 3:00 and then go sit out until dark. Been pushing the same spots on my friends 900 acre crop farm since 1982. Every spot we drive has a name, the little square, McConkey's woods, Curtis's woods, spring woods, the swamp, the ravine, Brook Road,.... We do a fair amount of still hunting as well when the neighbors are pushing the deer around. I was hoping to get back to NY for turkey as their season goes to 5/31, but I dont see it happening.

Congrats to all those in Mass who knocked one down and you NH guys keep at it...!
 
So the NY turkey season runs entire month of May. I got out on May 1 and two, had some fun but no kills. Got out yesterday. Saw 2 does and two bucks in velvet. Not a lot of gobbling. I suspect breeding done as I saw several single hens and a group of six toms with little interest in hens. I’m going to post two short videos. The background is I call gay. Not by purpose but I tend to call in a lot of single hens. Way more than Tom’s. But the hens hang with decoys and that brings the Tom’s. I can and do call in love sick Tom’s with or without decoys, but man I get a lot of single birds come looking for me. Yesterday I had nine hens come in, 8 singles and one pair. First video is a hen going into a full strut. Puffs up, wings down and back, full tail fan and the little pirouette dance. I’d never knew hens strutted. I had two hens come into field from behind me. Let’s call them boss hen and hen 2. They start towards decoy and hen 3 enters opposite them. Boss hens runs over and fights hen 3. Jumping in air wings beating etc. it is quickly over as hen 3 goes submissive and boss hens struts. Hen 4 enters field near side. Boss hen and buddies trot over to her. Hen four goes submissive and boss hen struts again. Only being somewhat slow I get phone out and start filming. All four hens are about 40 yards out, and they head back to my decoy ( just one hen decoy 18 yards out). This clip is the approaching decoy, and you will want sound on.

trouble posting will come back to add
 
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While I had above hen story playing out, there were six Tom’s about 175 yards away. I’d been trying to get them over for about an hour, but they were half heartedly responding and feeding away from me. After hens left, in desperation I pissed off biggest Tom by yelping obnoxiously loud right on top of his gobble, he immediately gobbled again I yelped on top again. He changed direction and started over with five Tom’s in tow. That’s the end of good news. About sixty yards out the jakes trotted past him toward decoy. The biggest tom set up fifty yards out and went into his strut, gave a gobble or two but never came closer. As big Tom moved away I filmed jakes leaving. You can hear a hen call near end of clip. Two min later she was with my decoy
 
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