More Junior Turkey Success!

On the last morning the juniors could hunt before having to take a two week break Skyler connected.  We have had lots of close encounters but just bad luck has kept him from killing prior to this morning hunt.  We found this bird in the roost and made a quick circle to get into place for the fly down.  He held for quite a while and finally decided to come take a look, that was his fatal mistake.  Be sure to check out the video below it is pretty funny.  In two weeks we will be back at it, but in the mean time a little fishing and some archery bear hunts.

Turkey fever!

Five days into the Junior turkey hunt and the birds are calling well.  The last couple days we have found lots of birds that are with the ladies and really don't care about us stupid two legged creatures with turkey calls.  Here are a couple pics from some of the video I have taken so far this year.  This morning was awesome we had a tom roosted with three hens and another smaller tom, and boy did he like to gobble.  After they finally pitched down from the tree into a small opening about 200 yards from us the strut activity was on.  Unable to pull him from his hens we backed out and will be sitting very close to the small opening they landed in today come tomorrow morning.  None of today's video is on this section of video below.  Good luck to all!!

Junior Turkey Opening Morning!

One of my older sons friends asked if he got draw for some tags would I help him?  That was a no brainer for me, I love hunting with kids they are awesome. The excitement level started after not drawing Javelina, but drawing a Junior Turkey tag.  This was going to be his very first big game animal so he got first shot in front of my kids.  After locating this bird last night we snuck in this morning and set up waiting for daylight as the bird gobbled and gobbled and gobbled.  Finally after some light hen clucks he pitched from the tree and almost landed in our lap.  Before I could get the camera going the hunt was over with one a well placed shot.  I will post more pictures later this weekend since we still have two tags to go.  All of this and they still made it back to school on time so they could play in there baseball game tonight.

Junior turkey hunt starts off with a BANG!!

With the opening weekend of the Junior turkey hunt over now the adults get to see if they can fool the old gobbler into coming into range.  We were hunting with some juniors this past weekend and did very well.  We killed 5 beautiful long beard (NO JAKES), in two and a half days of hunting.  There is nothing better than watching these juniors get all excited when they see that old gobbler turn the corner and start at us in a FULL STRUT.  Talking with some of the other hunters in the unit people were struggling a little for some reason.  We thought it was awesome, 4 of the 5 birds we killed were by themself or with another gobbler.  Any time you can call these birds before they hen up it is going to be good.  We did get some of the hunts on tape but not as much as we had hoped for.  We had one Junior attempt to kill a turkey with a crossbow after killing 3 with a shot gun prior to this year.

This is Kade with his very first turkey....Congrats Kade!!

This turkey is almost bigger than Kade!

Check out Tyler's 1st turkey of his young career!

Congrats Tyler on a great bird!

This is Kelsea's 3rd turkey in four years.  I know she is making the boys jealous!

After this bird fly past them out of the roost a couple clucks from dad and this bird was back putting on a show.

 

 Steffen with his nice long beard!

This bird almost landed on us when he flew out of the roost, bad mistake on his part!!

Tanner Rocked this big old long beard on the second morning of the the hunt!

The word has not got out to the animals yet to stay clear of Tanner, he also killed a great 4x4 Mule deer last year in the same unit.

Here is a little video of Kade's hunt. 

Junior hunt with a Crossbow.  After killing three turkeys in three years with a shot gun the decision was made to try a crossbow for a little while.

The Junior hunt goes for a week and then closes for two weeks while the general hunts start and then it opens back up for the last two weeks again.  This means you have not seen the end of the Junior Turkey hunt pictures for the year..  More to come soon.  A GIANT congrats to all the kids who have killed so far in the Junior Turkey hunt.  For many of them this was there first turkey.

Turkey Pre-Season Scouting!

With the Junior Turkey hunt in Arizona only 5 days away me and the boys decided we better check on the old Turkey's and make sure they were still where we thought.  We have hunted this unit for numerous years and have also scouted this same unit just a week ago.  We have to figure these birds out even more since both my boys age 11 and 14 will be using a bow and arrow instead of the trusted shot gun.  Here are a couple pictures from the video we just took this evening. Check out the video on the bottom of this post to see these long beards in action!  Check back starting Friday 4/15 for updates on the Junior hunt here in AZ.

Just a little strut action!!

Five long beards and numerous jake's with about 20 hens.

Here is the video of the Turkey action. Enjoy!!