HSO Team # 1........Boss Tom's!

[Hotspotter]

Thanks for the kind words, but let's put credit where it's due. Steve had done his scouting, had a good idea where birds would be roosted from previous year's experience in this location, and we simply played them accordingly.

The four gobblers were awfully tentative for roosting all alone (not a single hen yelp), on a decent morning. Simply did not gobble as agressively as I thought they would to just about any type of calling. In the end, an excruciating 45 minutes of silence and some leaf scratching immediately following the cutting/yelping won the day. They couldn't take it anymore, fired themselves up and walked in.

Steve did a good job patterning his gun; the Hevi13's put that gobbler down stone cold at 30 yards.

The double beard was icing on the cake!!!

Stats:

Tom - 18.720 lbs

Spurs - 7/8" and 13/16"

Beard - 9" and 2 7/8" = 11 7/8"

Great bird to start it off. Thanks for letting me tag along Steve, I had a great time, and congrats on a job well done from start to finish.

Joel

[Sorgy]

Deitz,

I forwarded my pics to you. Thanks for the help.

Joel,

Thanks for the help on those birds. It would have gotten intersting if I had waited or been using my bow- Probbably late season next year

I notice lots of very nice birds on the other postings. Congrats to all of you.

Steve

[delzz7]

Good job sorgy! that had to be quite the experience to hunt with Joel.

I had quite the experience myself in Iowa on public land this week. Sunday evening I had put turkeys to bed, all has good until I arrive monday to find out someone beat me to the spot. So I was off tho the next spot to find two cars there. On my way to the 3 spot, I saw turkey flying off the roost into a pasture, but had no permission to hunt there. Arrive at the 3rd spot 2 cars, leave to go to my last spot. Arrived at 6:45am no cars, turkeys out in the pasture next the land I was hunting.

Finally in place, I started to do some calling with no response. One hour later I hear some noise, Caw Caw. Yep a hunter coming my way. At about 70 yards he saw me a headed in a different direction. At this point, I was pretty depressed. I decided to start getting more agressive with my calling and after about a 75 min 3 Toms showed up, on the other side of the fence. They struted back & forth for about 25 mins, one tryed to jump threw the fence, but finally gave up. A little later a hen showed at the same spot also. I did have a jake walk in the decoys, but didn't seem interested in the hen decoys. I walked to a different part of the land and jumped another jake. At 2 pm I had enough.

I went back down this morning with great success. I had arrive a little late. As I has getting out of the truck I heard numerous gobbles (unlike monday there was none). I grabed my stuff and headed towards my spot. when I was sitting, I could see a tom in the roost, gobbling every so often. There was gobbling coming from a few didn't spots and some hens already on the ground. I gave him a flydown cackle and some yelps, but he didn't respond. After he flew down, A gave a series of yelps, a gobble came from over a my right shoulder in the distance. I let out a few more yelps and then gobbling kept getting closer and closer. He knew he was coming, so I went into silient mode..

I was fortunite have 3' wide oak tree to my back because I had to turn 180 degrees for the shot at 35 yds. By 6:30 the hunt was over.

I have hunted Iowa for pheasants for 3-4 years on public land and hardly run into to many hunters, if any, on the land, though I do more late season pheasant hunting. I was definitely surprised as how many people hunt turkey in the northern central area, the turkeys do get a lot of pressure.

I need to talk to some clarify the right way to measure the beard and spurs

Approx.

Beard 10 to 10.5

Spurs 15/16 & 1 "1/8

Weight 27pd 10 oz.

I tryed email Joel Nelson

[Sorgy]

Wow!!! beautiful bird. Very heavy bird.

Congrats

Steve

[Deitz Dittrich]

awesome job delz!!!!

[Scott M]

Congrats Joel and Sorgy. Good luck to Team #1

[Deitz Dittrich]

Here is Sorgys pict..

[Hotspotter]

Good talking with you Delz, and congrats again on your massive bird. What a pig! Sounds like an incredible hunt, and good job on turning to get that bird. Not an easy task to kill a bird coming in from behind, no matter what the circumstances.

Looking forward to seeing the pictures, and thanks for the call.

Joel

[delzz7]

Hey guys, I finally got my pictures in the submission forum.

Hey deitz do you known why Gander in Forest Lake weights birds & the Gander in Lakeville doesn't?

[Deitz Dittrich]

no clue.. Maybe Forest Lake has a scale and Lakeville doenst?

Maybe they are nicer in FL.. LOL?

[Sorgy]

Delzz,

Congrats on the big beautiful bird. What a beast. I think we have a long ways to go. One of the teams has 4 birds registered already. I wonder who is up next. I think we have some late season archery guys on the team.

I only hope to get a chance on big bird someday.

My co-worker scored on a Jake today. Same area I got my bird. Very little gobbling again this morning. The area gets to rest until my daughter gets a shot. I will be making a run up w/ a saw and clear a obstical into the field. I would love to see her try and lift a bird that big

Congrats Again

Steve

[delzz7]

Sorgy, I wish you & your daughter the best of luck. I have a two kids, they have a quite a few years to go before they can hunt, I can't wait to take them.

Deitz should be guarantee hunting with Joel

Good Luck to the rest of the team!

[Deitz Dittrich]

Delzz- Its not a guaantee... Joel is one of my best friends, and I am goin gon this trip as a back up dude... He is going to try and stick one with an arrow.. if the bird hangs up too far away, I'm going to fill it full of lead.. LOL

[CNY Lee]

CNY Lee reporting for duty.

Sorry I haven't been on but with work, panfishing, getting boat ready for Walleye season, getting the oldest ready for youth season (first year), sighting in guns/bows and the normal house duties it has been crazy. Youth season is April 26-27 and regular season is May 1-31. Good luck to everyone and congrats to the people who have scored all ready. Gobble Gobble Just so you know I'm a huge turkey hunter, all my other screen names for everything else is Gobblehunter including my email. LOL

[Hotspotter]

Delzz:

Good work, and congrats again on that pig of a bird. Good luck for your MN hunt!

Yeah, we'll have to see how it goes. Turkey hunting is never a guarantee, and I screw up plenty of times just like anyone else!

Joel

[delzz7]

Thanks Joel, I know there's no guarantee's, I was just trying to put a little pressure on you. You Good Luck with your Bow, someday I'm going to give that a try.

[Sorgy]

Well we got to move the Boss Tom's to page #1

My daughter did not score on here season. She hunted Sat, Sunday and Tuesday mornings. and the afternoons of Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. Saturday morning sucked Sunday was a beautiful morning. We had 3 or 4 gobblers in the area but roosted aways off. 5 minuts after flydown I saw a gobbler moving thru the trees 100 yards away- with ZERO intrest in hen talk. 20 minutes later I heard 2 gobblers aproaching our setup behind the screen of trees. They chose to stay in the trees rather than come up top to take a peek. Both birds were within 20 yards of where I got my bird- just below the edge of the field out of site. We had a hen come in and walk right past the blind. She looked very agravated by our hens decoys taking her boy friend B-Mobile.

That was it for our action. Public land with roaming turkeys. I feel the biggest problem for us and the area is a consistent food source. Also I am not a bad caller and did not have any response to my calling at all. Not even a bird to respond to get our hopes up

Now comes planning for next spring with 0 preference points. i am all set for bow hunting next season.

I wish continude success for all this spring.

Steve

I think we have a couple of guys up to bat in the next week. Go get them.

[delzz7]

Hey Sorgy, sounds like you were in the right area at least. I was just wandering if you think that the reason the toms didn't come in was because of B mobile? Going out tommorrow with my buddy and i'm debating to bring B mobile. I was thinking it might be a little late in the season to use it. What do you think?

[Sorgy]

Absolutely not!! They just needed to peek over the ridge. They really did not respond to the calling at all and they were just going on there way. They may have had a hen that they were following. I think just the oppisite. Had they seen B-mobile they would have at least tried to get a better look. I was set up where I could see them before they saw the decoys- height advantage hidden back in the blind. I was looking with the binos at the small are where they would have slipped up to the edge to take a peek.

The partial days hurt her chances as well.

Good Luck on your hunt.

Later

Steve

[bmc]

I started packing gear yesterday and will finish it up today. I don't know how I'm going to get through work tonight, knowing I'm southeast bound tomorrow afternoon! Is anyone else hunting this week? Didn't get a lot of sleep last night, kept thinking how many decoys to use, where to set up the blind, etc etc. Typical night's sleep for me when a hunt is in the near future. Good luck if anyone else will be out this week!

Brian

[Deitz Dittrich]

I still have a bit of waiting yet... I hunt WI the 14-18, then MN the next weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

[delzz7]

I'm going to hunt season E down in 442. Should be interesting haven't had any time to scout this spring, but they were there last fall.

Sorgy I went with my buddy last Saturday, I tryed the B mobile. I had a Tom come in just out of range for my buddy. He justed walked back and forth half struting, I could tell he was intimadated by the decoy. The Tom finally made his way down this ridge about 70 yards, my buddy then army crawled out an retrieved the decoy. When my buddy returned, I could see the Tom coming up the other ridge. I gave him some pretty agressive of calling, when he heard that he whipped his head around an looked. He could see the competition was gone, the tom started heading back, this time stopping periodically to put on a show in full strut.

My buddy shot a 20.6 pd bird, 8.5 in beard, 1 inch spears

I know the decoy works and will definitely try it again, just passing on my experience with it last saturday.

Good Luck deitz & bmc in your hunts.

[Sorgy]

Great Job Congrats on being part of the successful hunt. Every hunt is different. I don't think the birds ever saw the decoy on my daughters hunt. Did you have any hen decoys out with the B-mobile? Did you pull them at the same time?

That is what I like about turkey hunting- all of the possibilites- move stay- decoys out- no decoys- call loud/aggressive or be quiet- That is also what drives a guy nuts over turkeys what worked yesterday is not working today

Good Luck on your hunt

Steve

[bmc]

Well boys, the Jeep is packed and I'm hitting the road here shortly!! Anticipation of the upcoming hunt is HIGH!!! I'll have computer access, so I'll try to keep you up to date as what's going on w/ the birds. Sounds like they're henned up pretty good now? I know where I'll be setting the DB blind up, but how many decoys and which one's will be the trick. I've got 2 hens and a jake, so I'm not sure what I'll try come tomorrow morning. Maybe the jake on top of a hen w/ the other hen spectating or just use a hen decoy or two. Decisions, decisions!!!

Brian

[delzz7]

I had two hen decoys out with B mobile. I left the hens out and just pulled B mobile.

I was out today until 11AM, only had one hen come in. I saw a jake and a hen about 1/4 of a mile down the road, when I left. Pretty quiet morning (no wind). I think I may have called to loud, it was pretty quiet out there today. The hen that went through my decoys was yelping really soft.