I'll spare you the book I could write about my Wisconsin trip to hunt with a 70yo dood I met on a mountain out here when I was elk hunting. Nice enough guy, but you really can't know someone well enough to spend a week with them in their hunting cabin after chatting with them for an hour on the side of a mountain. So, I spent $800 in gas to drive 13.5 hours to a state where winter had not relented to try to kill a freaking turkey and answer 10 thousand work related questions including Covid crap by a closet liberal. I was able to use a work call to turn right back around and drive back home after two morning hunts in WI.
On the drive back, I noticed a longbeard and some hens on the side of the interstate. I pulled up OnX and miraculously, they were on public. They were gettable. I took 45 minutes and drove up and down the interstate making sure they were going to be there. He was strutting and the girls were feeding, so I finally decided to roll the dice, as they were kind of pinned in between houses on one side, a small river and a town on one side, and the interstate on the third side. The only reasonable route of travel was to the big trees further on public toward the parking area.
It took me 15 minutes to buy my $100 Minnesota tag and hit the parking area. I snuck in to where I'd be able to glass them from 700 yards out and make my sneak to the probable roosting area. I had 2 hours until sunset. I glassed; they were gone. I did not see them going any direction from where they were...and I should have been able to spot them. I figured they must have gone under the interstate along the river. Public on that side too. So I hauled it to the truck and found my way to the public on the other side of the interstate.
There they were 1000 yards away, and I had a thick treeline extending from the parking area to very close to their location. I hauled azz down the tree line. I got near the end and poked through and glassed. Yup, all 13 birds were there just chilling undisturbed. I needed to get another 30 yards and I'd have a shot. Fortunately, there was an uncut swath of sawgrass between me and a ditch 40 yards ahead. I belly crawled to make damn sure they did not see me...and they didn't. But when I got to the ditch, prepared for the shot, and eased up...there were two hens in the field. Just as I thought "maybe they are in some sort of depression..." the remaining two birds just up and flew back across the fricking interstate. So, I tramped back to the truck and chalked that one up to wishful thinking/overconfidence in my turkey hunting/killing abilities. Oh well, what's another $100.00 added to this disaster of a trip? There were 2 dead turkeys in the interstate within the next 6 miles, so I have determined that hunting with your back to the interstate ready to pass shoot them is a good strategy in Minnesota.
I finally pulled back into my hometown in WY at 0400. At this point, I'd driven 27 hours and slept approximately 8 hours since Monday morning...it was now Friday morning. I drank some Diet Dew and coffee and headed to my favorite public spot. I dropped down the 600 vertical feet into the creek bottom and was greeted by gobbles upstream. I got as close as I thought necessary, set up, and realized my diaphragm calls were back in the truck. I found one about 3 years old with tobacco spit, tobacco, dirt, etc all in between the reeds and attempted to call. No go. I tried my copper pot call...needed some sandpaper and had none, and it sounded terrible. As I was trying to figure out how to make a yelp sound, the birds hit the ground and were going away up the creek. I followed while digging a wingbone call that sounds like crap to me out of my vest. I caught up with the birds. At least 4 were hammering hard with at least a couple of hens yelping away amongst them. I made some yelpish sounds on the wingbone and put it away. A couple of minutes later, a hen walked by and busted me and putted on past me. A minute later, the gobblers were walking in her footsteps. I shot the first one that I could see through the tangle of junper limbs between us. 15 yard shot took all the color out of his head. 9.25' beard and 1' sharp spurs...a respectable Merriams.
When toting him to the creek to take some "pretty background" pics, I looked down and the day got really good. I was standing beside a couple of fat morel mushrooms. I ended up finding ~25 morels over the next hour...just enough to have with our Mother's Day fried wild turkey meal.
Oh...while walking out of the first spot in MN, I ran across a "cool woods finds" find that was intriguing and mildly amusing.
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