April 18th, 2022: The spring turkey season kicked off a lot colder than I would have liked. No civilized turkey hunt starts at 20°F and it was extremely difficult to roll out of the truck with first light coming just four hours after getting parked. Yet it paid off almost immediately as I struck up a conversation with a tom before the sleeping bag even started to cool down. He came charging over the road and up the hill so quickly that I didn't have time to deploy my seductive decoy. That tom walked right to the spot I last used the call but the tree I had ducked behind didn't give me a clear shot even though he was less than 20 yards away. Without seeing a lady to impress, he slinked away and never responded to another call that day, heartbreak is rough on turkeys too... But still a brilliant start to a trip that I dream about all year.
The rest of the morning was spent working along a ridge, observing a ton of turkey sign, chatting up hens and almost stepping on a couple. Not a single gobble and I had to take heart in finding random shrooms and a skull plate. It wasn't until I neared the truck after a four hour loop that I finally got a response from an adjoining field. This particular tom must have been the local boss because he was happy to sit tight with his harem while engaging in some smack talk with the outcast (me) sitting all alone on the hill.
For the afternoon I tried a couple spots that were occupied by an active timber thinning operation. I should have ran in the opposite direction but I had a loop in mind and my mind is pretty impervious to the facts on the ground. It almost paid off as a gobbler taking shelter from the chainsaw wielding monsters in a private parcel started to respond. Yet, his sense of self preservation was strong and even though he could see my decoy at 60 yards, I couldn't get him to cross the property line. I kept talking even as he wandered off and seven minutes later a hen came along but she was also hunting for that gobbler and didn't spare me a glance.
The rest of the evening saw me flush some grouse and white-tailed deer. I heard one more gobbler but couldn't even guess what direction it came from...
April 19th, 2022: Day 2 started with fresh snow in the hills and not a peep from the truck gobblers. I headed across the highway towards where I thought I had heard something. While scrambling up the embankment I was treated to a full throated tom just above me in the trees. I barely made it far enough away from the road to feel comfortable before he came slinking through the trees. Not sure what was wrong with my calling this year or if it was too early in the season but I couldn't get any tom's to puff up into their strut and be a civilized, slow moving target. By 7:30am I was busted again and I figured it was time to try a change of scenery now that I had trained all the local birds to be even more wary.
I opted for a spot along Lake Roosevelt that at least used to hold some turkeys as I walked past a couple feather piles on my way to some really scenic country. I deployed my decoy so I was technically hunting but mostly I just watched the cloud shadows. The tom I was chatting up showed no interest in climbing up to meet me but seemed to be making a pretty consistent 1/2 mile loop so I took the opportunity to go sight seeing before dropping down into the thickets to intercept him.
When I finally made it back down into the turkey woods, that tom was still making his loops. He was so riled up that he was gobbling back at the engine brakes of semi's on the highway a mile away but I could never get any closer and after about 30 minutes something or somebody else must have spooked him quiet. I covered a few more miles moving along the lake (finding a white tail shed!) and hearing nada.
Still, I felt like everywhere I looked the needle duff had been mulched by turkeys and they were actively fertilizing their domain. I finally came face to face with a flock of 15ish birds at only 30 yards as I crested a saddle and was just unlucky that the two toms were tucked in some young pines. They turned as one and hustled away in an orderly line and despite my attempt to back out and run across the open ridge above the draw, I never saw them again.
I finished my 6-7 mile hike with a few more deer and one tom calling from private land. Writing up all these encounters now makes me realize it was a pretty eventful trip but at the time I was pretty discouraged. I finished out the night scouting a couple other areas and found some more grouse and turkeys but the best part was right at dark while I had the family on the phone I was standing next to some hens getting ready to roost and they were chatty enough that the kids could hear some of their responses.
April 20th, 2022: My first two morning spots near Lake Roosevelt held deer but in both cases the one responsive tom was out in the open on private land and just not interested.
After driving by 4 different turkey flocks practically or actually camped on the road I found myself inland among some really cool topography. It was a small, isolated chunk of state land with these tiny pot marks on the landscape that must have held just enough water to support trees while the upper ground was just grass and sage. Just a couple miles away the same little pot marks are all ponds. I'm not a good enough photographer to capture its magic but the topo map gives a little hint of it:
I didn't sneak up on any turkeys while in the flats but once I climbed up onto the top I got to listen into a flock of chatty hens and could creep up to the edges to take a look.
The sneak and peek approach didn't yield any toms for the cooler but it was a blast. The birds had clearly been hunted opening day and were super skittish and right as I exited the property I found the remains of the not skittish bird. I really need to start finding places to hunt turkeys that aren't 5-6 hours away but this particular spot is one I hope to frequent and maybe even someday help one of my son's get a bird here.
