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Hunting 2019

Got the firesights installed and got the 835 dialed in for my MI season.

Patterning a 3.5" 12 g turkey load has to be my least favorite activity. Even after dialing it in with light field loads.

Fortunately it does not seem as bad when you are shooting a tom in the face. ;-D
Firesiggt has to,be one of the best add-ons ever love them.
?????
Have you or,would,you
Take your set up, and pattern a 3.5, 3, 2 3/4. Side by side at say 35 or 40 yrs love to see the results.
 
Maybe after the season is over. I just patterned against the backside of a roll of wrapping paper with a bullseye drawn with sharpie. LOL. I didnt keep the results.

The 835 with 3.5" Longbeard #6s kept a pretty dense pattern at 40 yards.

I also changed the choke in this gun this year to an Indian Creek after hearing their praise for several seasons from a friend. I like the results.
 
Almost perfect, picture book hunt this morning.

Saw two male birds pop out into the field at the opposite corner, prob 600 to 800+ yards out.

Called and they were sorta kinda moving my way but very slow. They kept lookin up so I think they may have picked out my decoy. I had a hen and a strutting tom with my real fan.

After a while they started turning back towards the woods. I only had 1.5 hours til I had to go to work so I pulled out the gobble call. That got their attention and they picked up the pace.

They cleared the list rise, got a good look at my decoy and came in on a full run. At this point my decoy was out front to my right and the birds came from my left. I thought they may have been jakes because they hesitated to much initially, but once they cleared the hill I could see the beards swinging. Both were pretty nice toms.

They stopped about 20 yards from the decoys and right in front of me. I should have waited to see if they would move past me closer to the decoys but I had the bigger one square in the sights at about 5 yards.

Easy shot......Nope!. The took off running for the woods and I got a another pot shot off before he got in the trees. Overall it was prob an hour from first sighting to the shot.

I'm bummed, they were nice birds that have now been educated and prob wont come in again. They never gobbled but puffed up a lot on the way in.

I should have just waited to see if they would advance more on the decoys, thereby moving furthur away. I also should have aimed more at the base of the neck, at 5 yards its like shooting them with a slug.

I didnt notice the recoil of the 835 but I sure feel the sting of defeat. I've missed a few with a bow but this is the first with a gun. DOH!!

I will be back out on Saturday. There have to be more then two out there, and maybe after a weeks cooldown these two will forget.

Hunting something with a brain the size of a pea shouldn't be this hard yet somehow our brains have the ability to overcomplicate things.
 
Love the story @MikeD , often the one that got away educates us most, dont feel great though. Tommorrow is another day. Ive told more than one running super tight shotty choke careful on really close shots, your shooting a rifle for 10 yards. The wife missed one few years ago from a blind off a stick at about 7yards, my son was home on leave and hunting with her, he reminds her of it often still:doh:
 
Finally tagged out in MI!!!

22#, 8.5" beard and 1" spurs

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Got up at 0330 and got set up before light. Set out a tom decoy and a hen. Heard lots of gobbling early then it all just went silent.

Finally I saw movement to my left and four hens came running in. The ran right in and milled around the decoys for a long time.

After a time I caught movement on my right. Two hens came running out of the woods and made a big circle in the field then ran out of sight. The turkeys in the decoys didn't seem to affected by this and continued eating and milling around.

They finally started to move off to my right and started making a lot of noise. I leaned a bit to see around the window of my blind and there was a tom there strutting like he owned the place.

I watched him for a while and he never came out of strut. Finally I got him broadside and leveled him. Only ended up with one pellet through the breast.

After the shot all the birds hung around and just kept feeding and milling around. Seemed like it took them forever to move on. I didnt want to flush them as my buddy is stull hunting the area.

It seemes lime it too a long time to play out but shooting hours began at 0537 and I was done by 0650.

Its been just an awesome season.
 
Dang man. You've been busy this year.

I'm hoping that's a good sign that this fall will be better than the last couple of years too.
 
Fantastic Mike D what a gorgeous gobbler :perfect:. Well done you putting in work bringing home thr groceries. You are the official resident Turkey Master !!!!
Very good lookin mature bird, great season
 
Now that the season is over not sure what to do with myself.

I forgot to cancel the alarm on my phone and it went off at 0330 this morning. DOH!!
 
Well my hunting partner and I won a draw for bull moose waaaaay up in north central BC. It’s a long drive up and into a very remote area. It will take nearly 22 hours to drive to the general area. We will be doing an awful lot of hiking. It will be a huge challenge no doubt. Neither of us are familiar with this particular area so it will be an adventure for sure.

However on the plus side of things, we intend to go near the end of Sept and beginning of October. So, in addition to our Bull moose tag we will have open season for Spike fork bulls, Bull Elk (6pt or better) and any Mule or Whitetail bucks. With that many species to work with it’s hard to think we will come away empty handed.....lol.

Anyway, planning a 10 day trip. Hoping we can hunt at least 6 days solid or more. Should be fun...in a hard work kind of way.
 
That sounds awesome. But please be careful. I really hate hunting new ground. Easy to get turned around in for sure.
 
Well my hunting partner and I won a draw for bull moose waaaaay up in north central BC. It’s a long drive up and into a very remote area. It will take nearly 22 hours to drive to the general area. We will be doing an awful lot of hiking. It will be a huge challenge no doubt. Neither of us are familiar with this particular area so it will be an adventure for sure.

However on the plus side of things, we intend to go near the end of Sept and beginning of October. So, in addition to our Bull moose tag we will have open season for Spike fork bulls, Bull Elk (6pt or better) and any Mule or Whitetail bucks. With that many species to work with it’s hard to think we will come away empty handed.....lol.

Anyway, planning a 10 day trip. Hoping we can hunt at least 6 days solid or more. Should be fun...in a hard work kind of way.
Sherpa here will travel !!!!! I can help and I can camp cook :omg:
 
I forgot to add 5 pt or better Caribou, Thinhorn Sheep and Mountain Goat to that list as well. And that’s just the critters with hooves! The sheep and goats will likely be out of our reach this time around...they’ll be up too high. There is just an absolute sh!t ton of game we could possibly take on open seasons around that time.

I’m actually hoping we can add a third member to our party. They can’t hunt the Bull Moose but an extra set of ears, eyes and hands would be a huge help. And there’s lots of opportunity for another guy to take home some meat of his own if he’s so inclined.

Lots of predators in those woods too...an extra gun would be comforting as well. Wolves, big a$$ grizz and wolverines. Not to mention the black bears and cougars.

Lions and tigers and bears oh my!! LOL!!
 
Welp...there goes that trip for this year. Just did some more background reading on the area and it looks like we won't be hunting there until my partner and I can afford to do a fly in-fly out hunt. Can indeed get there by road and feet but the natives there are still in decades old consultations and negotiations with the BC gov't and BC Hydro (power authority). And so are not particularly welcoming to outsiders looking to exploit the resources of their unceded territory. There is a long and painful history between these people and the government. I don't believe they've been treated fairly over many decades of industrial progress and the havoc it has wreaked on their home and way of life. So, I don't actually feel disappointed in not going this year. I feel its almost immoral if I do.

Going by road ensures interaction with the local band(s) and possibly raising hackles. Going by air or even by boat would put us well outside the usual haunts of the local native hunters and anyone looking to make trouble. I'm quite sure any native hunters venturing in where we would go wouldn't be the kind to take real offence at us trying to steer clear of their usual hunting spots. There are gorgeous alpine meadows (look like Alaska alpine) going back 50-100 kms by boat or air that are far from any regularly frequented areas. Looks like awesome elk hunting territory and even caribou.

So as far as winning our draw, well its not that hard to get a draw in this area simply for the reasons described above. I'm confident we could get another draw in a few years and thats about how long it will take me to be able to afford that trip. Until then................
 
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