Kenyon-Wanamingo Seniors

Just a quick little shoot today with the graduating class of 2009. All but one of them had their black shirts this year!! yeah!!

Ecology Class Turkey Chasing 2.0

Had another great morning in the valley today. Last night I moved our blinds to a different spot more in "the bedroom" of where I thought the gobblers would be. In fact, watched a few toms head into there last night. Good choice. We were right in the thick of it this morning.

We met about 5:20AM again and headed out. Got the kids into blinds, got decoys set up, camera on the tripod and we were set.

Heard quite a bit of gobbling again across the top of the ridge to the north starting at about 5:45. So much chatter in fact, that I was a little bummed that we again weren't in the middle of the action. Just about then, at about 5:52 they started hammering right up the draw from us. And they went crazy for about 20 minutes. There were two or three of them on the roost there.

Rich and I called for most of that time. I did a mock flydown with my hat at about 6:15AM. Within minutes, those birds were also on the ground. We had one tom on his way. He came down the ridge and got to the barbwire fence and hung up at 97.5 yards (according to the rangefinder). Stayed there for a few minutes, strutted and started back up the ridge.

We hollered at him quite a bit, but he didn't like what he saw. I keep thinking about that fence...maybe he just didn't want to cross it. We also had that Pretty Boy tom decoy out there and maybe he was a little intimidated? Who knows. Either way, it was a fun morning and great to have the kids in the midst of all that action.

Ecology Class Turkey Chasing 1.0

I joined Rich Kincaid and his KWHS Ecology class for part of their turkey unit this spring. Rich and I have chased turkeys together for many years and this was a fun morning.

We met the kids in Sogn Valley about 5:15AM and headed out to some blinds that I had put out yesterday afternoon. We were setup on the top of a pasture between two stands of timber that typically hold roosting birds. We had a total of eight kids along today. Rich and I stuck out decoys including Rich's new Pretty Boy setup.

We were in the blinds by about 5:35 and heard our first gobble real early at 5:42. It was a couple ridges over, but it sparked the morning conversation! There were lots and lots of gobbles for the next 30-45 minutes before the birds hit the ground. None of them were in the timber close to us as we had hoped.

We called hard until about 7:30AM hoping to lure a few of those lonely gobblers over our way. No such luck.

Like it typically does, it got a little colder once the sun came up and the students got a little restless. We were on our way to the trucks by about 7:35.

Rich and I are taking another group of kids tomorrow (Thursday) and we are considering moving the blinds to a spot that will be more in the heart of the roost.

Here is a little video footage.

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