2018 spring turkey

Has anyone else gotten out yet?

Friday 4/27 my father got a jake. It was a case of you go left I go right. I'm gonna call and he'll run right to you, away from me.

4/28 I was working a bird for 2 hours. He gobbled 200+ times in the 2 hours I was working him. He flew down and was strutting back and forth across the road about 80 yards out. After about 45 minutes of that he turned and started walking away. I backed out the road and circled around him. He came past me about 60 yds this time and still no clear shots. I backed out again and hit another of the access roads to get in front of that bird. As I'm moving along that road pretty quickly another bird goes off right in front of me only about 80 yds out. I back up about 10 paces to a nearby tree and get ready. Called this new bird once. When he came he brought another gobbler. They gobbled 3 times in under 5 minutes and one of them hit the ground at 35yds. He's not a huge bird but good enough.

I went out the other morning and got on the wrong side of the field. Gobbler carrying on for quite some time just inside the woods. The wheat was probably a bit to high for a field sit so when I go again Ill plan on sitting just inside the woods.
I have a video my oldest son and his buddy made that I wanted to get on here for discussion but cant seem to get a hosting site to cooperate. Maybe if I could email it to somebody they could get it to stick.

Here is Doco Overboards video.

What was the cause of the miss? shot placement, shot distance, over choked, ammo choice, hit the brush....etc?

Thanks for putting the video up. What went wrong? Distance is about forty yards. Target panic I think, right over the top.

Nice 67temp, glad your hunt went well

Since we're talking about misses, I missed one last Friday. Had them gobbling off the roost. Gave them a fly down cackle and a couple purrs and puts. They gradually started my way. Then, a hen opened up next to me. Competition! I called her over with a couple kee-kees. She moved on and I was back on the Tom's that were now headed straight in. First came two Jake's, the second one came to within 5 feet of me. Then came the Tom's. First one hung up at 40 yds, head stretched out, staring dead as at me. Put the red dot right on his head as md squeezed. Missed. He and his buddy tore off like scalded cats. Only the second Turkey I've ever missed.

Last Saturday, I set up in a roosting area. As dawn broke, I could make out s bird rooster 30 yes away. Eventually I could make it out to be a Jake and let him walk as after landing 20yds off to my right.

I may have one more hunt in me this season, depending on weather.

I can't keep them away from me...

I got this Tom last weekend. He hung up at 42 yards and the longbear xr #6 did the trick.

xtreme43s10 said:

I got this Tom last weekend. He hung up at 42 yards and the longbear xr #6 did the trick.

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Phew! What does that big boy weigh???

2 Gobbling at me last Saturday but would never come into view. I think I got in the stand to late. I did get a few nice trail cam pics from the past month though.

TargetGrade said:

Phew! What does that big boy weigh???

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20 lbs.

Anyone been out in all this rain? I've been itching to go but most of my bird hunting experience (upland) they won't move in the water...

Glad some of you have been having chances (and success!). This seasons been a wash. Tied up with eye surgeries (LASIK, them PRK when one of the eyes got messed up).

Maybe next year (probably going to have ANOTHER major home renovation then).

lazarus said:

Glad some of you have been having chances (and success!). This seasons been a wash. Tied up with eye surgeries (LASIK, them PRK when one of the eyes got messed up).

Maybe next year (probably going to have ANOTHER major home renovation then).

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Ooof bummer lazarus. I was planning on LASIK this season but passed because of life stuff. I have astigmatism in both eyes and high index lenses, so it'll be an adventure I'm sure.

BearArms said:

Ooof bummer lazarus. I was planning on LASIK this season but passed because of life stuff. I have astigmatism in both eyes and high index lenses, so it'll be an adventure I'm sure.

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Just remember, most people it goes just fine. I forget the numbers, but about 5-8% have flap complications (LASIK cuts a flap, ablates your eye with a laser and then flips the flap back in place). Most are minor and/or result in the LASIK being turned in to PRK (PRK removes the covering of the cornea, ablates with a laser and then you regrow the covering. PRK is usually used for when your corneas are thin).

Mine was the rarest type, a button hole flap where part is thinner than the rest or an actual hole in the flap developed so the surface left on the eye isn’t even. It is about 1% of cases. Basically flip the flap back down without using the laser and let it heal up for a few weeks to a few months and redo as either LASIK again or PRK.

My surgeon opted PRK after I healed up for 2 months. I was seeing 20/12 out of my right eye the next day, but I had bad double vision and blurry as hell out of my left (that was messed up) for about a week and was maybe 20/40 for another week after that. Then it was more or less back to 20/20 with a contact in/glasses on (popped the right lens out) till I had my left eye done last week with PRK.

PRK is a lot slower recovery. Hurts anywhere from about 2-7 days post op. I have a buddy who huddled in a dark room wishing he would die for 3 days and was uncomfortable for 4 more. I wanted to die for a few hours after the surgery, was okay the next day and then it hurt a lot for 36hrs after that. Mild discomfort for another couple of days.

PRK takes a lot longer to heal and get to full visual enhancement. I was 20/12 next day in my right eye and now I am better than 20/12 I my right eye (probably 20/10, maybe 20/11). I had a moderate astigmatism only in my right eye and my best corrected was a good 20/15 in my left eye and a bad 20/20 in my right eye. I tended to use my left eye for photography and I would have like to of for shooting, but I am right eye dominant and right hand dominant.

Without glasses I was 20/240 and 20/220 lt/rt. Day after my PRK I was a really terrible 20/25 (hard to explain, your vision is hazy, blurry, hard to focus for those first few days). It gets worse for a few days as you heal over and then starts improving. I’d guess I am now at a not great 20/25 in my left eye. It takes awhile for my eye to “wake up” (with LASIK you suffer the same thing) where it takes an hour or two for my vision to get really sharp and clear up. With my right eye that had resolved by about week 3.

But reading other people’s “recovery” stories they tended to be around 20/30-20/40 a week out and then by about 4-8 weeks their vision had improved to around 20/20. So I still have some hope and by that I mean I am rather sure my vision will very slowly continue to improve for the next few weeks. It is already honestly not that bad, almost like when my contacts would be drying out in terms of visual quality.

Two things I’d suggest looking in to. Whatever the “top of the line” procedure is do it if you are going to shell out that much anyway. It’s more than annoying that they upcharge that much as the procedure is the same and it’s the same damn machine and hey do the fancier measurements anyway, they just get to upcharge you a bunch of money. I guess it goes to pay off the more expensive machine that can do it over their old one or whatever (and I am sure so the surgeons, corporate officers and primary shareholders can drive Ferraris instead of porsches). I did LASIK Vision center as my insurance had a deal cut with them (my insurance would not pay for it though)...but they had a groupon and then I negotiated a further discount on top of that. Anyway, they call it “contura”, I think LASIK+ calls theirs “waveguide” or “wavefront” or something like that. Anyway, it is more precise reshaping or your cornea that instead of doing a very basic recontour to correct for power defects and astigmatism it’ll correct for higher order vision defects like coma and sagittal issues (just look them up. Shorter than me trying to type everything out). Basically it ablates something like 90-130 small sites on your cornea for finer trained adjustment.

That is probably why I ended up at better than 20/12. I haven’t seen anyone mention statistics on the new fancy fance, but standard LASIK something like 86% get 20/20 or better. Doesn’t mean you would or could get that good, but odds are probably good you’d manage at least a line or two better best corrected vision with it than without.

The other one is life time coverage if whatever place you go with offers it. Basically if my vision gets worse, so long as it is myopia, they’ll correct it again, no cost. Farsightedness with age and I am on my own though. So if in 6 months my left eye never gets better than 20/25 and it’s something they can fix/improve with LASIK/PRK, they’ll. Do the procedure again at no cost to me.

Sorry for going on at length. Even with my complications I am extremely happy I did it.

FYI basic cost was, I think, $1400 for both eyes basic LASIK only. Lifetime coverage added I think it was $800, contura added $600 and then tear duct plugs added $500 (they help a lot with dry eye. EVERYONE gets dry eye after LASIK. Most people after they heal up for about 3-6 months it resolves completely or almost completely. But everyone has it the first few months). So yeah, $3300 all up. Not cheap at all, but that was down from almost $5000 for the whole kit and kaboodle.

I know it was OT, but thanks for the detailed post lazarus! Certainly gives me something to think about since I'm sick of glasses falling off and want to wear my fancy pants sunglasses without contacts.

All that said, curious to know if anyone built an ark this weekend to hunt some turkeys!

BearArms said:

I know it was OT, but thanks for the detailed post lazarus! Certainly gives me something to think about since I'm sick of glasses falling off and want to wear my fancy pants sunglasses without contacts.

All that said, curious to know if anyone built an ark this weekend to hunt some turkeys!

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You are welcome.

I figure last few days best way to get a turkey would be put out an umbrella for them. That’s not technically baiting, right?