Posted on: May 5th, 2010Early Season Update
Spring is upon us in the west. Well, somewhat – a few days ago we got about 5 inches of fresh snow here in the Bozeman Valley and yesterday it was 65 degrees and the snow melted away. This is a theme in the spring time out west. It snows one minute and its nice and sunny twenty minutes later. But I will take what mother nature brings.
With spring brings a new year of hunting, starting with turkeys and black bears. Spring gobbler season started on the 10th of April and I was rushing a week before to finish getting my bow setup. First, I headed over to TightSpot Quivers right next door to Bozeman in Belgrade, MT and visited with Joe Jacks for a little bit and picked up the quiver I will be using for 2010. If you havent had the chance yet, check out the TightSpot Quiver in 2010. This quiver is great and it does exactly what the name says, stays tight to your bow. I went down the road a little ways in Belgrade and also picked up the new RedZone HD Sight by Montana Black Gold. I then made my way over to Wholesale Sports in Bozeman and had my friend and the archery manager Ben Guttormson help me setup the bow and get it sighted in. The BowTech was shooting great and the Easton Axis were flying true, now I just need to kill something!
DAY 1
My buddy Shane and I met up after he got off work on Saturday night (4/10) and we were headed off to Central Montana near Rygate to give the turkeys a try for a few days. We made the 3 hr drive east and got to his uncles ranch pretty late. We put a quick plan of attack together for the morning and we were off to bed.
The morning came quick and we headed to the river bottom where we would setup the ground blind. I had the video camera in hand and I let Shane have the first chance at a turkey.
I gave a few yelps on my Primos mouth call and we were off to the races. We heard a gobble off in the distance but it didn’t sound too far. So we waited patiently. Five minutes later I yelped a few more times and there was more gobbles. The turkey was getting closer. Shane got ready.
We heard a hen start clucking and the gobbler immediately shut up. That was the last we would hear from him. The beautiful Merriam’s hen did come in to our Montana Decoy setup though and danced in front of the camera at 30 yards for a little bit.
We saw a coyote and a nice group of deer on the ridge that morning but otherwise nothing else. We went back to the house for breakfast.
At about 12:30 we decided to head out and do some scouting and shed hunt. We ended up walking along the river and I found a set of sheds and we also found a couple nice deer rubs. We then decided to take a quick nap and get ready for the evening sit.
That evening we didn’t hear a peep. Nothing. Didn’t even see where the turkey’s would roost. We left the blind up and figured we would give it another shot in the morning. It would be my turn.
DAY 2
We were up bright and early for day two. Now that we were confident that birds were roosting close to our setup, we slipped in quietly when it was still dark. It was a very cold morning but I was pumped to be out in God’s creation hunting turkeys.
We started calling right away. Gobbles rang instantly and it warmed me up quick. As we continued to call we had some deer move through the woods about 60 yds away. We then heard more gobbles.
It sounded like the birds were once again moving closer and closer to us but we never did visually see them. All of a sudden, we heard a hen off in the distance. She began to cluck and then starting cutting aggressively. This is not what we wanted. The hen was in the opposite direction of our setup and the hen unfortunately did what they do best… called the tom away from us.
We continued to call as the morning got brighter and we heard more gobbles but our calling wasnt enough. The tom had a visual of the live hen and was headed away with his new found love.
We sat a while longer and decided to head in for breakfast. Once we were in for breakfast Shane got a call from his dad, asking Shane and I if we could help him unload a truck load of stuff he was bringing out to the ranch in the afternoon. We said no problem. That would ruin our plan to hunt that evening so we went out shed hunting again. We ended up finding about 12 or so sheds together this time and got a great hike in.
After that we decided to head over to the shooting range on the ranch and I sighted in my 7mm. I plan on hunting bears with my bow this spring as much as possible but being a Greenhorn out west, I would be satisfied with taking a bear with my rifle also.
We didn’t end up killing any turkeys on this trip but we had a great time hanging out together and just getting out in the woods hunting. Turkey and bear season runs well into the spring here and I will be back to update you on my season soon. You can also check out www.montanagreenhorn.com and www.realitybowhunting.com for videos of season updates.
Good luck and shoot straight! 
One Response to “Early Season Update”
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