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"ThunderStruck" - Official Site for Team #5


DonBo

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Congrats Don you had a great year. You get any with the bow yet?

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Okay guys, here's the story of my WS hunt:

The winter of 2010/2011 was extremely hard in the west central part of Wisconsin that we hunt. A bad ice storm late that winter along with a very wet and cold nesting season a year ago left the local population lower than we've seen it it the 15+ years we've hunted here.

Opening morning (last Wednesday), without warning 3 hens came into our set-up followed by a nice tom. At 6:30 I had my bird. Just over 20 lbs. 10" beard, spurs just under an inch and very sharp. Probably a 3 year old.

P5020118.jpg

The whole rest of the day we saw maybe 3 or 4 more hens. Never heard one single gobble that day.

Day 2. We did hear some gobbles from pretty far away. Soon, one was much closer. After a brief call/answer session one came into the field we were hunting and walked well within range of Dave's gun. At 7:30 we both had a bird. His was a pound heavier than mine, but had shorter, duller spurs, probably a two year old.

P5030119.jpg

Again, just a few hens today.

Day three found us at the same spot. This time I'm carrying my bow. Dave's only job is to use my rangefinder to tell me how far the bird is. (BTW, he is pretty hard of hearing and forgot his hearing aids today) Gobbling activity today is similar to yesterday, some pretty far off, but one definetly interested. Dave said "when do you want me to tell you the range?" "When I start to draw" Well the bird came straight into the decoys but stopped out a ways and was seemingly a bit unsure. I said "How far?".....nothing. How far?"......nothing. Louder. "HOW FAR?" By this time I'm drawing but the bird is turned around and headed away. "30 yards" he says. Dang. Anyway it didn't happen.

We stuck it out a bit longer, but my mind is now on the WS fishing opener and we called it a season. So, in three days, we saw exactly three toms, fortunately for us two rode home in the back of the truck. I was useing two new decoys on this hunt. The Avian X feeding hen and The Best Turkey Decoy (Dakota) Jake. They seemed to be a good combo as we had opportunities at every single tom we saw. (All three shockedgrin ) But I do believe these new lifelike decoys are starting a new era of turkey hunting, at least till the birds start to catch on...again.

P5030123.jpg

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Congrats Don! Great year for ya. Now you can start chasing those pesky walleyes!

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Nice job Don.

I start my season tomorrow. Hopefully they are still active and not too educated by now in the area I hunt.

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Good luck Bowfin! Keep us updated if you can. Looks like some pretty decent weather for ya.

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Bowfin and duckhuntr21 are both half way throigh their seasons right now. Come on guys, don't keep us wondering. How's it going???

We need you both to come through big to bring this home. No pressure though... grin

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Sorry team - no birds shot by me. Hunted pretty hard 4 of the 5 days, saw quite a few birds but very little gobbling and absolutely no reponse to my calls. I was restricted to public land, had other hunter competition in 2 of my 3 spots and started trying to pattern a couple toms and hunt them like deer. My closest chance came Wednesday afternoon when I tried to get ahead of a tom coming off a private corn field heading toward a nice funnel between 2 swamp potholes - when I rounded the corner he was already in the funnel and I spooked him - would have been a nice set up if I would have gotten there 2 minutes quicker.

I watched a tom coming out with hens every morning and evening and moseying out in a private corn stubble field 30 yards out from the public land. I tracked down who owned the field, drove over and asked for permission to hunt the edge of the field and was turned down.

All in all I think the birds I was hunting were hunted hard all year and were wise to calling by now. I still had a lot of fun and will try again next year.

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Well Bow, like the old saying goes, it's called hunting and not getting. Sounds like you had a good time out in the woods and that's really what it's all about. I always love hearing the woods wake up around me on a spring morning. And on the bright side, there's always next year!

Mustang

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Tag soup for this guy too. I started hunting Wed morning and hit up a few private spots that I have as well as a handful of public spots. Two of my private spots were hunted during season E without finding out until after my season was over. I got to see turkeys almost every time that I went out but couldn't convince any toms or even hens to come check me out. On Saturday morning I was able to get out for a few hours before work and had a tom heading towards me gobbling like crazy. I first spotted him on the other side of the field about 400 yds away and he closed the gap to 100 yds in no time. He stayed right at that distance strutting and gobbling for 25 minutes until a car stopped on the road and scared him off. It was beautiful weather to be out in and it was kind of nice to have 3 nice days off in a row so it wasn't a total loss. Congratulations to the rest of our team that were successful in bagging a bird. Awesome pictures as well!!

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Well, that's the way it goes sometimes. Was a pleasure meeting and hunting with all my team mates. Maybe next year huh guys?

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
    • leech~~
      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
    • jim curlee
      I had a guy hit me with a lightly used 1969 BAR, he wanted $1650 with an older Leupold scope. More than I think they are worth, I made an offer, he declined end of story.   You know if you look at the old brochures, a grade II BAR sold for $250 in the late 60s, $1650 would be a good return on your investment.    Why would anybody want a 50 year old gun, they are heavy, have wood stocks, and blued metal.  I guess mainly to keep their gun safes glued to the floor. lol   You can probably buy a stainless rifle that you never have to clean, with a synthetic stock you never have to refinish, is as light as a feather, and for half as much money, perfect.   I'm too old for a youth gun, although I've shrunk enough that it would probably fit. lol   No Ruger 10/44s.   Jim      
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