Opening day setup. Waiting for the big boy we saw.
Wow! This hunt down in North Carolina has been tough. It’s the toughest turkey hunt I have ever been on.
I was hunting a piece of land that is used for timber harvest by a paper making company. The land has a series of roads and trail throughout it that is used by the heavy equipment to harvest the timber, those trails and roads are really the only way to cover ground in this nearly 1sq mile area. The areas off the roads was covered in very thick under growth and much of it was impassable by humans. Some is so thick I wounder how even a turkey can make their way through it.
On the move
Due to how strictly this lands access is managed we were only able to spend one day scouting. So we made the most of that one day and listened from the main roads and glassed what few open areas this land had. On that day we never once heard a Gobble, not even a hen sound off. We moved along slowly from listening spot to listening spot. At the third spot my buddy just happened to look in his side mirror when what looked like three jakes crossed the road no more then 50 yards behind us.
About an hour later we made it to the far end of the property. We stopped at a top of a hill over looking a creek bed area. We where there a whole 5 mins when one heck of a tom came walking out and crossed the road area. On our way out of the area we talked about what we wanted to do. We both said lets go after that Tom we saw. We guessed this Toms weight about 25lbs and had 11 or 12inch bread. So that was our game plan for the start of my hunt down here in NC.
Pileated Woodpecker
Little did we know that , that would be the last turkey we saw on that land the whole hunt. The birds never talked for us, never even came to a call. It seemed like there was no birds at all on this 1sq mile area. Every once and while though we did come upon some tracks and signs so it kept us driving to find them.
All and all my time down here was a blast. I got to see some animals I have never seen before while hunting so it made up for the lack of action a little.I almost had a Pileated woodpecker land on me so that was cool.
A Green Anole a New animal I have never seen before
But now it’s time for me and my buddy to hit the road and come back up to Michigan for our hunt there. We are going to be hunting the land that we both started turkey hunting on. The land has really changed in the last few years, but the birds are still there and seem to be in great numbers also. So stay tuned over the next week has we continue our “Quest for Thunder Chickens”
