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Post by dsayer on Apr 14, 2011 11:02:06 GMT -5
Much to wife's disgust (she hadn't seen much of me in 4 days), I decided to go turkey hunting Monday evening in Lory State Park right outside of Fort Collins because it was the first day that Spring turkey hunting was open in in park. Lory only allows turkey hunting on Mondays and Tuesdays during the Spring season. We've got a nice little shelf that a real pain to get up to so nobody else hunts it. All I was planning to do was figure out if they were roosting on the ridge above the shelf so I could set-up Tuesday morning. As luck would have it, I huffed it all the way up the hill to shelf and was greeted by about 2 dozen hens feeding on the shelf about 70 yards from me. Standing unseen behind a tree, I saw a small group of young toms and jakes to my left. So I crawled to a boulder about 30-35 yards away and shot this guy. Not a monster by any means, but I can't complain. These Merriams have a huge range up here in the foothills and I'm a graduate student so I don't have a lot of time to spend in the woods. He has a 7 inch beard so I figured he's probably a 2 year-old bird. Attachments:
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Post by dsayer on Apr 14, 2011 11:04:06 GMT -5
And then my buddy shot one in virtually the same place the next evening! About the same size too. Attachments:
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Post by HuntMeister on Apr 14, 2011 11:42:14 GMT -5
Congrats on the birds fellas!! I hope to do a western bird hunt one day...its on the bucket list
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Post by Woody Williams on Apr 14, 2011 11:47:57 GMT -5
Good going! Sounds like you all earned those birds.
Congratulations!
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Post by dsayer on Apr 14, 2011 11:56:48 GMT -5
Good going! Sounds like you all earned those birds. Congratulations! We've hunted this park pretty hard for deer and turkey for 4 years now. So we know the whole place and all the honey holes. You can see how rugged the country is in the picture of Drew (for those that know my name is also Drew, don't be confused. I'm not talking in the third person) with his bird. There's plenty of turkeys and deer up there, but success rates are generally low because most people aren't willing to work that hard and be so far off trail.
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Post by featherduster on Apr 14, 2011 18:49:05 GMT -5
Nice hunt........short and sweet.
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Post by Ahawkeye on Apr 17, 2011 21:58:40 GMT -5
Love those Merriams I too would love to have one in my trophy room (if I had a trophy room HA HA HA!) good bird, I think a 2 year old is a fine bird I like that in turkey hunting a bird is a bird no one looks at a bird and says "you should have let that one go another year" like they do for deer. Way to go!
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Post by kevinhunter on Apr 18, 2011 9:37:10 GMT -5
Great looking birds! Congrats to you both!
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Post by Woody Williams on Apr 20, 2011 8:05:19 GMT -5
dsayer,
You need to put this in teh "Contest" score thread too..
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Post by saltydog on Apr 21, 2011 13:12:46 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing your pics dsayer, Congrats. I too hope to get to hunt those merriams.
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Post by tickman1961 on Apr 27, 2011 8:35:56 GMT -5
beautiful birds....
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