Looks like it's back to fishing....

 Let's go through the numbers here....

Monday I went up to Mongo for the no-show draw at 5:30 just like last Wed, and Thurs. I didn't get drawn so I stopped at option C, hooted a couple times and didn't hear a gobble so I moved on to... well, what we'll call my F spot. I stomped over the whole area and only caught a glimpse of what I thought was a turkey. I did manage to rub the skin off my heel.

It was a little painful to start.... shoot it still hurts, but it's turkey season so I gotta power through it.

Tuesday I did the B plan and actually got drawn, so I went back to the spot I was on last Thurs. The most excitement I had was a Jake molestering my first decoy.

 I was videoing from my phone cause my damn gopro died after a disappointing 21 seconds. Even though it was a Jake I was still pretty excited, hence the shaky video.

 

I didn't get a whole lot of video or pics cause my decoy was behind this tree. 

After he had his way with the avian X, he set his attention on decoy #2, my smoky baby. The decoys were in line from left to right.

This video was a little better because by this time that Jake had been in my decoys for 35 minutes. I'm not sure why he stopped but before he molestered my second decoy his head popped up, he did the old wing flip, and skulked away... the same direction he walked in. After I was sure he was gone I got up, picked up my decoy and put her back on her stake.

It was hilarious watching him try and mount that decoy, since she was on a stake she kept spinning and so did he. From where I was sitting all I saw was her head, his head, her head, his head, and so on, pretty funny, until he knocked her off and knocked her up........Not funny.👿 

After a couple hours and nothing else happening I went for a stealth walk to try and get near a gobbler from the morning. All I found was this butterfly.

Yep... nothing else to report for Tuesd..... crap wait a minute I headed out to my D spot after I went home and got something to eat. I only saw 1 turkey.....

Vulture, Turkey Vulture.... I did see more, but I saw this one up close. He's sitting on the floor of an old deer blind that I was sitting below.

That was the end of Tuesday.

 Now for the day we've all been waiting for.... WEDNESDAY     

Just in case you didn't get it by the title of this post I got a Turkey today. So I'll get straight into the story. 

I started the day with the usual option B and once again I didn't get drawn for the no-show. So I ran down the road and hooted at my C spot with the only response being across the street. Due to past experience I opted not to try for that bird. Since I lost the skin on my heel I was itching to get back on my option F spot for some payback. 

I knew where I wanted to start so I headed east. When I got to my spot it's a mile and a half walk to where I thought I should be. 

Just to keep the timeline here, it's a 15-20 min run to C spot then 5-10 min there, and another 15-20 min to F spot. For all of us keeping track that puts us at about 6:20ish and I still have the walk in. 

Back to the action.....

Well, on the way in a gobbler said good morning, and he's only about a hundred yards still on roost to my right. Fortunately the hill I was walking up offers some cover to the left so I go left and drop in elevation and start looking for a spot to ........GOBBLES, GOBBLES. There's 2 gobblers in front of me about 2-300 yards. Now I have the 2 in front and the 1 to my right. I figure I can get up the hill 10 or so feet and set up in a clump of trees and scrub and hope nobody's seen the idiot with the gun. As I'm setting up on the 1st gobbler, I'm already thinking about my next set up on the other 2. I know where they go and where they will come back to, so I've got a solid plan B. 

After a couple soft yelps and putts he gobbles like he heard me. We play that game a couple more times, keep in mind he's still roosted. 

After a couple more minutes I hear him fly down, now he's on the ground... and quiet. I'm keeping a steady eye on the other side of the small deer trail. Nothing.... gotta listen harder.... hear him walking in the leaves in the deer trail..... now he's to my left.... still can't see him..... behind me... get the gun around back.... there he is... small opening..... 10ft...... SHOOT... 6:49 dead turkey     

  What he doesn't have in a tail fan he makes up for in Weight- 26 pounds

I'm sitting in the chair I was in and I shot him behind me to the side of the tree my gun is resting on. I got pretty lucky I shot through some poopy but he was REALLY close.

 

Double Bearded- this is the first double bearded turkey I've ever shot, really cool. 

Beard 1- 9 inches and Beard 2- 10 1/4 inches

Spurs are 1 1/2 inches

 This turkey was a beast.

 

After I got home and started to get him cut up I saw he had, for lack of a better word, "roadrash" on his left side. I didn't get a pic of that but I did get a pic of the toe missing a toenail.

Pretty sure this was the dominate bird or at least the old dominate bird, he was definitely a fighter. He was a hunt I'll remember.
 

Next week... more fishing.

🦃 SEASON 🦃 OPENED 🦃 WEDNESDAY 🦃

 Wednesday, I did not get drawn for option B so I went to option... let's see C and D. C brought me to a public place where I can't move at all, it's a little sliver of public that I shot a turkey on 2 years ago. I worked a gobbler for about 30 to 45 minutes and he would not break. He walked the same 50 yard stretch back and forth, before he was able to call in a hen and take off. I did not see or hear anything at option D.

Thursday, this morning, I actually got drawn so my option B was in play. I went to my first spot and there was somebody there, my second spot there was somebody there, my third spot there was nobody there. So I parked and walked in the mile and a half to where I was going to sit for the day. I didn't want to move, you can only hunt till 1:00 and it's a good spot. I know there's birds back there. As I was geting close to where I wanted to sit, I heard four gobblers sound off real close to me. I got set up and started talking to the closest one ...and he left with a hen. I heard her yapping at him as they went the opposite direction of me. Then around 9:00 or 10:00 I had a cat fight with a bunch of hens. I never saw them, I just heard them and they were not happy I was there. I kept trying to entice them over but they would not come out of the woods..... (I know where I'm going next time) so in working the hens we called in a gobbler, who skirted me somehow and went over to one of the hens. Well that's why I wanted the hens to come in, because more often than not they're going to bring in a Tom. So that was the end of my day....... I did oh,  I had 2 Jake's come in before the hen fight. That was pretty cool I could have filled my tag right there with a Jake, but I'm waiting for that long beard.  I still got plenty of time and I've got quite a few spots so keep your fingers crossed... 

Monday begins a new week of 🦃 hunting.

UPDATE

 I found out I was mistaken.

 Apparently turkey season starts this week! 

Must have been the first week of March that rained and I didn't get to go fishing that has thrown me off.

I don't know, but there is no fishin' this week, we'll start turkey hunting on Wednesday.

 I'll let you know how it goes.

1 more week then it's already over?

 Well for a while anyway, I'll explain that at the end, so stay tuned.... 

This week I stayed true to my word and fished out of Michigan City. The ramp is good, but this time of year there's alot of sand at the launch making it alot shallower. The upside is there's a fish cleaning station in the marina that can be used and that's a huge plus....

I got to the launch about sunrise and had lines set by 7:30, despite the rollers and the caps that had started from the NE. Since this is the first time I have fished out of MC in quite some time it took me a while to find the fish. And for some reason I didn't have any waypoints on the graph from my earlier trips. I don't know what happened but they were completely gone. Anyway, I finally started getting into the fish and got to chipping away at my limit. I did notice the fish I was catching were a bit bigger than they were last week. As soon as I landed my second Coho I managed to land one of the hooks into my pointer finger. Since I was the only one on the boat I couldn't employ the string trick so I grabbed the hook with my needle nose as tight as I could and ripped it out. 

More to the truth broke it off.....

So once I broke it off, I got the fish out of the net and in the bleed bucket. Then went for round 2 of removing the partial hook with the needle nose. I was pretty worried that it would break off again. Fortunately it came out with one good tug. I really gotta learn to keep hooks out of my fingers and hands....

sorry it's such a terrible pic.

 as Ronnie told me....hooks are for fish. 

After I got it out, I let it bleed to clean it out then put a band aid on it so I didn't bleed all over my boat again.... back to fishing.

Not really a whole lot to report, after the hook thing, the lake laid down a little and I started stacking them up.

 I went 6 for 7, I actually caught a short on the slider on my rigger @ 15 down and 15 back.... which was the only time it fired all day. The majority of the fish came on the orange Rapala. I was in 30-48 fow and speeds were 2.2-3.? the reason my speeds were so far apart was the gusts and rollers made it very difficult to keep a halfway steady speed. But I managed to hit limit by about 2:30ish.

This is what did the damage this week...

Not done yet... here's the video 👇

 I only have one more week then TURKEY SEASON opens 👏and fishing goes on the shelf 😩until season is over or I get a bird.🙏🙏🙏

Finally... shakeout cruise 2024

 After a long week of rain☔, wind💨, and cold⛄ (last week), this week was a 180 degree turn for the better. So I started asking around last weeked if anyone would want to go fishing on Monday. It wasn't the best day, the sustained wind was still high and the gusts were terrible. Tuesday looked better but there was rain in the forecast when I was watching over the weekend. 

Sidenote......

I should've been a TV weatherman... I can't think of another profession where you can be wrong EVERY day and still keep your job.

 

Ok sorry got off an a tangent there for a second... Well, as it turns out the weather cleared for Tuesday so I threw up the fish signal (mass text) in the Northern sky and had one brave soul commit to a day on the water. My buddy John answered the call, he got to the house at 4:38 and our day began. By 7ish we were getting ready to launch out of the ditch in Portage. The big motor fired right up, cleared the fogger from last year and we navigated the channel out to the mouth. We turned North and got out of the trollers way, killed the big motor and started the kicker which also started right up. Whew..... so far so good.

Next we put out 2 lines while I was deploying the boards, then we got the other 2 rods on the boards. Next was the downriggers... the first rigger hooked up without a hitch. The second was dropping the ball kinda weird so I looked a little closer and the wire had jumped the pulley guide. I had to disassemble the pulley end of the rigger and get the wire back in the guide... problem solved. 

6 fishable lines 👏👍 Everything is working.

It took a while before we hit our first fish 

but after we hit our first it was no time at all before we were up to #6. Then the wind died down and it really slicked out and the bite died off for a while. Shoot it got so nice I think John fell asleep... not to fear though, the wind started back up and so did the bite. 

This guy showed up and wanted in the harbor just as the bite was picking up... I let him through

We worked from 8ish to 2:30 but finally filled our limits with 10 coho, and one of them was a 23" stud. This time of the year a 17" fish is the norm, so these "larger" spring coho were a lot of fun.

 

 Just so you can tell all your friends...

We did best in 46-47 FOW going 2.3-2.6 SOG and 7 came on flatlines with 2 off the D/F at 15 back and 15 down, and 1 off the slider on the other rigger set at 37 down. 

These are the lures that did the damage.

 Good Luck 👍

Oh wait were not done, I've got some video.....