Little Creek Calls

Christian hunters of America is having a Turkey seminar tomorrow in Phoenix. I wont be there but they have been good in the past.

Haven't done one for a few years. Don't have anything scheduled this year. Sportsman's Warehouse used to call and ask me to come do it every year. I don't think they have been doing much of the fishing and hunting seminars and classes since covid. Maybe next year I will give Steve a call and get one scheduled. I have had quite a few reach out asking if I was doing one this year.

For bighorn sheep all the applicants for all the hunts are pooled together for the bonus pass (not by hunt number like other species). With only 25 points he probably will never have max points and never be guaranteed a tag. He will just have to get lucky or out live everyone with more points than him.

I condition every call in my vest and clean the striker tips each night before I hunt the following morning. I also clean and apply new chalk to all my box calls. I also use a new mouth diaphragm each morning so I don't have to deal with stuck reeds. With the price of mouth calls these days I don't expect many people do this but I make my own so they are cheap for me. Before I started making them I would put them in the refrigerator at night and use paper clips to separate the reeds. I was in Sportsman's Warehouse the other day and couldn't believe what people are charging for mouth calls, crazy.

This is a fun topic. I think the fun in turkey hunting is in the calling and getting them in close. Have I shot birds at 40+ yards before? Yes, but for me it is much more exciting to have birds under 20 where you can feel the vibration of the spit and drum and hear his long wing feathers dragging the ground and really see the color changing on a toms head when he is in close. A lot of this comes down to where you pick to setup before calling. One of the things I remember most from the late Marvin Robbins seminars was how he taught the importance of setting up where you can only see to your shooting capabilities so when the tom shows up he is in range and you can kill him. If the tom shows up and can see you at 80 yards there is a good chance he can see your setup and will not come any closer for you to get a shot. Even if you are using decoys, they only work for me about 25% of the time. If you want to be a more successful turkey hunter pay more attention to where you set up. I guess its kind of like Coues hunting, you can glass deer and shoot them at 1000+ yards but is it more fun to save money on gun setup try to get closer or even into archery range? There is no right answer, it is up to the hunter to get the experience he is looking for out of each hunt.

I offered to get it done quick and bring it down to you but you ordered it after you had already killed your bird last year and told me you wouldn't need it for quite a while.

The other thing to consider is to really pattern your gun to know your max effective range you would need to shoot how many times? I am glad you shot it at 40 yards but what does it look like at 45 and 50? What is your true max range? Also how close is to close? What does it look like at 10 yards? Baseball size or smaller? I like to have at least a volleyball sized pattern or larger. Smaller than that and it's easy to miss. Also beyond 40 how effective is #9 tungsten going to be at breaking a turkey spine?

That's the price for only 5 rounds too, $14 every time you pull the trigger. I used to think twice before buying ten rounds of tungsten shot for $40. Lately I have been shooting Winchester longbeard XR copper plated lead $25 for 10 rounds but that is getting harder to find. Good thing I still have a couple boxes.

3 1/2"?

My friend sent his BPS in last month and got it back in only two or three weeks.

I bought a Yoder 12 or 13 years ago. I glad I bought when I did because the price has more than doubled since I purchased mine. Still running great. Only thing I have had to do was replace the igniter and it was a quick 5 min change and covered by the warranty. Heats up to 600 and holds temp well. I leave mine unattended all the time.

If you look at the draw reports you can see that turkey hunts with only 3 and even 2 permits for a hunt number are awarded 1 bonus pass tag. Hunts with only 1 permit do not get a bonus pass tag and are just offered in the general draw. As far as applying together I would think that you could not get a bonus pass tag if only one is available. Also don't apply as a group of 2 for hunt with only two permits available because 1 permit will go to the bonus pass and with only 1 tag available you will have no chance to draw.

Well my turn finally came and I drew a bonus pass tag on the second hunt for a Gould's tag. I was dieing to get in the woods after all the Gould's photos were posted last week. Finally got to the woods yesterday afternoon set up camp and had a few hours to do some scouting. First thing this morning I had another hunter move in on the birds I was calling in off the roost and it was game over for both of us. The scouting from the day before really paid off and we hurried to our plan B spot. We were able to locate and call in this strutting tom and his 7 hens. It was a short hunt and we were done by 6:45 this morning. I look forward to putting in for Merriam's again and getting to hunt for myself more often.

Hard to tell from the color in the photos but are those cuts or rainbows? Looks like parachute dry fly's, nicely done.

I've seen quite a few. Several years ago when helping someone in 32 on the western side of the Galiuros we were running into them everywhere we went. Saw 5 or 6 tortoises and 2 Gila Monster's in 2 days. I couldn't believe some of the steep rocky places where we saw tortoises. Must have been breeding season or something, seemed like they were coming out everywhere.

What was average fish size for those who caught? Were they mostly Apaches or Browns?

How was the fishing? With the new Christmas tree regulations about immediately releasing any Apache trout caught I am thinking they are still having issues with apache trout at their hatchery and probably haven't stoked any fish there in a couple of years.

Getting my Gould's completed my Royal slam so I thought I would share a photo of each. Posted in the order I took them. Merriam's Rio's Eastern's Osceola's Gould's

Muzzleloading shotguns are supposed to be tight patterning long range guns. Only downside is you only have one shot. How often do you even need the second shot and after the bird is running how affective is the second shot anyway. With the rising cost of turkey loads why not. The new TSS loads are $10 plus a round and the cheaper copper plated lead is getting harder to find.

Great looking tom. Always wanted to try a muzzleloader shotgun. What muzzleloader are you using?

If you are after a nice tom in the fall this might be your best bet.

Fall turkey hunting is a different experience then spring hunting. In the fall I target jakes that are running with the large flocks. I like to find and split the flocks and call them back together. For me turkey hunting is about calling and interacting with the birds and this method provides the best opportunity for calling in the fall. That said I haven't fall hunted in a long time, I just buy the extra bonus point.

I was able to take my son on his second youth turkey hunt this past weekend (last year being the first). After several close calls on the first day of the hunt with no shots fired he was able to connect on this tom on the second morning. The birds threw us a curve ball on the first evening and roosted in a different location several ridges away. From hunting this location in years past I knew where I wanted to get before first light and set up. The birds ended up being roosted a little farther than what I had thought but I still liked my chances and setup. There were several toms gobbling off the roost but you could hear the hens show up to pick them up. They were out of sight over a ridge or two. It sounded like they were starting to head the other way but luckily the boss hen was talkative and we got into a nice argument. After about 5 minutes of back and forth she decided to come kick my butt. And guess who she brought with her a strutting gobbling tom. My son made a great one shot kill to the head. I love it when a plan comes together. It is so fun and exciting to be able to share these experiences with my son, some of my favorite hunting memories.

2 tags over the counter doesn't help the population. Lots of AZ hunters who didn't draw a Gould's tag looking to go somewhere close. 15A has always been a hard unit for me. Look at some other units with steeper harder to hunt areas where other hunters don't go and you will find more birds, or go deeper into NM. I was always amazed at how many birds we would see just across the border in AZ on our way home.

I haven't been in about 3 years but getting to the camp ground shouldn't be a problem. It can get a little rough and more bumpy between the camp ground and the AZ border.