Turkey Report

[Mike of the Mountain]

Well, bird #2 went down on my day 3 at 6:58 AM. The bearded hen has a 6 1/4" beard and came in with 3 gobblers and she was taken left handed at 15 yards. Nothin' to it!! Now it's time to move on to woodchucks.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Mike Koneski

Well, bird #2 went down on my day 3 at 6:58 AM. The bearded hen has a 6 1/4" beard and came in with 3 gobblers and she was taken left handed at 15 yards. Nothin' to it!! Now it's time to move on to woodchucks.

Looks like you had a great (albeit short) season. And what are you taking woodchucks with, if I may ask?

[Mike of the Mountain]

I use multiple chuck guns. .223, .22-250, .308 and the newest is 6.5 Creedmore. That one is scary accurate. All of them are dialed in at 200 yards. Shot 70 here 2 years ago. That never gets old.

[mobirdhunter]

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, we have very few whistle pigs here in Northern Missouri, but the squirrel season opens at the end of the month. It's a good time to break out the vintage .22s. I also like to shoot them with light loads out of an old hammer gun or two. I wish we had woodchucks here.

[J. A. EARLY]

Originally Posted by Garry L Gordon

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, we have very few whistle pigs here in Northern Missouri, ... I wish we had woodchucks here.

Get your Missouri game department to bring some of the pests in just as we believe ours did with coyotes, which have taken over. Deer, turkey, rabbit, small dog, and cat populations are way down.

You'll like the holes under every building and extra holes in fields to break a leg in.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Jerry Harlow

Get your Missouri game department to bring some of the pests in just as we believe ours did with coyotes, which have taken over. Deer, turkey, rabbit, small dog, and cat populations are way down.

You'll like the holes under every building and extra holes in fields to break a leg in.

Jerry,

Trust me, I had my share of whistle pigs when I lived in Ohio (and had a farmer who raised horses pay me to kill them and keep holes out of his pastures), but the few we have are pretty discrete and seldom seen (we do have occasional badgers also). As for coyotes: I think we bred them here and sent them east. We've lived with them for quite some time (forever?) and our game populations are OK. What is hurting us now is the fenced deer operations that brought CWD to us. That and the terrible nesting seasons we've had for too many years in a row. It's been really hard on our quail, pheasant and turkey populations.

I also see that West Nile Virus is hitting your grouse hard. We lost our grouse to not cutting trees.

Oh, well, enjoy what you have while you have it.