| Hunt Introduction This hunt takes place in northern West Virginia, not too far from Morgantown. I am hunting with friend Steve Galusky, who invited me here to sample some good Eastern Turkey hunting with him on various places that he hunts. I've never turkey hunted in West Virginia, so I'm looking forward to seeing new places and hunting new turkeys. Steve said this is one of the top producing turkey counties in the state. I'm breaking in a new pair of boots for elk season, and Steve assured me that there are plenty of "hills" to climb where we'll be hunting. I'm looking forward to it! Sunday A.M.  We started out this morning in one of Steve's traditional hot spots, which happens to be in one of the few WV counties that allows Sunday hunting. He said that this spot is usually great, with lots of gobbling and lots of turkeys, but this year he said they have been acting real weird. Not gobbling much. This was an unusual winter here. They got a LOT of snow and the turkeys had a tough winter in some areas up here. Then shortly before the season the weather was unseasonably warm and Steve said the birds were gobbling like crazy, but last week they seemed to shut down. Apparently I brought some nasty weather with my arrival. The 2 days before I got here they had major thunder and lightning storms, along with about 4-6 inches of rain. Today it was very windy and threatening rain. We got set-up in his usual spot but didn't hear any birds gobble at daylight there. We did hear one bird gobble once, a long ways away, across the county road on a different property.  Shortly after daylight it started to rain, but we were pretty much protected under the forest canopy and didn't get too wet. We did a little bit of calling, but couldn't get any birds to answer. Just last week Steve's brother sat in the same exact spot and heard about half a dozen toms gobbling, but we couldn't get them to talk this morning.  After a while we started a hike along a big ridge running through the property, calling every so often to try and locate a gobbler. We did that most of the morning with no success. It continued to rain off and on throughout the morning, and the wind kept up as well, making it difficult sometimes to hear. We hiked down into a ravine and the wind was less down there, but still we couldn't raise a gobble, so we headed up the other side to a different ridge. We did spook a hen off of a nest, and saw a good amount of scratching in the leaves, but the toms just wouldn't play this morning.  Tomorrow we're hunting a different place where Steve heard almost 10 gobblers just 3 mornings ago when he was scouting. It's a long, steep hike to the top of a big ridge where there are a series of fields the birds love to strut around in. Steve says that the hike will be worth it.  The area we hunted today was every bit as rugged as Steve said it would be. It's quite beautiful country. You can see from the pictures that it's great looking turkey country. Check back for more action tomorrow!
Joshua Flournoy owns and manages the Livehunts.com web site. He also arranges exciting hunts through his business Longleaf Hunting Adventures. Joshua resides in east Texas with his wife and four children. |
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