Luke finished up his semester at Tech around the second week of May and he hit WV for a few days, but the hunting was hard, he called one in for his roommate, but he missed it at 25 yds and he flew off unscathed. When he got home we made a last minute plan to go hunt New Hampshire and possibly Maine if time permitted. Well let me tell you from all the stories I kept hearing how many turkeys there were I had delusions of tagging out quickly and being in birds non stop.. well I kept thinking it can't be this way in the back of my mind.. and it wasn't for sure.. it was tough.. we heard 4 total gobblers in 3.5 days of hunting and killed one of them.. had two of the others at around 55 yds but Luke didn't feel comfortable taking the shot. We couldn't find a lot of huntable birds.. spring was way ahead of what it normally is up there according to the locals.. so we had thick woods and tall grass.. what birds we did find were mostly in plowed fields and a lot of that land was posted and not huntable.. and the ones we did find and could hunt was pressured.. seems every out of stater was up there late, and the places that had birds that wasn't posted was getting hit hard.. all the places we hunted we ran into hunters and had some come in on us one morning. We never did make it to Maine.. But we had a fun time and the area we stayed was gorgeous.. I'm just glad Luke got him a LB this spring.. had to drive over 600 miles but he got one Hope you enjoy the video.. now the long wait for next year begins..

Video..
https://youtu.be/-MeEwZRwwX8?si=hpNcqs_fZO1CD7ZE

Pics..

Good for you and Luke to be able to take that N E turkey trip. And glad you were able to corral a bird. The number of OOS hunters all over the US is far larger than I would have imagined it could grow. Any state that has a lot of public land and a lot of turkeys seems to be overrun with the “ seeking Fifty” goal, which today apparently is a greater goal than the old Grand Slam goal.
I can’t complain I guess as I travelled to hunt OOS too. More then than now. Glad you could make this trip with your son

Sounds like a great trip. Glad to see Luke is a turkey killer, but what would one expect w/ you as his father and mentor.
I need to make some OOS trips. Always wanted to kill a Merriams. Maybe next year.
Congrats again and great hunt.

I dream but don't do, you make it happen. I never think of public ground as being farmed. Around me 99% of public that i've ever hunted is all forested old growth stuff for the most part. Some smaller tracts have fields and some crops planted on them but being smaller they get punished with pressure. To think some states have thousands of acres of public that is farmed with large ag fields is a foreign concept to my brain. Sounds and looks awesome for wildlife habitat. Congratulations on an outstanding punctuation to the season.