4-16-13 Tue.

4-16-2013 Tue 6:00 AM – 12:00 PM / 4:30PM – 8:30PM
Weather:
(0753) W9, overcast, 37 ˚ / (1753) NW9, clear, 48 ˚, 30.23 rising
H2O:
9.48 falling, 85.5 kcfs, 38 ˚, dirty
Location:
Beaver Creek and north of Beaver Creek / Mississippi R. – Dresbach Dam
Bagged:
Nothing, I saw approximately five birds
Caught:
Four fish – three small walleyes and one 13” sauger
Partners:
Tom W. AM / Scott PM
Comments:

I was turkey hunting with Tom today in the morning. We hunted two places: I hunted the Beaver Creek public area and he hunted Ron Kind’s property, then we hunted another farm just south of Taylor, Wisconsin.
Our first location near Ron’s produced nothing for me. I heard lots of birds on the other side of the road and I did spook several off the roost and a couple out in the fields, but I had no active gobblers where I was hunting. Tom’s luck was slightly better than mine. Although he did not bag a bird or even see a bird, he did have three toms gobbling and responding very close, but he never did see them.
The next farm we hunted was about five miles to the north and it was loaded with turkeys. Almost as soon as we left our vehicles we heard toms gobbling. We quickly set up and began calling. Tom did all the calling as I just watched and waited. He had several hens and a few toms answering, but neither sex wanted anything to do with his vocal pleas.
After about forty five minutes Tom stayed put and I went up the valley and set up. We had agreed to hunt about another forty minutes then I would come back and meet him at our original set up spot. About thirty five minutes into it, I had a couple jakes walk past at about seventy yards making a bee line towards tom’s waiting ambush. Five minutes went by and I heard shots. It was not too hard to figure out that the birds went straight to Tom. He connected on a nice jake.
I did not go hunting in the afternoon, but opted for the boat and a couple of poles instead. Instead of long beards I was going to chase white tips (walleyes). I had not been out lately and the water was reported to be very high and dirty. I did not have high expectations, but I was hopeful. I fished for about four hours and caught four fish; Scott fished for about three hours with me and caught none. The water was just too high, muddy and cold. All four of my fish came on a hair jig tipped with Berkley Gulp. The other plastics I used were totally ignored.

Observations:

The woods in the Beaver Creek area and to the north that are sheltered from the sun still have quite a bit of snow on the hillsides. The river is quite high, dirty and cold, but the gates were not open. The east end of Lake Onalaska still has some remnant ice, but it is fading fast and I expect it to be gone by this weekend.