THE FRONT PORCH

Welcome to the Front Porch. Here you will find talk about what is going on with WKO and any success we've had. We use only recent photos and references from our hunts. This gives our clients an up-to-date, honest report. Check back daily, because like the seasons it will change.

TODAY's News from the Porch:

Update: 5.7.12 - Our latest hunt wrapped up the 2012 Spring turkey season in Kentucky and ended with success. We ended our streak of 100% opportunity for 4 straight years, but we only had 1 hunter that did not have an opportunity for the season. Our hunters tallied 2 misses and 12 dead birds across the 23 day season for better than 90% success. I personally don't like talking all the numbers but know a lot of you like seeing the numbers so we're telling it like it is. What is important to me is the story behind the success or lack thereof. For our Kentucky hunters the spring was way early. By the time our season opened on the 14th of April the bird patterns and activity was more like the 3rd to 4th week of our season where hens are sitting and only paying attention to gobblers for a short while after fly down. This year by the time we rolled into our 3rd and 4th week hens were sitting nests pretty much all day. It got to the point where you were lucky to even see a hen. Gobblers would gobble on the roost and for a while after fly down then get tight lipped. They'd spend a few hours searching for hens and then seem to become totally uninterested. This lead to scouting playing a key role and knowing where birds wanted to go, feed and were frequenting looking for hens. Out of the 12 dead birds, seven of them were killed from the results of scouting. The other 5 came from setting up on gobbling birds and having them come in. With all this being said, it will be another 342 days until the Spring opener so book soon!!!

On to the next topic, deer. We finally seen some rain the last couple days which will help the crops get moving along. Over the next couple of weeks we will be preparing some food plots, maintaining salt licks and getting ready to start our supplemental feed program since the bait ban during turkey season will lift at the end of the month. With that comes the full deployment of trail cameras. Once we start seeing some good images we'll add them to the site from time to time across the summer months.

5.4.12 - We are heading into the last days of the Kentucky turkey season and facing a not so great forecast. Wind, rain and throw in the fact the birds seem to be about done with their Spring ritual and it's going to make for a tough hunt. We can hang with the best of them though and will be working hard to have success. As the hunt sets on the Kentucky season Sunday evening we'll have 2 hunts across 9 days in Indiana before it closes on the 15th.

We'll also be jumping on some food plot work next week since turkey season will be closed. We are about 5 inches behind so far this year regarding rain. We're hoping we see a lot of May showers to help get our crops and some of the spring/summer plots we'll start. If we continue to be dry, our game plan falls back on planting in August and early September for fall food plots.

5.1.12 - Our latest hunt ended with success but the birds are getting tougher. The roost gobble continues to be pretty good but once on the ground we're not hearing a lot. It seems the best hunting has been just off the roost up until about 10:30-11 o'clock. After that it seems the gobblers get into a funk and simply are not paying attention or responding to calls. They are going about midday and the afternoon feeding and showing little to know interest to hens. The gobble from 5pm on has slowed as well. Scouting will probably lead to dead birds over the last 5-6 days more than anything.

Across the river in Indiana it's much of the same. Little to no gobble with midday being tough. We'll be back and forth across the river over the next 2 weeks, closing out the Kentucky season this weekend followed by Indiana on the 15th. Check back for updates on the hunting and we'll get some pictures posted soon.

4.27.12 - The gobble has fell off a bit the last couple days as we've seen some rain and wind. We are still seeing the gobblers spending quite a bit of time with hens early and late in the day. The are roaming mid-day but not being vocal which always takes the fun out of chasing the birds. So we've had to pull back a bit and slow down and allow the birds to do what they do and let our scouting work for us.

Check back next week for results of our upcoming hunts. In the mean time join me in the blind with Richard and enjoy the hunt above from our recent trip to Florida.

For a look at what to expect during your hunt ---> HOW OUR HUNTS TAKE PLACE.

4.23.12 - Well our 100% opportunity for 4+ years and running came to an end with our latest hunt. We had a father/son team hunting with us and seen the father miss a big mature tom at 10 yards or less on the last day, while the son completed his hunt without a solid shot opportunity. Birds were vocal each morning but it varied from light to an all out gobbling show the last morning. Wind played a big factor the first 2 days. The wind blew 20+ which made it hard to hear birds or call effectively. Temps dropped down at night into the high 30's which really wasn't an issue, but just another 'change' in what had been the norm. The day time gobble was weak and only on a couple occassions did birds gobble mid-day. As the hunts progressed into the afternoons the gobblers were alone but did not seem interested in running in to be shot. We'll get the site updated with recent photos in the coming days.

We still have a few September and October archery hunt dates available. Black powder season in December still has a couple hunts open as well.

4.16.12 - The Kentucky season has got off to a good start despite so-so weather conditions. Rain moved in late Friday evening and rained up into the night a while. We knew this would have an affect on where the birds would be opening morning and they'd probably be altering the patterns we had scouted out. There was some roost gobbling but it came late and not long before fly down. Once on the ground the birds did not want to play. We moved setups and not long after getting situated our first bird was shot at 25 yards. A bit later in the morning hunter number 2 connected on a silent bird that was following some hens that had worked into the setup. The second morning we'd complete our 2 bird hunters hunt with his second bird about mid-morning. Again the day started off with so-so conditions. The wind would blow at a pretty good clip then lighten up. We had setup 75-80 yards from 3 gobbling birds but they sat on the limb until well after 7 waiting on hens. Once they flew down they simply would not play. No gobbling could be heard and the wind just kept getting worse. So we moved into an area birds move in and out of throughout the day and done some blind calling that led to 2 birds working in and one getting shot at around 20 yards. Since we were 3 for 3 on birds it finished out our hunters. So today was spent scouting and preparing for our next hunters. Seems each one of the properties has the birds acting different. We're dealing with some henned up birds that were not henned up last week, while other places the birds will go off with hens early and find themselves alone later. Then we have some birds that continue to be loners and roost alone and move pretty good distances to other birds. Regardless, as long as the birds keep cooperating we should be shooting a few more in the head later this week.

4.13.12 - After 2 mornings of sub-30 degrees we warmed up at bit last night and seen low 40's this morning. Still had good gobbling but once their feet hit the ground it went pretty silent. Most of the morning stayed quiet but the birds were pretty active with moving around and strutting. We have clouds rolling in this afternoon with some rain expected. We think opening morning will be dry, but expect rain over the first 4 days of the season. Check back next week for an update on our hunts and any success we may have had.

The last 2 mornings we have had pretty good frosts. We're hoping they did not impact any of our mast bearing trees that have bloomed out and impact our acorn crop this fall. It's more or less a situation we'll have to wait and see about. Over the last month our deer have been hitting our clover plots pretty hard, as well as, minerals. By the end of this month into the first week of May we'll start seen bucks growing main beam again. We'll also start plot work in May and by the time June rolls around be deploying our army of trail cameras.

4.11.12 - Our annual Texas Rio hunt went fairly well again this Spring. We had 10 hunters in camp over the first 7 days and 17 gobblers bit the dust. Unfortunately I can't say everyone was successful. Unseasonably warm temps for the last couple months has the birds and ranch ahead of schedule. In most years for the opening hunt the ranch is just beginning to green up and birds are in big groups and fairly henned up. This year the ranch was in full bloom and hens were already laying eggs and nesting. This situation had the birds scattered among the 10,000 acres. The roost gobble was a little weaker than normal, but was still pretty good. The great thing about Rios is the birds gobble periodically throughout the day and if you are within earshot of one you were able to work him and more often than not get him into gun range. There was minimal interest in hunting hogs and the ones that were interested stayed consumed with chasing birds. We did still put one hog on the ground and one of the tagged out hunters played around with predators and killed a yote. I should probably mention we ended up with 4 rattlers to our credit as well. Unfortunately I encountered 3 of the 4. Definitely made moving around in the pre-dawn darkness a bit more of a tippy-toe adventure. You can view a few pictures from Texas here on the Front Porch. We'll have the Trophy Room updated by the end of the week.

Our Youth turkey hunt was full of gobbles and respondant birds. We just were not able to get the job done. We had one bird at 20-25 yards but he came in at an angle that put him behind us and just couldn't move for the shot. Other birds worked into 60-70 yards and just stood their ground gobbling. They either had hens with them or would have hens arrive after a period of gobbling. A bit frustrating, but the youngsters got to hear and see quite a bit of action.

For a look at what to expect during your hunt ---> HOW OUR HUNTS TAKE PLACE.

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If you are looking for help to hunt or fish in Kentucky drop us a line and see what we can put together for you. Good Hunting! wko_hunts@insightbb.com

Information and Booking: 812-598-1193
email: wko_hunts@insightbb.com
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