Spring Turkey Tune Up Sat Feb 25 2012 Lake San Vicente, Lakeside CA.

[Jon wang]

Getting ready for spring turkey hunt?

San Diego Chapter of the NWTF Spring turkey tune up


Saturday, Feb 25, 2012


Lake San Vicente, 12375 Morena Ave. Lakeside CA near San Diego.


8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. 11:50 a.m. Deadline for entry into all hunt draws


Vendor tables, special hunt draws for San Vicente turkey hunts, turkey hunting seminars, raffles, shotgun patterning, bow range to test arrows.


www.sandiegoturkey.com for more info

[spectr17]

Bump

Who's going?

[cjack]

Bump

Who's going?

I plan on going but I thought it was the Sutherland Reservoir. Trying to enter every special hunt I can this year and looking for places other than central and northern California to hunt turkeys.

[calicreole]

count me and the kids in

[J.O.]

Me and two buddies will be there.

[Jon wang]

The hunt draw will be conducted at Vicente, but the actual hunting area is at Lake Sutherland.

The city moved the venue to a lower elevation site due to potential snow storm last year that threatened to shut down the entire event at Lake Sutherland.

You are correct - the hunt is at Lake Sutherland

Hope to see youth hunters there cuz San Diego County just opened up new county land for hunting, and its set aside just for youths hunts only. This should be a VERY good area to hunt - lots of birds that've never been hunted hard.

[cjack]

Does anyone know how many peaople generaly show up for this event and subsequent drawing? Is it worth the three hour drive down or are there going to be hundreds of applicants for this draw? Six hours out of my Saturday seems like alot of driving if my chances are slim.

[mezcan]

Does anyone know how many peaople generaly show up for this event and subsequent drawing? Is it worth the three hour drive down or are there going to be hundreds of applicants for this draw? Six hours out of my Saturday seems like alot of driving if my chances are slim.

250-300 people last year. Cannot win a hunt if you're not there. Lotsa goods raffled off before hunt draw.

[Jon wang]

Does anyone know how many peaople generaly show up for this event and subsequent drawing? Is it worth the three hour drive down or are there going to be hundreds of applicants for this draw? Six hours out of my Saturday seems like alot of driving if my chances are slim.

It is a lottery drawing. One entry per person. So everybody has equal odds as anyone else there. The odds of being picked increase with less people in attendance. So.....if you decide not to attend, my odds just got better�� But, I hope you attend.

The hunt at Lake Sutherland is what I consider to be a quality hunt due to the low number of hunters that'll have access during the season. The birds reside on and around lake property and adjoining private lands. So unless you've got access to private land in the area, or know somebody from one of the Indian reservations, turkey hunting on public land is challenging.

Yes, its worth the six hour drive - even with the rising price of gas. Hope you draw a hunt. Good luck.

[cjack]

Thanks Jon wang, you've got me pumped! I'll be there.

[spectr17]

It's a great event to talk turkey, pattern your gun, see some new calls and network with other turkey hunters. Take the rest of the afternoon to film turkeys near Lake Henshaw and practice your calling on them if you want. Good time to scout the San Diego area too so it's not just the tune up you're there for. Gobblers are already sounding off so time to pin point their favorite areas. One year the gobblers were gobbling right at the top of the hill during the tune up and someone called them down to the event.

[solus]

Jesse you going?

[mezcan]

It's a great event to talk turkey, pattern your gun, see some new calls and network with other turkey hunters. Take the rest of the afternoon to film turkeys near Lake Henshaw and practice your calling on them if you want. Good time to scout the San Diego area too so it's not just the tune up you're there for. Gobblers are already sounding off so time to pin point their favorite areas. One year the gobblers were gobbling right at the top of the hill during the tune up and someone called them down to the event.

Event @ Vicente reservoir. No patterning/shooting allowed.

[cjack]

250-300 people last year. Cannot win a hunt if you're not there. Lotsa goods raffled off before hunt draw.

Sounds like about a 1 in 5 chance and some fun to boot. Not bad odds and I can hit Bass Pro Shops on the way home!

[cjack]

Too many people, not alot of vendors, raffle items were so so, didn't get drawn. Bummer!

[baco]

I was lucky enough to draw a spot. Pretty excited about it as it is the 2nd time in 3 years I have drawn. Not many vendors as usual but still a good time

[J.O.]

So who ended up going? I went.
First thought driving there was the signs they had out pointing direction to the event were very vanilla. The thought that crossed my mind was they were attempting to be discreet with the event to the general public. Probably to avoid any complications with aniti's.

It took me 4 hrs total driving time there and back. This was my first time going and will prob be my last. I feel embarrassed to the people I took down there. So we pay the entry fee and get the hunt lottery card. We fill out the card minus the huning license number, as we did not bring our actual license. We proceed to turn in at the first table. We then tell the guy working the table that we don't have our hunting license with us but we do have valid hunting licenses. He responds by say, well you have to have the license present to obtain the hunts if we are drawn. I told him where does it say that? He says on the flyer which he didn't have, so I pulled out my printed copy and I showed him that it says that "parties must have a valid 2012 hunting license" not that we must have it present at the event. He responds saying, well can you call and get it here, I replied no. I live 2hrs from here. I can call and get the number but I won't have it present. He didn't have anything to say. So I called my wife and got the number and turned in the card and proceeded to enter the event. (we were not the only ones at the booth with the same license issue, there were several other people with the same issue).

The next thing I noticed when entering the event was there was allot of people, but its good for the sport so I can't complain. At this point it was like 8:45a. Booth's were still being setup and vendors still had not arrived. Mind you the gates open at 8:30a. You would think they would have required everyone be ready to go prior to the gates opening.

So shortly after we looked around and spoke with a few people, we sit down in the chairs and wait for the seminar portion to begin. Who ever thought to put the chairs facing east as the sun was rising was definelty not thinking. All of the people that wanted to look toward the stage were greeted by the sun blazing into their face most of the morning.

Prizes were so, so. Almost like they were the left over clearance items at the local sportsman shop. I thought the womens prizes were very well put togther and packaged well. The NWTF raffled off a remington versa max as one of the door prizes and umm guess who won it..yep you guessed it, a NWTF member. Seemed a little odd to me that they would even be aloud to enter into a raffle. You would think they would want people that are not current members to win something. Which would also shine light on there club. Sort of like how the radio stations don't allow employees to win the prizes. Makes sense to me.

I found the event to be all over the place in scheduling and professionalism. NWTF members did not seem very friendly. The speakers were unorganized, clearly did not formalize or practice their speech. If I heard correctly, one guy didn't even show up, so another guy attempted to fill in. I thought the dark hair guy on the left during the calling portion did well. He explained things and gave tips on how he does things and what worked or doesn't work for him. So kudos to him. I learned some things from him.

F&G volunteers were there handing out last years fishing rules and regulations which expire tomorrow. I mean who does that, not very professional. A F&G officer was there answering questions however responded to questions with questions or ambiguous responses. Then said "well, I just moved down here and not sure about the legality, let me make a call". Then he never came back with the answer. My thoughts were, then what the hell are you doing here. Get someone that is familiar with the laws and stick you behind a desk until you figure it out.

I would like to thank the Forest Service employees. They were very professional and well informed. They spoke well and provided insight to questions and/or potential issues accessing forest land.

No BLM representatives present at the event. I suppose thats better than sending someone that isn't informed.

There was hardly any vendors. The burger trailer thing was back asswards as well. You stand in one line to pay, then stand in another one to get your food, then go back over to where you paid and stand in another line to put condiments on your burger/hot dog. I mean you can't make this stuff up lol.

I will say thank you to the NWTF for putting on the event. Obviously the more events shining positive light on sportsman the better. But I definitely hope next year will be more organized and professional. Atleast my $50 gas stimulated the economy All in all I think the day cost me about $95.

[comrad_zeelaagee]

J.O. I totally agree with your assessment of the program. My buddy and I had som good chuckles at the lack of organization of the event, especially the Kiwanis food trailer set up. Clearly there was not much thought given to the event as a whole. It was a long and somewhat tedious day. A interesting collection of people, especially Dojo Sensei in the all black outfit that won a raffle prize and a very large dude that didn't need to use his cane to walk if he was carrying two hot dogs, a muffin, and a soda. Some people in the crowd were dressed up like it was opening day.

I can't say I learned too many new things, but I did recently go on survey with John Massie and learned a lot of good info. Caller dude was legit and gave good info. I was a bit surprised about the NWTF guy allowed to get the gun myself, but I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.

That said, I really went there for one reason- the Sutherland Hunt, and was lucky enough to be drawn later in the draw. So for me it was a success. I'd be bummed if I came up empty on all fronts.

[cjack]

Couldn't agree with J.O. and cz more. Unorganized, over $100 and a Saturday wasted, at least cz drew the hunt. I won't be returning for that event but may still do some hunting down south as I was able to get some info from DFG on where I might find some birds in the Cleveland National Forest.

[J.O.]

Received this in the mail today. Thought I would share so others can voice there concerns.

The San Diego NWTF chapter would like to get your views and opinions on the event you attended on February 25th, 2012. Please take a few minutes to complete the following survey to help us provide a better experience for the Fall Tune Up and next years Spring Tune Up. Also we will be giving away one free banquet ticket so don't forget to enter your email address! Happy Turkey Hunting
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T59PWPD

[comrad_zeelaagee]

i filled it out. i gave an overall grade of fair.

[GLP]

Did anyone hear the guy mention how many turkeys were shot last year at Sutherland, I thought he said 8. If that's true you only have a 1 in 6 chance of shooting a turkey if you get drawn, which if 300 hunters enter the draw, the hunt draw odds are 1 in 6. So you have a 1 in 36 chance of shooting a turkey at Sutherland if you enter the drawing. I enjoy going, I just don't like hanging around till 1:30. If I go next year I probably won't enter the hunt draw (probably unheard of), just listen to the seminars, talk to the pros (Massie, etc) about the turkey outlook, and leave right when I start to get hungry so I don't have to wait in three lines to get a burger.