Headed to Trail area on April 15th with a new(ish) hunter buddy of mine who had never hunted turkey before and still has yet to pop his cherry for harvesting an animal. April 16th we hid the road hard and got into some less travelled areas, late in the day we got our first gobble from across a canyon. Using my crow call, I was able to locate him fairly decently and made a plan for the next morning. Woke up at 4am on the 17th, left camp by 4:20 and arrived at our location by 5am. Couldn't drive down the fsr due to too much snow in the shady area so we hiked down the 1km road. As we approached the bottom, the sound of gobbles lit up the area...we were on two good Tom's. Made the mistake of setting up under their roost tree at the bottom of a slope. Every call these gobblers were responding to, they were fired up. When the pitched out, the went uphill instead of downhill into my spread. I called for a bit and realized they were not moving much, so we packed up the decoys and moved our setup up the hill about 60 yards from the turkeys on a power line road. Started to call and they were responding but again not moving. I decided to slowly work my way towards them and caught a glimpse of a big Tom all puffed up strutting around but couldn't see the 2nd one. I had a shot at his blue head but instead passed to allow my buddy to move in next to me but by that time the Tom had moved behind a stump and was no longer providing a clear shot. I shifted over a foot or two to see if we could get a better line of sight and bingo, the 2nd Tom was looking right at me 20 yards away; again, I passed on the shot hoping my buddy would get a chance. The two Tom's disappeared after they spotted us and move up the hill in the woods. We backed out and went up the path that ran parallel to where the birds were headed. I moved in slowly to the treeline and about 10 yards away one of the Tom's gobbled and then nothing. We backed out again and looked down the path at our decoy spread, low & behold both Tom's were there inspecting my hen's!! Only if I had left my buddy in our bunker, he would have had a chip shot at these Tom's...oh well. Walked down towards them and about 40 yards out we both lined up on them and counted down 3-2-1 shoot! My safety was on and he missed, so both Tom's flew away down the hill. Sat and contemplated for awhile and decided we would shift the decoys into their strutting area and wait. Waited a while and nothing so I got up and circled down below and followed a trail a while. I came back to my buddy about an hour later and he said he heard the two gobblers pass up behind him gobbling away. If I had left him at his original spot, I likely would have bumped them right to him. Oh well, opportunity lost and lessons learned...or so I thought. Next morning woke up at 3am and headed down to the same spot, no gobbles and no sign. Decided to do some elk & deer recon in the timber above and came across a TON of sign and game trails. Marked the spot and kept walking, turn around and their is a tree stand all setup. I was thinking bow season in Sept but not sure if it is ethically wrong to hunt a spot with a tree stand setup. I figure they don't own the spot, who ever gets there first should have the right to hunt the spot. Any advice on that? We then headed up hill and hiked about 3km's up an fsr in 2-3 ft of snow; don't know what we were thinking but all we got was wet & tired. Headed back to camp after that and passed the hell out after doing our regular tick check, as we pulled around 50 ticks off us over the 5 days. Woke up around 6pm and went for a drive to a new area and came around a corner to a big Tom strutting around. He buggered off so we went up and inspected the spot. Drag marks, tracks, poop, feathers everywhere...this was his spot! We backed out and made a game plan for the morning. We woke up at 4am and left camp by 4:20 and got to our spot by 4:45am. Setup the decoys in his strut zone and got hunkered in, not knowing exactly where he had roosted for the night. 5:15 and gobbles rumble from the tree across the powerlines, right next to us. My buddy was facing him from his setup which may have given us away. I let out some hen calls but this was likely a mistake as it was pretty early and the Tom was likely wondering how hen's could already be down...I should have stayed silent. He pitched from his tree and flew way down the valley. Damn, he must not have liked something. We sat for a while and waited but nothing, decided to get our gear and pack up camp to head home. Get down to the truck and hear a gobble up the hill from where we just came. He circled around us and came in from behind, sneaky bugger. We went back up the hill with a .22 this time and poked around the corner with him right there 20 yards away looking right at me. He darted into the woods never to be seen again. This trip was a lot of fun and I enjoy the annual birthday hunt (April 14th birthday); learned a ton and hopefully won't make so many mistakes next time. I hope everyone else has better luck!! Cheers