QV Ranches New Super Model

Above is a screen shot from the home page of QV Ranch in Throckmorton, TX . The new web page for QV Ranches has used a photo of Pete and his hog from December of 2008 on the homepage for the ranch. I would have used the picture of my armadillo kill, but to each their own. The new web page looks great.

Payback on two MO Gobblers

5/9/09 - With only 2 days left in the 09 MO turkey season I needed to get down to business to fill my last tag. I was in the rig on the road to Roger's by 2:30am Saturday morning. My plan was to walk all the way down the road and come in the backdoor on the gobbler I nicknamed the "Ghost of Gobbler Hollow", because he has up and vanished on us 6 times since last spring. Scott, Shana, and myself have all been within 20 yards of him and not been able to close the deal yet.

I was in his bedroom and setup in the bottom of his favorite haunt with plenty of time to relax, catch my breath, and let the woods come to life. We had some major storms move through MO on Friday and it must have grouped the birds up, because for the first time all year the Boss had two other mature birds, a jake, and several hens roosted with him.

The first gobble sounded off at 5:40am and the show only got better from there. Every time one of the gobblers sounded off the other 3 birds followed suite, it was impressive to witness, since I was within 50 yards of all of them. Hens started pitching down first and they all landed behind me in the bottom of the draw. The toms pitched down on the ridge top about 40 yards above my setup and continued to gobble feverishly every couple seconds. I was between them and the majority of the hens, so I thought it would be a slam dunk. The birds cut off everyone of my calls and after a couple minutes I could tell the jake and a mature gobbler had broke ranks and were headed towards my set. I spotted the mature bird first moving through the brush about 25 yards out. It wasn't the Boss bird I was after, so for the first time in my turkey hunting career I let a mature bird walk...I wanted the Boss. Both birds skirted the edge of my set up and worked back to the ridge top. After a few more minutes I could tell the birds had dropped off the opposite side of the ridge and were headed down to the fields.

I dumped my vest and left the decoys, I had to get in front of the birds before they could get out of the field. I ran down the ridge about 75 yards and came to an opening that allowed me to see the bottom fields, instantly I spotted all three toms strutting just on the filed edge. I couldn't get down to them without spooking them, so I went another 300 yards down the ridge and bailed off the hill towards the fields. The levee that runs north and south on the west edge of the fields provided the prefect cover to sneak the 400 yards down to them. The first 50 yards was smooth sailing, but the last 350 yards involved me crawling through 5-10" of water, mud, grass, and brush. I could hear the birds gobble every couple of minutes, so I just kept covering ground. After a very wet sneak I had finally reached the brush pile I'd used as a reference spot. I crawled up over the levee to the field side and got situated in the brush pile. The entire field was surrounded by water from the storms on Friday, so I knew it was only a matter of time before these birds would work back towards me and cross the levee in the only spot not holding water.

After getting situated I sat back and took in the show, what I didn't know is that it was going to be the turkey show to end all turkey shows. For the next 90 minutes the Boss strutted around the hen and wasn't afraid to show the other toms who the real Boss was. Anytime one of the subordinate birds tried to get near the hen of go into strut the Boss would run over and bump chests and peck at their heads. After about 50 minutes the jake and a one of the less dominate toms started to leave the field and their path took them with in 9 & 11 yards respectively of my setup. On any other day of any other season I would have smoked this mature bird, but today was about payback and I was going to hold out for the Boss or nothing. The hen and two other gobblers finally started slowly working my direction. After 20 minutes the hen had worked all the way to the opposite side of the brush pile I was sitting in. I could hear the toms drumming and finally the hen worked off the edge of the pile and past me at 4 yards, without having any idea I was in the world. She walked another 5 yards and started feeding and pruning. I could hear the toms moving closer but still couldn't see them, the first butterball stepped out at 5 yards followed by the Boss. By now they had both gone into full strut and were connected at the hip to each other. I couldn't shoot because I would have hit both birds, so I waited. For the next 6 minutes both these mature MO toms strutted, spit & drummed, gobbled, and bumped each other at 5 steps "something I'll never forget". I was starting to come unglued when the hen finally started to move north again. The less dominate bird broke strut instantly and took one step in her direction, before his second foot hit the ground I unloaded a face full of #4s on the Boss and he didn't even think about holding it...lights out!!!

So after 1 year and 15 days of him getting the best of us...I finally evened the score and tagged out for the MO 09 Turkey season. 24 lbs., 11" beard, 1 1/4" matching spurs.

After getting back to the rig and sorting out some pictures I looked at my phone and saw a text from Brian "big bird down, 5:48am", so I called him to get the scoop.

Brian had spotted this bird about two weeks ago the same morning he killed his first bird of the season. The tom was using the neighbor's bottom field to the west of our BS155 farm and had several lady friends with him. Brian contacted the landowner and got us permission to hunt the small 27 acre field this bird was calling home.

Last Saturday May 2nd we snuck into the field and setup were we thought the bird would have come through on his morning stroll. We had several birds roosted about 80yards in front of us, but by the time we realized there was no tom in the group it was to late. We heard him gobble twice about 70 yards southwest of our setup and them Brian saw him strutting on top of the rise. We never did end up getting on him that morning, but Brian would be back to try and even the score.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. I get a call form Brian at 4:40am and we briefly discussed our strategies and wished each other luck, since I was chasing the Boss in New Cambria. Brian worked down the creek bed we use to drop into the bottom field and as he cleared the field edge he noticed a large black dot about 25 yards away from him in a tree. After glassing the bird he made out a beard and decided to just take a seat. The tom had his head under his wing originally, but after a couple minutes Brian heard a "puck, puck, puck" and looked up to see the tom looking right him. The bird started to get more and more nervous, so Brian decided that lighting him up on the roost was his only option. Brian took aim and unleashed a furry of #5s on the roosted bird. The ol' tom went ass over tea kettle out of the tree and Brian had tagged out before the sun was even up, a full 8 minutes into legal shooting time.

21 lbs., 11" beard, 1" matching spurs.

Annandale Food Plot

5/9/09- I planted my food plot at the Annandale property on the morning of 5/9/09. I am guessing the plot is about 1/2 an acre in size. Below is a photo of the plot site. The plot runs from the orange snow plowing stakes to the right. I did run an extra row of seed to the left of the stakes. The rest of the field was planted in corn later saturday afternoon. We received some rain on friday night and are suppose to get some more showers the beginning of this week. Hopefully the plot will get a good start. I planted Evolve Habitat this year. The seed was a mix of Clover, Rye and Rape Brassica. After seeding the field I gave it a shot of 10-10-10 fertilizer. With any rain the plot should do well.

I also built a bridge to cross the creek on the south end of the property. This will allow me to slip in the back door of my finger set and get a crack at deer feeding on the interior field. The bridge doesn't look like much but is built like a rock. I need to replace a couple of the top boards later this summer. I ran out of treated lumber so I just tacked on a couple old boards to make the bridge usable until I can properly finish the bridge. **Note** Logan and I made it back to Annandale on 5/16/08 and finished the bridge. It looks sexy as can be.
Here is a photo of one of the deer trails that runs near my finger set. This was one of three trails that run with 35 yards of my stand. This is the reason I needed a back door entrance to the stand. Another reason is the farmer told me a real nice 10 or 12 made it through gun season. The farmer saw him twice last year heading into the section of woods I have my finger stand located.

I also checked my mineral stations and have already concluded that Mineral Rocks greatly out perform standard mineral blocks. Below is a photo of one of my rock sites. The photo isn't the greatest but there wasn't an inch of ground around the block that didn't have a track on it. There is plenty of deer sign in the woods.

MO Turkey - DeLany's Redemption

4/26/09 - Sunday morning started out gray and overcast with a major storm front scheduled to hit in the early A.M. Brad met me at the crib around 5am and he headed to the BS155 farm. We started out on the south end of the farm and our plan was to wait for the birds to gobble and move on them before they flew down from the roost. We heard a couple gobbles off to the south and a couple to the west, so we decided to go west and see what we could do. After reaching the west field the bird was still gobbling good, unfortunately he was on the neighbor's property. We could see him down in the bottom but he had 5 ladies with him and wasn't paying any mind to our calls. He eventually worked farther south so we decided to to cut our losses and try and strike another bird.

Brad had to leave by 9:30am for church, so I dropped him off and headed to the BS80 tract I got permission to hunt the other week. By the time I got to the farm the sun was out but the wind picked up to 25-30mph gusts. The property is bordered by the Lake City Ammunition Plant to the north and it's 8 foot security fence. As I was walking in I spotted a strutter and 2 hens to the south of the fence and knew if I could get into position the birds would have to pass me on one side or the other. I went straight into sneak mode and belly crawled into position. After getting set the 2 hens popped out and started feeding about 60yrds. in front of me and I knew it was only a matter of time before the big guy would make an appearance. The hens slowly worked past me and the big tom followed in tow, like he'd read the script. At 27 yards I let the boom-stick bark and the big guy didn't try to hold the face full of #5s I was dishing out.

I was jacked-up because of the my chip shot miss last Tuesday on a nice bird. Redemption was sweet and it got even sweeter once I rolled the bird over and noticed the 1 1/2" matching hooks this dude was sporting. This is by far the most mature bird I've killed 24lbs., 10 1/2" beard, and 1 1/2" spurs.


For the record the "Greatest Dad T-shirt" was in full effect again.

Thunder Turkey - MO Style

4/19/09- Brian and I headed down to Jimbo's early Sunday morning with hopes of scouting all of our properties and then going snagging at Taberville. We were greeted by rain first thing in the morning and it didn't let up until 2pm. The turkey scouting went great, we located several gobblers on our properties and saw birds out everywhere. Our plan was to set up a ground blind on the west treeline by the Yellow Barns after dark.

Our snagging trip didn't go as well! After launching the boat I went to park the rig and trailer. As I was coming back across the parking lot Brian was yelling at me to "bring the trailer back". Apparently the new prop wasn't installed correctly and it fell off into the river right after Brian fired up the motor. Luckily it happened when it did. All of the rain had the river running about 20mph and we'd planned to head down river. God knows where we'd have ended up!!!! We reconciled our losses and headed back to G-pond and got after some sunnies and bass.

We headed back to the Yellow Barns around 7pm after putting several slab sunnies in the cooler and listened for roosting birds. Around 7:45pm we heard several birds fly up to roost just NW of us. After the sunset we slid down the treeline and setup the blind.

4/20/09 - Opening day of the MO 2009 turkey season greeted us with clear skies and temps in the lower 50's with no wind. After getting to the blind and setting up we heard the first gobble around 6:40am and it didn't let up for the next 30 minutes. We could hear birds gobbling everywhere (60-70 gobbles total). We had one bird roosted about 75 yards west of us and he wasn't shy about letting us know he was there. After fly down we could hear several hens and the birds continued to gobble, but nothing came into our field.

Around 9:30am I couldn't keep Brian in the blind any longer, he had to go chase birds so he went to go grab my gun out of the rig while I stayed in the blind. At 9:40am a bird gobbled in the field just west of our setup. I could see 2 toms and a hen on the far west edge of the field, but because of the treeline it was tough to keep an eye on them. One of the toms gobbled at my calls a couple of times, but never came in. By the time Brian returned with the boom-stick the wind had picked up considerably (25-30mph) and it shut the birds down for the rest of the day. It was the first opening day we haven't killed a bird in 7 years (not counting the Rolla disaster). We did hammer the frying pan sunnies that evening though, so at least we had that going for us.

4/21/09 - Day 2 of the 09 season started off around 42 degrees with a slightly overcast skies and a slight breeze. Brian wanted to hunt on Glen's west property and I was going to setup in the ground blind again. The gobbling picked up where it left off from day 1. I had 3 birds about 150yrds. north of gobbling like it was the only thing they knew how to do. I heard several birds fly down around 6:50am and the then the hens started pouring into my field. The 3 toms continued to gobble for the better part of the morning, but none of them would cross the treeline and follow any of the 13 different hens that came into the field (3 bearded hens). The toms were responding to my calling and I had them fired up, but they wouldn't leave all them ladies.

Around 9am Brian called and we decided to meet down by the creek on the middle field and do what we do best "sneak" them thunder turkeys! After Brian found me we headed North about 75 yards and I called a couple times "gobble, gobble, gobble" about 100 yards north. We decided to cut the distance another 25 yards and call again. This time the bird was much closer and we decided they had to be coming down the west field edge "wrong". Just as we cleared the creek bank on the west field edge a tom exploded with a gobble on the east edge of the treeline. We both turned to see 3 birds outlined in the sun, necks extended gobbling and looking for that lady friend they just heard. Without saying a word we both bailed into the creek bed and crawled 40 yards through the understory until we were within 12 yards of the fence line. The birds were just to our right in the corner of the field, but our view was obstructed by a downed tree. I could see the biggest bird strutting in the field, but couldn't see the other 2 birds. Brian had a better angle and could see all 3 birds (2 toms, 1 jake). We could tell they birds were looking for that hen they heard, so we decided to putt a couple times and try to bring them down the fence right in front of us. Our plan worked, but not to perfection. After a few soft clucks and purrs one of the birds gobbled in our face and then they started working up the fence to us. We planned to smash both of the big toms when we got the chance. After a few close "shoot, no don't shot, shoot, I can't see him, shoot" Brian finally called a shot that we both had. I smashed my bird right in the face and he didn't even think about holding the #4s from 11 yards. Unfortunately Brian had to deal with a little more brush than me and his shot didn't connect, although he tried to bring the bird down a 2nd and 3rd time without any luck. I wished we could have connected on the double, but one bird is better than none and we put another solid sneak together on a Big MO Tom.

It was my biggest turkey to date 25lbs, 10" beard, and 1 1/4 inch spurs. It was a great start to the 09 MO season, now we need to get Delany on the board!

Note: Ralph killed his first bird in 6-7 years on 4/21/09 - 23lbs, 11" beard, 1 1/8 spurs.

MO SNAGGING - TEAM BIG FISH HUNTERS

TBFH 4/11/2009

Team Big Fish Hunters (Brian, Pete, and Nick) headed down to LOZ on 4/11/09 for round 2 of the spoony snagging season. We also had Brian's future step-father Allen aka- THE SQUIRREL on board our boat. We met Juddy, Linn, Brad, and Miller at the I-70-65 junction around 7:30am and headed south for a day full of sun, big fish, and Allen. We saw 30-45 stutters on the way down which got our blood boiling for next week gobble, gobble, gobble!!!!

We were on the water by 9:30am and were greeted by dense fog and about 50 other boats working the channel. The fog lifted quickly and we were treated to 68 degree sunshine and no wind for the rest of the day, it was a perfect day to be on the water.

Brian got the action started about 25 minutes in and the action stayed pretty consistent for the rest of the day. We ended up catching 8 fish on our rig with 6 keepers and The Marshall Boys also caught 8 fish with 1 keeper.

Brian led the way with 4 fish on the day and 3 of those went over 50lbs with largest going 65-70lbs. I ended the day with 1 keeper 35-40lbs. and 1 little guy 20lbs. Allen also caught two fish and Nick was blanked on the day. Miller also brought in a great fish on the other boat 65-70lbs, but I think Brian's fish was a touch bigger.

All in all it was another great day on the lake and we consistently landed more fish than any other boats around us. Dipsy Divers are Magic!!!!!

2009 Spring Pheasant Shoot

We headed to a pheasant farm in central MN on March 28. Denny has been taking me the past couple years for a birthday gift. Denny, Pops, Chad, Logan and I did the hunt......shooting. We ended up killing 14 birds (1 black pheasant). It was a fun day. Not much else to say since we where hunting pen raised birds. Thanks again to Denny for the great gift.

MO SNAGGING

We headed down to the Osage Arm of Lake of the Ozarks this past weekend to kick off the Missouri Spoonbill season. Team Big Fish Hunters (Brian, Nick, Joe, and Pete) arrived at Levi's cabin around 4pm on Thursday and were on lake within an hour. I started the action off with the smallest Spoony anyone had ever seen snagged and the first Spoony of my career. Joe and Nick each snagged fish later that evening.

From Friday - Sunday morning the entire group (Levi, Andy, Jericho, Danny, Glenn, Nick, Joe, Brian, Pete, Linn, Juddy, Miller, and Derrick) caught around 100 Spoonies total. The group ended up keeping 19 fish which weighed in around 1000lbs. It took a lot of beer and time to clean that much meat, believe me!

Brian ended up with the most fish caught with 12 total and I ended up winning the biggest fish prize when I snagged an 81 lbs. sow Friday evening. All in all it was an absolute blast hunting these giant fish and I can't wait until my next Spoony fishing trip. Thanks for the invite Brian, it was a blast!!!

FISH ON BITCHES!

1st Shed Hunt of 2009

2/21/09 - I headed out to the BS70 & BS155 farms to look for sheds. I started out on the BS70 farm and walked the north fence and then headed south down the east field edge. I didn't make it all the way into the cedar trees, because of the stiff wind and cold temps. After about an hour of looking I spotted my first shed along the east field edge. It's the right side of a decent 8. Should be a good deer this fall.

I spent about 20 minutes looking for the other side, but to no avail. I need to get back and walk the remaining field edges and kick through the cedar thicket.

After I finished on the BS70 farm I headed across the road to the west side of the BS155 farm. I walked down the field break and headed south along the creek bottom. I didn't locate any sheds, but I need a 2nd person to cover the area completely. I did kick up about 35 turkeys near the NW pond. After making to the south property line I cut back east and walked through the top end of the field. I had a woodchuck stalking me for about 5 minutes, before he finally went about his own business. I thought I was going to have to defend my self twice, because the chuck looked like he wanted to charge. After finishing our brief standoff I headed over towards the dried east pond. As soon as I crested the pond dam I spotted an antler in the dried mud, as I worked towards that shed I spotted another antler about 15 yards away in some mud and grass.

It was a pretty good start to the shed hunting season. I'm going to try and get back out to both farms this weekend. hopefully it will be warmer with less wind.

Late Season Squirrel

Logan and I snuck out for a quick afternoon squirrel/rabbit hunt on Sunday morning. We arrived at the Annandale property around 11 AM. The road was snowed in so we had to walk in from the main road. The deep snow made tough walking for Logan. We saw a few squirrels right off the bat but Logan had first shot. By the time the BB gun barked the squirrels where running for the hills. We walked up on a nice doe while walking to the center stand. We climbed up in Mike’s big box stand to glass for squirrels. I spotted a fat squirrel after about 5 minutes of glassing and the stock was on. I got to about 25 yards and let the 12 gauge bark. Shot #1 knocked the squirrel off his branch but the little guy held on with one paw. He was trying to hold it! Shot #2 put him into the next tree. He didn’t even think about it this time! We saw lots of sign in the woods but no more squirrels or any rabbits. Fun afternoon. The picture below is of the squirrels teeth. Obviously a 4 ½ year old.