MO Turkey Opener

4/21/08 - Brian and myself started the MO 2008 turkey season out at Green's Farm in southwest MO. The first morning started out with a bang. The blinds I placed several weeks ago had blown down during the storms we had the week earlier, so our first line of business was to try and locate them. After finding the blind about 100 yards down the tree line and resetting it, it was finally time to hunt. The temps were in the mid 60s with overcast skies and a slight south wind. We only heard 4 gobbles on the roost, but nothing close. We had scouted the night before and watched 6 big toms strutting in the field we were set up in.
Around 8:30am we finally heard several gobbles from the east field, and the game was on. The toms were fired up gobbling at almost all of our calls. The first bird entered the field about 300 yards to the north then a second, third, fourth, and fifth bird followed suite. All of them were big toms and they waisted no time closing the distance on our position. It was awesome to see all of them strutting, spitting, and gobbling the whole way in. I was hunting with my Hoyt and Delany was supposed to be running the video camera. I ended up filming the birds until they were about 40 yards out, and then handed the camera over to Brian (big mistake!!!!). The birds came right into the set and then everything went down hill, and fast. Brian couldn't get the camera on the birds and was moving the camera all over the joint, all the while I had 5 toms strutting between 14-22yards. Brian finally got the camera sorted out, and then knocked the camo cover off the camera. The fist bird of the group saw this and the gig was up. All the birds started bugging out and I had to hurry a shot at about 33 yards. Unfortunately I didn't account for the blind being unlevel and my arrow hit right below the shooting window and missed the bird. Brian proceeded to try and take a shot with his gun, but forgot to click his safety. He finally got it sorted out, and took a fleeting attempt at about 50+ yards. The only thing that accomplished was educating all 5 of the birds.
We didn't have any action for the rest of the day, and couldn't get a bird to gobble at any of the farms we went to.
What should have been a great day in the turkey woods ended up being one of the biggest disaster in my hunting career.

4/22/08 - We headed back out to Green's farm for the second day of the MO turkey season and hoped our luck would be a lot better than the previous day. We had decided to hunt the north field, and got to the farm extra early in order to make the long walk up there. A storm front had moved through the night before and there was an unbelievable lightening show to our north. We reached our setup and as we were putting out the decoys the first bird gobbled on the roost not 150 yards from our setup. The temps were still in the mid 60s with south winds, but the turkeys decided to gobble early and often today. We had two big toms roosted right off the field and they gobbled at everything. Around 6:50am I spotted a bird roosted about 70 yards from. It pitched into the field and landed about 20 yards out from the decoys, unfortunately it was a jake. He came straight into 7 yards and decided something wasn't right. About that time the 2 toms pitched down and landed right on the field edge, and instantly began to strut and gobble. The jake started to putt and I think that prevented the toms from committing to the setup. They just worked their way north gobbling the entire time.

Around 8:30am we decided to make a move and worked our way north east through the creek bed. We struck a bird about 9am and he was about 60 yards in front of us in the bottom. We set up and started calling. Two more birds responded and the game was on. The birds acted like they weren't going to move, so I decided to work around to the south and sneak up on them through the creek bed. The birds were gobbling the entire time and around 10am I had finally made it about 30 yards from their location. The underbrush was thick and I was trying to get a visual on the birds, when I heard Brian calling directly north of my position. He decided he didn't want to sit at the first location and snuck down the north edge of the bottom. About two minutes later Brian shot twice and showered me with BBs from about 50 yards. He got the bird, but I chewed his ass for not staying put and almost shooting me. I wasn't very happy about the whole situation.

Turkeys Farm #1

April 13th Pheasant Farm Shoot

I went to Gold Meadows Pheasant Farm on 4/13/08 for a little spring time shoot. Our group of 3 bought a total of 12 birds and we bagged all 12. Above is a picture of Logan with a couple of the birds and below is another of Logan cleaning his first pheasant. Get after it boy!

2008 MN Starling Season Starts With A Bang

I made it out for my first Starling hunt of 2008 on Sunday afternoon (4/6/08). The wind was blowing from the south at 10-15 mph, overcast skies and light rain. Because of the weather I decided to hunt from the kitchen blind at my parents "farm". Right off the bat I had several Starlings come into my feeder. Finally after 2 or 3 minutes I had a hen starling give me a 13 yard broadside shot and I just happened to have a hen tag in my pocket. Smack! Hen starling pinned to the ground.

5 minutes later I missed on a mature male starling before getting out of my blind to go shoot at the Gander Mountain Range. I returned to the kitchen blind around 4 PM to hunt the late afternoon. After 5 minutes I had a couple starlings come into my feeder, but none where shooters. I had a perfect wind so I was undetected. Finally, the Starling I had been dreaming my whole life about dropped from out of the trees and under my feeder. I came to full draw, but the starling stepped behind the feeder. I stayed at full draw and waited for what seemed like hours for my trophy to give me a shot. Finally the Starling cleared the feeder. I took careful aim and "Smack!" My first record book bird was lights out immediately!

As you can see I got great penetration with my cabelas field tip and Carbon Express Maxima Hunter arrow. They are a lethal combination when teamed up with a Hoyt Vetrix and I highly recommend that setup when hunting record book Starlings!

My first "book"bird and a great start to my 2008 starling season!

Buck Masters Article "Double Jokers"

http://www.buckmasters.com/bm/Resources/Articles/tabid/135/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/736/Double-Jokers.aspx

The ablove link will direct you to the Buck Masters article about the 2006 harvest of the "Double Jokers" first P&Y buck.

TX Hogs

This is a picture of the the boar I shot on 2/3/08 at QV Ranches in Throckmorton, TX. I stalked to within 4 yards of this pig before taking the shot. Do you smell pork chops!!!! See Scott's post below for the hunts details.

Thats how you do it in Texas boy!

Headed down to Throckmorton, TX from Feb1-3 for a couple days of Hog Hunting, sun and relaxing. We hunted QV Ranches which is a high and low fence operation. The ranch made for a great hunting camp. They had good accommodations, great food and good ole down south hospitality. I would highly recommend the ranch to anyone looking for a Hog, Turkey, Quail, Deer or Exotic hunt.

We showed up to camp around noon on Friday, Feb 1. After sighting in our rifles and relaxing we headed out for the evening hunt. Everyone saw plenty of wildlife and Rod took an all black hog. Rod's hog was a perfect eater and weighed around 75 pounds. Pete had a huge 10 pt. buck about 60-75 yards from his stand for nearly an hour.

Saturday morning was crisp and clear. Pete, Rod and I hunted a low fence ranch about 15 miles west of the main ranch. The rest of the crew stayed and hunted the main ranch. We saw tons of whitetail on the low fence property but no hogs. No shots where fired at the main ranch either. Pete and I went for a ride to check coyote traps with owner Ben Koonce in the afternoon. Ben dropped us off in a creek bottom and told us to spot and stock our way through the creek bottom. After 15 minutes Pete dropped the boom on a pair of piglets with one shot. Pigs took off running everywhere after the shot. I took the gun from Pete and had a good size hog come out of the creek bottom about 2 minutes after Pete shot. I took a quartering away shot and put the all black pig instantly in the dirt. Later that night Pete and I hunted together hoping to get some footage of a kill but had no luck. Only animal we saw was a horse. Brian shot a hog similar to the size of Rod’s. 3 "official" hogs down so far.

Sunday morning was also slow. Pete and I did spot 6 hogs sneaking through the broom weed about 250 yards to our south. Otherwise we saw plenty of Whitetail, a Black Tail Buck and a group of Axis Doe. Around 8:30 we started to stalk for pigs. Finally ran into a good group around 11 AM. Pete put a nice Black hog down and we could have had several more if the Broom weed wasn’t so thick. Brian also got two more hogs while stocking the other side of the ranch. Overall we ended up killing 6 hogs.

Overall it was a fun hunt, but a bit slow on hog movement. The hogs where tough to see in the broom weed and seemed to only feed late at night. The guides at QV did all they could to get us on hogs, but it just wasn’t in the cards. I look forward to hunting QV Ranches in the future.

MO Duck Shoot

12/21/07 Jimbo's West Side

Me and Brian hunted The West Side this morning. Brian and Kevin's group shot 33 birds last Friday, so with the cold front moving in we decided to give the field anothr shot. The wind was SSE about 4-7 mph with clear skies and 26 degrees. We hunted on the SE side of the main channel. Brian broke open a 40 yards hole in the ice using his 4wheeler and we put out 18 mallard decoys, 1 jr. mojo, and 18 canada field decoys.

The moring started out slow but around 9:15am flocks started pouring in every 8 - 15 minutes. The shooting started out poor, but I regained my form with the new Benelli after 2 flocks. The birds worked right into the spread. The bigger flocks were pretty shy, but the flocks of 5-20 birds would circle 2-3 times and drop right in. It was a solid shoot and nice to get back after the ducks. I wish Q could have been here, it was a perfect setup for him!!!!

MO - Antlerless 12/15 & 12/16 2007

12/15/07 AM North MO Property
We had a cold front move in Friday evening and it brought 2-3 inches of snow, cold temps, and a strong NW wind. Me and Scott hunted the S side of the main road in the a.m.. Scott set up on the Beach and I hunted the Middle Pond. Around 9:30am and after not seeing anything moving, I got up and walked the North Road. There was very little sign in the snow, so the deer must have been held up waiting for the weather to break. I was slowly working down the road checking every draw for any sign of deer. I was about 50 yards form the Tri-fecta set when I spotted a young deer about 40 yards S of me down the draw. I dropped to one knee and steadied the rifle for a shot. I pulled the trigger and a cloud of snow shot up in front of me and the deer was just standing there looking around. I looked over the scope and got the answer almost instantly. There was a small branch in front of me and I shot right through the middle of it. I chambered another round raised up a bit and took another shot, this one hit the mark and the deer ran about 30 yards before piling up. As I was watching the first deer run off 4 more deer that must have been bedded down exploded out of the draw without offering any shots. As I started to lower the rifle a 5th deer bounded out of the draw and stopped were the 1st deer had stood only seconds earlier. I settled the cross hairs and squeezed off another shot, which landed right in the boiler-room. The big doe ran back into the draw and piled up in a dead fall going out the other side. Two more deer for the freezer!!!

12/15/07 PM (Logan's 2nd deer hunt)
Logan, Scott, and myself hunted the N Meadow ground set this evening. The wind was howling, snow was falling, and the temps were bottoming out. Logan fell asleep after about 40 minutes of watching the snow fall. Around 4:15pm he woke up and wanted to go home (over heated??). We finally decided to pack it in around 4:30pm because Logo wasn't happy. I had made it about 10 yards out of the blind when I saw 4 deer coming out of the N wood lot to feed. They spotted me at the same time and bounded back into the cover. I crawled back to the blind and Scott hurried across the meadow. It was almost last shooting light and he took a shot at one of the does back in the timber. We searched for about 30 minutes without finding any sign, and decided to come back 1st thing in the morning.

12/16/07 We walked all over the N wood lot with no sign of a hit from the night before. We jumped 5 does out of the NW corner. Scott missed a doe we kicked up off the main road and also missed a coyote on the run going out of a draw. He wasn't very happy!!! In all it was a good weekend of hunting. My season total is up to 8 deer (new personal record) and hopefully 1 more with the bow if everything works out.

MO Antlerless 12/8/07

Brian and I hunted the North MO property on opening day of the 2008 MO Antlerless Season. We had freezing rain and snow Thursday 12/6 and the forecast was for more of the same later today. Winds where out of the E - NE at 15-20mph and the temp was 26 degrees. We arrived just before legal shooting time and planned to still hunt into the sets. Brian hunted the Wheelhouse Set in the S meadow and I was going to hunt The Beach set.

You could see for several hundred yards into the timber with all the snow, so I was taking my time going down the main road. I only made it about 90 yards when I spotted a deer on the opposite ridge just S of the barn. I sat down in the road, got a steady rest and took the shot. The deer snow plowed about 10 yards then flipped over backwards and slid down the hill. LIGHTS OUT!! I ranged the fence after I shot and it was a 148 yards.

There were a bunch of deer & turkey tracks at all of the usual crossings on the road. The Beach bottom was covered up with tracks and sign from the last 24 hours. About 30 minutes after getting setup I pickup movement to the E coming off the meadow. It was a young doe. She worked in behind a big dead fall at 85 yards and then I lost sight of her. I figured she had bedded down and was just going to sit there for the morning. About 15 minutes later I picked up movement again near the dead fall and a 2nd young doe jumped in front of the dead fall and started milling around. I was watching her through the nocs when I noticed the 1st deer stand up and start to work North. She fed into an opening about 90 yards out and I took the shot. Deer 2 down in her tracks. The other doe ran past the downed deer and stopped about 5 yards further north. I had a perfect head/neck shot and let 30-06 bark. She ran in a circle and stopped almost in the exact spot she had just been standing only a little farther N and in a good opening. I took another shot and she piled up where she stood. 3 deer down in about 55 minutes.

Brian, who had already packed it in for the morning after a solid 45 minutes of hunting, was already heading my direction and was almost at the N tree line of the meadow when I shot. I sent him to get the four wheeler. When Brian returned we loaded my 2 deer up and were heading to get the first one when I spotted a big deer standing on the bank of the Middle Pond. Brian hopped off the 4 wheeler and took a shot. "Spinebuster", the big bodied deer dropped in it's tracks. Brian's deer was just another memorable disaster in a long list of his blunders in 2007 and throughout his hunting career.

Overall it was a great morning with the fresh snow, cold temps, and a new personal record of 3 deer in a day (Actually under an hour). Roger was very happy about us taking the does and I told him we'd be back up next weekend with Logan, for hopefully another good doe shoot!