Tagged out in Kansas

Rob and Lisa headed into Nick's place Wednesday night 4/11/12 after Greg and I headed back to Missouri from our successful first day. They were seeing a ton of birds still and Lisa and Nick had both tagged out before I got back to Topeka on Friday evening. 

Saturday 4/14/12 found Nick and I set up on several birds they'd scouted the day before. The birds were there, but didn't cooperate and quickly went the wrong direction with their hens. We worked several birds throughout the afternoon and got real close to two toms, but we couldn't close the deal. So over lunch we decided to setup in the same field we started the day in a try and catch up with the toms coming back to roost. We had a major front scheduled to arrive in the early evening, so Nick and I hauled in the blind and were in place at 3:30pm. The weather change was quick and before long we were sitting in a constant drizzle and very windy conditions. With zero sign of the turkeys returning to roost we climbed out of the blind around 7:15pm to check the field behind our setup. Sure enough there was a hen with a strutter in tow working the field edge. I went into sneak mode and started trying to close in on them. The hen picked me off early and bugged out, but the tom kept strutting and working towards where the hen entered the treeline at the opposite end of the field. I covered as much real estate as I could before running out of cover, but the tom was still a good ways out. I shouldered the 20 gauge and got the tom in the scope and cracked off my shot. The bird rolled and then regained his footing and flew away over the trees never to be seen again. 

We had some wicked storms roll through over night and the turkeys weren't cooperating Sunday morning. Nick and I had several hens and geese work through our spread in the morning, but no toms showed themselves. After a couple hours we decided to take the fight to them. Around 9:30am we got a text that Rob had just tagged out on two jakes with one shot, so we met up with them to celebrate and say our good-byes. 

After Rob and Lisa took off Nick and I decided to make one more pass through the Corp ground. We eased up on the field I hunted Wednesday morning and there were nine birds strutting with several hens about 3/4 of a mile off the road. We devised a game plan and headed down the west treeline. After about 20 minutes we'd got within 100 yards of the group, but the two biggest toms had worked the other way with some hens, so we were left with 7 jakes and a couple hens to work with. I told Nick that we'd come this far, so if I could sneak up the rest of the way I was going to kill one of them. Nick stayed put and I bailed off into the creek so I could cover more ground quicker than in the timber. I quickly made it to the spot I thought the birds would be and eased up out of the creek. The birds were about 40 yards away directly in front of me and right on the edge of the timber and field. I could have easily killed one then, but with the high winds I decided to push my luck and continued to close in on them. I got to 20yrds and the birds were still on the edge so I pushed my luck a little more and continued to inch forward. At about 7 yards I called it good and eased up to the back of a tree. Nick was calling to the birds and the biggest jake was in full strut right in front of me. After a couple seconds of watching the close range show I flipped the safety off and dished the strutter up a face full of lead! It was probably one of my best sneaks ever and having Nick watch the show just made it sweeter! In 5 days of hunting Kansas we had filled 9 out of 10 tags...all on public ground! I can't wait for the 2013 season!

Unfortunately I had a serious error in judgement when I returned home that afternoon and ended up cutting myself pretty badly while cleaning my bird. I was sitting on a cooler in the garage with the bird between my feet while wearing flip-flops. One slip of the knife, a trip to the ER, and 12 stitches in my left big toe later...I was going to be missing my first Missouri Turkey opener in 13years!

   

2012 Mo Turkey Gun Opener

The 2012 Missouri Spring Turkey opener was upon us. Pete has been lucky enough to have been hunting out in Kansas with our buddy Nick and was able to tag out there on 4/15/12. Our plan for the opener was to head out to of friend's small 80 acre farm in Oak Grove, Mo.


4/15/2012 
The day before the Mo opener found me out bright and early on a windy cloudy morning on a little scouting adventure. I arrived at the farm a bit late, but lucky for me the birds were pretty quiet until about 7:00am when they finally decided to wake up. Two toms were roosted in the northwest corner tucked away in a small 4 acre field which was almost the perfect location. The only bad thing is that there were a bunch of hens with them. Bring on opening morning!!

Around 10:30pm Sunday night I got a text from Pete saying that his big toe that he had to get 12 stitches in due to the Kansas bird getting even with him was killing him and he wasn’t going to make it. I told him he was basically acting like a little "School Girl" and to suck it up!

4/16/2012
Opening morning had finally arrived. I made the short drive to the farm and was fired up to get after them. My plan of sneaking into their bedroom worked for the most part and I ended up setting up 60 yards away from the roosted birds. The first birds that pitched down into my decoys were two hens. The gobblers were gobbling like crazy and my trigger finger was about to run out of patience waiting for the boys to pitch down. Unfortunately one of the hens decided to start working away from me and by the time she got just out of gun range the two gobblers decided to pitch down right to her. I worked them for almost an hour before finally they worked off to the main 40 acre field in the center of the farm.

At this point I knew that I needed to make a move. I found the flock in the middle of the field and the toms were strutting around nine hens and after glassing them for a few minutes trying to figure out how to set up on them I noticed that there was just enough of a hump in the field that I could try and make a sneak attack on them. I dropped my pack and started belly crawling. It was tough on a fat boy but after crawling 125 yards I finally made it into position. I slowly rose up and as luck would have it the hens were 30 yards and closing and the gobblers were strutting around 15 yards behind them.

They finally made a move towards me and when they got to about 35 yards I rose up again and let the Benelli bark....Kaaabbboooommmm!! Ole boy couldn’t handle a face full of pellets and tipped right over. Of course the less dominant bird decided to let his buddy feel his thunder and pounced on him for a couple of minutes before finally deciding to follow the hens out of the field. Awesome end to the Mo opener!!!

With me having 1 tag left and Pete with 2...it's time to get Big Pete healed up and on a Missouri Gobbler!!

Kansas Triple Play

4/11/12 - Nick Bales, Greg Cole, and me met up in Topeka, KS for the opening day of the Kansas spring turkey shotgun season. Nick and Greg had bow hunted some Corp of Engineers ground the previous weekend and were covered up in birds. We all picked a different area of the Corp ground to hunt for the morning and we'd planned to meet up around 11a.m..

I was pretty much going into my spot blind and I wasn't exactly sure where to head to first, so elected to hike in about 1.5 miles to an area that had open crop fields, timber, and big turn in the creek. At about 6:15am I was very happy with my decision, because 12-13 toms started to fire up on the roost with in 150 yards of my position. I worked inside 70yards of the first bird and got my decoys setup and settled in for the morning. The gobbling on the roost was amazing and around 6:45am they really fired up. The toms were hammering at each other and a mess of hens were also joining into the chorus of turkey talk. The first bird to pitch down was a long-beard and he immediately went into full strut and started heading my direction. He didn't make it 10yards before a group of 8-9 jakes pitched down between him and my decoys and proceeded to run the big tom off. The jakes stayed in and around my setup for the better part of an hour. I had several hens feeding in and around the spread also, but no big guys. It was an awesome first morning show and first hunt in Kansas!

Greg and Nick were both having a pretty sweet morning themselves. Greg was only about a mile east of me and he had several birds hammering on the roost also. He had 4 toms, a jake, and several hens pitch into the field he was set up on and around 7:30am one of the toms finally broke off and came into Greg's decoy. He didn't waste any time and quickly dropped the hammer on his first KS tom! Nick was about 2 miles south of us and was hunting a field they had seen birds in the weekend before, only he had some company today because some guy had a blind setup about 30 yards from Nick's hiding spot. The first bird into the field was a triple bearded jake and after strutting around for a few minutes Nick had seen enough and he smoked that dude. By the sounds of it the guy in the blind didn't know he was there and had a few choice words...I'm sure he probably needed a change of undies also.

The boys picked me up around 11:15a.m. and we headed into town for some gas. On the way in we were seeing toms all over the place, so after a quick fill up we headed back towards the Corp ground. On the way I spotted two toms sitting on the top of a knoll, but on Corp ground. We had drive about 2 miles to get around to them and when we drove by the knoll the birds were gone, but the spot they were in was actually a little island with roads on both sides of it. As we drove past Greg and I both spotted the toms on the back side of the knoll, but there were now 5 toms in the group. We didn't have much time to make a decision, so I had Nick drop me off in the ditch about 80yards down the road. There was a pretty good bank that allowed me to sneak up on the group quickly. Once I was inside of 30yards I'd run out of real estate to move. I could hear and see the birds in front of me, but the cover they were in was thick and I was going to have to do something else in order to get a shot off. I decided I'd just slowly stand up and see what happened. To my surprise there were now 7 birds in the group and they all stuck their little heads up when I stood up, but they didn't move. Instead they just stood in a big group trying to figure out what I was. As soon as the first bird separated from the group I smoked him! The other 6 toms all exploded out of the timber like flushing pheasants while my bird did the death flop. When I finally reached him I noticed that out of the 7 toms I'd just killed the only jake in the group, but what do you do...

It was an awesome day with good friends and a lot of turkeys. I'll be headed back to Kansas on Saturday to try and punch my second tag, then it's on to the MO opener on the 16th....gobble, gobble!!!

MO Gobbler Down + VECtor Down

Brian had been scouting a local KC property we have permission to hunt for the last two weeks on his way into work, without spotting a single gobbler. We killed a couple birds off the property last year and had seen birds using it in the early spring, but nothing as of late. I got a call yesterday afternoon from Brian and he said he’d spotted a gobbler in the middle of three fields on the property, so I made plans to be late to work this morning.

I had the blind set up and was ready to rock by 5:30am, so I just sat back and waited for the first gobble of the morning; that never came. Last year the birds were pretty tight lipped on this particular farm also, so I just started softly calling every 15 minutes or so. I’d just finished an x-rated calling sequence on the VECtor slate when I spotted ol’ redhead coming through the timber 100yrds south of the setup. He popped into the field and as soon as he spotted the strutter decoy I could tell he wasn’t too excited to charge in and get a whopping. He stayed near the edge of the timber and continued to work closer to me, but when he was about 70yrds out he cut back into the timber and I lost sight of him. I figured I’d go for broke, so I fired off several excited yelps on a mouth call and followed it up with some very aggressive cutting on the VECtor slate. It took all of 3 seconds before I could see his red head charging towards the field.

He popped out of the timber at 50yrds and locked up; he was giving the strutter decoy a serious once over before he made another move. I jumped on the VECtor slate with several more loud cuts when I heard a drastic change in the tone of the call. I looked down and to my horror the entire slat had cracked from side to side. I hurriedly reached for VECtor #2, but by the time I got it sorted out the tom had turned and was headed back towards the timber again. I fired off a couple more excited yelps on the new VECtor glass slate and the bird swapped ends and was headed back into the setup.

My plan was shoot him with my bow, but when he finally got into 12yrds he was behind one of the closed windows in the blind, so no shot opportunity. I held at full draw for about 90 seconds waiting on him to take a few more steps, but he never did. He finally decided something wasn’t right and turned to walk away. I let down my draw and quickly swapped the Hoyt out for the Nelli. A quick kee-kee and his head popped up; just in time to catch a load of #6s in the beak.

20lbs., 10 ¼” beard, matching 1 1/8” spurs

RIP Mr. Redhead & SAS-A-FRASS (my VECtor Slate) – at least she went out on a good note…..

Time for Brian and I to get cracking on bird #2 for each of us.....to be continued

MO Redemption

5/8/10 (Happy Birthday Pops!)- The 2010 MO turkey season has been difficult to say the least. Work has severely limited the amount of time I would have normally spent in the MO woods chasing gobblers this spring. Add a little bit of bad luck on top of that and I was facing my first MO season without harvesting a bird in tens years....luckily that streak will continue!

This story actually started two weeks ago. I was determined to harvest a gobbler with my bow this spring and have dedicated every hunt until this morning to accomplishing that goal. On the first Saturday of the season I had a dominate bird work into the decoys and right as I touched off the shot he took a half turn and my arrow shot right through his breast plate, but didn't put him down. To say I was dejected would have been an understatement. Since then I've had several birds working, but just couldn't seal the deal.

With only two days left in the 2010 Mo season, my game plan changed a bit. I loaded up the Nelli this morning instead of the bow and planned to be aggressive if the opportunity presented itself. I arrived at our new urban honey hole around 5am and slipped into the far west fields and waited for the MO morning to come to life. It was cool, clear and windy this morning and it didn't take long for the darkness to fade into early morning light.

At 6:20am I heard the first gobble on the roost and I immediately set off in that direction. My plan was to sneak within 100yrds. or so of the roosted gobbler and setup. I cut about half the distance between me and the bird in short order and let out a few soft clucks on my new custom VECtor glass slate call. Immediately the gobbler cut me off with a double gobble. He still sounded like he was a good distance off, so continued to move in on his location. What I didn't realize was that the wind made the ol' tom sound further away than he really was. I had covered another 80yrds. and snuck into a shallow ditch that ran between two green fields. I thought the bird should have been within 100yrds of me at this point, but to my surprise he was A LOT closer! I let out a couple of light purrs and clucks and the tom fired up about 35-40yrds north of me. I had some how manged to sneak into his bedroom without him picking me off.

I continued to lightly purr and cluck on the VECtor slate and the ol' tom continued to cut off almost every call with a thunderous gobble. After a couple minutes I heard a hen cluck and then four birds pitched out of tree 40yrds west of the gobblers location. They were all hens and they glided past my ambush spot about 50yrds. into the field. The tom continued to hammer on the roost and I knew it wasn't going to be much longer before he pitched down and started to round up his ladies. After about 2-3 minutes I finally heard his wings flapping through the leaves as he left his roost. He must have really liked my calling, because he pitched down within 17 steps of my setup, instead of following the hens. He landed and immediately went into half strut and I immediately took him right out of it. I don't even think he had a chance to get the morning dew on his feet before the Nelli laid the smack down on him.

He is my biggest turkey to date 24lbs., 12" beard, and 1 1/2" hooks. After taking some pictures and getting the bird tagged I noticed a wound on his chest. This is the same gobbler I hit with my bow two weeks ago...so there was a bit of redemption after missing him the first time.

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.

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.

Texas Whitetail/Hog Hunt 2008

We arrived at camp on Saturday morning (12/13/08) shortly before noon. Pete and I where hunting QV Ranch located just East of Throckmorton, TX. We would be targeting whitetail does, wild hogs, and anything else that was legal to shoot. "When in Texas you do as the Texans." After getting settled, stretching our legs after the 8 hour drive from Missouri and watching UMD win the DII National Football Championship we where off for our first evening hunt of the trip.

12/13/08 PM- We where hunting a new lease "The Hargrove" a couple miles north of the main ranch. The property was made up of a huge wheat field with some thick mesquite on the north end of the property. Pete and I hunted about 600 yards a part on each end of the mesquite patch. Both of us where hunting out of shooting boxes. We had temps in the 60's, mostly clear skies and light south winds. I had zero activity on the evening and Pete had a couple small bucks around his stand.

12/14/08 AM- We woke up to clear skies, temps in the mid 50's and a light south wind. We hunted another lease about 15 miles from the main ranch called the Jarman Lease. Pete and I both hunted here in February and saw lots of animals. Needless to say we where both excited to be back. Both Pete and I saw a lot of deer all morning long and could have shot several mature does. Since we had 2 ½ more days to hunt we held out and just watched the show. I had one nice 4 ½ year old buck that I grunted inside 50 yards. He ran off every deer in my area and even postured some cattle that where behind my blind. Along with all the deer I also saw a large coyote and a big bobcat. Neither of them offered me a shot. I was able to take my first Rio Turkey in the morning. At one point I had over 50 turkeys around my blind before I finally got a clear shot at a mature bird. Below is a picture of my TX Rio turkey.

12/14/08 PM- Pete and I hunted just south of the main ranch for our evening hunt. We had a slight south wind, temps close to 80 and clear sky. I was running the video camera and Pete was doing "most" of the hunting. On the way to our blind we bumped a large covey of Quail. Shortly after settling into the blind Pete saw a Monster Armadillo sneaking through the cactus to our left. Pete made room for me to slide into his window and I made an easy 40 yard shot. Varment #1 down. With about 40 minutes of video light left I noticed movement about 150 yards to our south. We glassed the brush and noticed 4 deer (3 does and a young buck) moving our direction. The buck broke off but the 3 does continued walking from south to the north. After a couple minutes the 3 does crossed about 80 yards directly in front of our blind. I stopped the last of the doe when it got centered in the video camera and Pete put a perfect heart/lung shot on the ol' girl. She held it for 30 yards before giving up the ghost. Our first Texas deer and first whitetail kill on video. Right before dark the wind switched to the north and picked up to 30 mph. Shortly after that the temp dropped from 80 degrees to 50 degrees in five minutes, and kept falling throughout the evening. Wind and cold would be the story for the rest of our trip. Below is a photo of Pete with his doe and my armadillo.

12/15/08 AM- We woke up to temps in the upper 20's and a north wind blowing from 20-30 mph. The wind was absolutely brutal! Pete and I where hunting together again in the AM but this time I had the gun and Pete had the video camera. Our morning hunt was back at the Jarman lease. As soon as you could see we where covered up in deer. At one point we literally had deer all around our box blind. There where several smaller bucks, one nice tall & wide 10 point and tons of does. After careful inspection of all the does Pete and I picked out our target for the morning. After Pete got some good video footage of all the deer I made an easy 45 yard shot on a big mature Texas doe. The 30-06 put her down in her tracks.

Below is a photo of me freezing with my first Texas whitetail.

12/15/08 PM - The wind picked up throughout the day and the temp kept dropping. Because of this Pete and I decided to shorten our afternoon sit and also hunt inside the fence at the main ranch. There is a large population of wild hogs on the ranch along with some African Plains deer. Owner Ben Koonce gave us the okay to kill an exotic doe if we wanted. The evening was pretty slow for me. I did see two sets of exotic deer but all of them where young bucks. Pete on the other hand, was covered up in critters all night long. Pete saw several fallow deer, black bucks, Rio turkeys and hogs. Pete was able to take a pure white Fallow deer doe on video and a huge 300# sow hog. Below are a couple pictures of Pete’s hog.


12/16/08 AM- The wind finally died down over the evening but temps remained in the 20's with clear skies. Pete and I setup together in the #2 box blind I killed my turkey in, at the Jarman lease. We where hoping for another parade of deer and turkeys so we could get two more kills on film. Instead we got zero. All we saw on our morning hunt was a small spike buck and 5 does cut through an opening about 130 yards to our west. Nothing else moved all morning.

12/16/08 PM- Pete and I where back at the Jarman lease for the PM hunt. On the way into the lease we saw several deer moving around. This was a good sign for the evenings hunt. The temp had warmed up into the upper 30's, we had clear sky and the wind was blowing from the south at 5 mph. We where back in the #4 box blind that I had shot my doe at the morning before. Shortly after getting settled the deer parade started. Right away we had a nice sized button buck work into 70 yards that nearly got shot. Pete and I went back and forth for several minutes trying to decide if it was a legal doe before finally getting close enough to see it was a young buck. That would be the story of the night. Every deer that worked into our blind for the first 2 hours was small buck or a button buck. Finally, with about 20 minutes of our hunt left, two mature does stepped out a 120 yards north of our blind. The Scentblocker suits earned their money as the deer were directly down wind from us and never had a clue Pete and I where in their world. After a good five minutes worth of glassing to verify the deer where not buttons I touched off a shot and made a perfect 120 yard heart shot. Slickhead thought about holding it for all of 10 yards before going face first into a cactus. That concluded out TX 08 doe/hog hunt.

12/17/08- Pete and I hit the road at 8 AM and headed for Missouri. I ended up making the entire trip all the way back to MN, because the entire family was sick. I finally black dogged into my driveway at 2 AM on 12/18/08.

Turkeys Farm #1