If you don't feel like a long read.............skip to the photos.
I had the chance to hunt with a couple new turkey hunters, father and son, on Friday and Saturday. They had drawn limited tags on a big private ranch near the Spanish Peaks just west of Aguliar, CO. They already had been our four or five days without any luck, so were seeking assistance. The son posted their delima on Bowsite. I responded thinking wow, the chance to hunt a big private ranch that I may never set foot on otherwise and meet new hunters..........I'm in. Volunteering to show someone the ropes is begging for a good dose of humble pie, but come on.........20,000 acres of private land with lots of turkeys and no more than 20 tags issued........piece of cake......right? Even if this was the last weekend, everyone knows that all Merriam's are easy.
One of the two Spanish Peaks
The Sangre's
I've heard it and said it myself........"the toughest thing about mountain birds is finding them, killing them is the easy part". That didn't prove to be the case on Friday and Saturday. We saw several toms and jakes grouped up and feeding with no interest in calls. The few lone toms or pairs we found had one or two hens with them. I swear someone must have dropped an Eastern off and he's been coaching these birds.
On Friday morning/ Thursday night I drove 185 miles to Agulair to meet up with the father and son.we started off in a canyon that had plenty of tracks on the two track and looked great, but didn't hear a peep. We had to be back to check in with the ranch manager by 8, so I could get officially signed in as a guest. After meeting with the manager before he started a long day of branding cattle, we headed back out to find a tom that wanted to participate. The first bird we heard gobble was at 10:30. He lit up at the first four or five times in a row at my calls then went silent. The last time we heard him he had moved down the canyon and never made another peep. On to find something else.
We managed to see a few hens by noon, but that was it. We decided to head back and set up camp then get back out. However, before we got back we had a tom litterally gobble into our window from about 25 yards up the hill as we drove past. Shock gobbling at a car makes me think.......hot bird....lets park down the road, backtrack in the timber and call him in. After 45 minutes of calling........nothing, except a hen that yelped her way to the top of the mountain. Assuming the gobbler had been in tow, we stood up and there was another hen with the tom at about 70 yards. The hen spotted us, but the tom had no clue. As the hen hot stepped it up the mountain the tom was trying to keep up, but would gobble at everything I did. The tom ended up gobbling past the father at 35 yards, but his positioning would not allow him to get turned to shoot. We tried one more move on the tom, but he went silent again once he caught up to the hen.
A short drive down the road toward setting up camp found us looking at a group of approximately 10 turkeys, two toms and the rest jakes. We tried to move ahead of them for a set up, most likely an ambush, but it didnt' work out. Again on our way to set up camp.
Our simple camp
Father and son
After setting up camp it was getting to be late afternoon and we decided to go sit near a big food plot that had lots of turkey scratching in hopes that a tom would wander through on his way to roost or at least we could hear a bird to hunt in the morning. On our way we spotted the big group moving toward the same location we set up on the Window Tom. We moved to get ahead and attempt calling them in, or an ambush since they were not interested in love. The managed to slip by us completely uninterested, but out of sight of the two hunters. Back in the truck to our original plan. Again.......on our way we spotted two toms w/ a hen lounging in the scrub oak. We also spotted a lone tom with a hen doing the same just down the road when we were sneaking around for a set up on the two toms. The lone tom and hen had us pegged, so we ignored them and made our way past a gas well (noisy things) and slipped over a cut bank to see if the birds were still there. We couldn't see them, so the two slipped over and set down and I yelped. One of the toms gobbled from no more than 50 yards just over a rise but more uphill than we expected. The father looked at me and I motioned to point uphill. However, he misunderstood my motioning and got up and moved uphill 10 feet or so. No more gobbles. I was frustrated that I had misqued him. The son had seen the bird boogey uphill at 40 yards through the thick trees. On to the foodplot. Nothing except a hen that clucked for an hour and a half straight and one tom gobbling occasionally on the next ridge over and me shivering from not wearing enough layers for the evening. The previous three toms did give us hope for the next day.
Now working on a half hour of sleep from the night before, I was ready to inhale whatever food was offered and hit the sack. I slept well expcept for the howling wind. I went back to sleep wondering if I had parked my truck in such a way to block the tree next to my tent if it fell. Everyone's alarm failed and instead of 3:45 we were up at 4:15. After a quick breakfast of oatmeal and poptarts we were on our way. Unlocking and locking the gates as we went were the biggest time hogs of the drive. Instead of the big canyon from the night before we stopped where we had seen the big flock of toms and jakes and Window Tom......a gobble from the tree after three rounds on the owl hooter. Forty five minutes later and no gobbles or indication of any interest from this tom and we decided it was some of the same from the big flock that had apparently went into summer mode. I swear guys.......I've called in at least one bird before.....honest. Off again to the canyon to find an interested bird.
On our way we spotted a big black bear crossing the road with the smallest cub any of us had ever seen. The cub was no bigger than a small beagle, but was able to run straight up a steep incline to keep up with momma. I could not get the camera out fast enough, or I'd have photos. We spotted one tom once at the canyon near the same location as the two from the previous evening. We set up on the ridge and called for a while then worked the ridge hoping we could get a response..........nothing but heavy wind. By 9:30 and after several attempts to raise a gobble, we found ourselves at the same location as the 10:15 gobbles from the day before. One short series of yelps and an immediate response........OK.......game on...lets make him pay for yesterday's humiliation. It was worse this time.........he never made another peep and never showed up. I swear guys.......I've called in at least one bird before.....honest.
Now on the road for some lunch, we spot five turkeys in a field, two toms and three jakes. We also see a couple hens behind them in the timber. We hide the truck and move around and into the timber to call. No response from them, but a bird gobbles farther away on his own. We move to set up on him and immediately have a hen yelping at us. I try my best to upset her. I succeed in making the tom gobble over and over like a normal Merriam's and make the hen yelp a lot, but they move like Easterns slowly toward us then hanging up and moving back again. We moved several times on this bird and had him as close as 50 yards, but out of site. I threw everything from keekees to cutting to no calls at all at him and got the same response........lots of gobbles but no movement. Three hours into the whole endeavor and he finally decides he'll just quit altogether. I know he sounded like a Merriam's, but I'm not stupid......an Eastern transplant. I swear guys.......I've called in at least one bird before.....honest.
It's now 2:30, we are all tired and hungry, but camp is 30 minutes away after dealing with the gates and we wanted to be in the scrub oak to try and call in one of the previous day's loungers at the scrub oak. We decide to suck it up and eat the few things we had in the car and stick it out until sundown (approx. 8pm). We decided to split up. The father would hunt where we saw the single tom with the hen and myself and the son would hunt where we saw the two toms with the hen. The plan was to sit patiently, call sparingly, and sit up a couple decoys on the edge of the canyon floor so that if a tom entered farther down, he may come to investigate. All of these go against what I'm accustomed to, but the usual wasn't working and I wasn't accustomed to hunting the evenings either. We were almost to our set up spot and realized I had left the two dekes. I normally would have said forget them, but for whatever reason, decided to go back and get them.
We got set up and waited........calling between naps. Two full days of hunting hard and a missed night of sleep had me fighting to stay awake, so I layed on my side and went out completely for a nap. Back awake, I called occasionally. At 5:30 or so I'm thinking.....my butt may not survive until 8 like this, so I lay back on my back again......besides.......I'm not doing the shooting. I hadn't been layed back for more than a moment when a bird gobbled up the mountain from us a 100 yards. I sat up and called, again sparingly, with no response. It had been 30 minutes or more with no response to my calling, expecting the bird to sneak in behind us and bust us. Myself and Joel spotted the tom at the same instance. He was straight ahead and had came out of the timber farther down out of sight and had just came around a bend of the scrub oak. He was on a steady walk straight to the decoys. I know Joel's heart couldn't have been racing any faster than mine. We had hunted hard with little results, and I really thought we were probably done. The bird was shining in the late afternoon sun and his head was as blood red as any I've seen and there was no doubt that his steady path was going to put him down the barrel of Joe's shotgun. When the bird hit 35 yards, the big 3 1/2 echoed down the canyon and the bird dropped like a sack of bricks. Other than a slight wing quiver after the shot, the bird never flopped once.
The amount of exitement this one bird brought at the 11th hour for not only the new turkey hunter with only one previous jake under his belt, but myself is indescribable. Joel's dad was immediately on the radio to check in and couldn't bring himself to stay seated. He had to see this grand bird and congratulate his son. We took multiple photos and then met him at the truck to tell and retell the story.
We threw in a last ditch effort to find a bird in the last hour of shooting hours, but it didn't pan out. It didn't really matter, the hunt had become a success and the perspective on the previous hunting went from disappointment to enjoyment.
We packed up camp once back at 9 and the guys got checked out with the ranch manager. We said our goodbyes, thankyou's, and contratulations , and I made the four hour drive home to arrive at 2 am. I had planned to stop at a WMA and hunt the final day with my own tag on a SWA and National Forest, but decided I would call it a full CO season and go home for some much needed rest and just wait for the final Hoooray in NE.
The hunt turned out to be tougher than I expected, but probably more rewarding because of it. I also met two great people that I hope to get to hunt with more in the future. I may have scarred them for life with my methods, but I'm sure they'll work into their own way of killing birds before too long.
