On the board! - Osceola

[POk3s]

Sitting in the airport with nothing to do for a few couple hours before I board the plane back to Wyoming where somebody posted a picture of their on dash thermometer reading -20. Even for Wyoming, that sure is cold for this time of year! I have tried my hardest to enjoy this 90 degree weather down here in south florida. Mornings were 65-68 and afternoons were 88-92. My body about went into shock!

Anyway, enough with that. This hunt was everything I hoped it would be. I showed up a few days early to scout and my first listening spot I was met with gobbles. I was met with gobbles on my second and third as well. I spent the vast majority of my hunt in this area really learning it and zeroing in on the habits of these hard headed Osceolas. I now understand what others tried to tell me. When I heard all the gobbling in my scouting mission I thought "hell they're just turkeys" but after hunting them I get it. I heard exactly 2 gobbles from birds on the ground. One was 40 yards from me and I had no clue he was there before hand, the other I was watching and calling to when he answered and I could barely hear it from 120 yards away. I also never heard an evening gobble. I simply hung with birds all day and waited for them to fly up before sneaking out. These birds just don't seem to let their guard down. They are always keyed up and always tentative.

Fast forwarding to the end of day 2 I called a bird into about 100 yards before he decided he wasn't going to cross that opening, and turned back. The morning of day 3 I was right underneath him. Birds to my south were going ballistic but he never gobbled. I had faith and stayed put. He finally flew down right beside me but I never even saw him, and he never made a peep. After softly calling for an hour or so I decided I'd chase the gobbles I heard earlier and come back after him later. After crossing a dry pond for another block of trees I sat down in a likely looking spot and said "screw this soft calling I'm going to get after it a bit". I thought that only because of the ruckus I heard a couple hours earlier. Hen talk, gobbles, complete mayhem.

I started with cuts and mixed in yelps accordingly. After one series I just sat there with my gun at the ready. After about 5 minutes I spot a gobbler headed towards me through the brush and tall grass. He's coming in perfect for a while but starts to drift to my left. I'm left eye dominant so swinging left is tough. He got to a point where I said "I can kill him there" and shortly after he raised his head to look around. I decided to take it. I shot and his head went down and came back up so I shot again, and he took flight across the brush and towards a line of pines. I was dejected. Completely heart broken. I had hunted hard, I had spent the money to be here, traveled here, etc. and there was my shot and I screwed it up. I hurriedly ran to where I last saw him and found exactly one feather in his path. I sat back down at the tree and cussed myself out some more for 10 minutes or so. I figured I better go look again because I felt like I couldn't have missed and that wasn't a very good effort in looking. Nothing. No sign of him. Finally giving up I went back to the tree, made sure I had everything and decided I'd head across another pond to try another group of trees and get over it. There, in my path, laid my gobbler. He must have really sailed far left and died in flight for me to have found him where I did. You also may notice he's nearly a full fanned Jake. It's one of those times where he must have shrunk after he died!  . It didn't much matter to me though as, in the end, it was a great hunt in a completely different environment than I'm used to, and I feel ecstatic and lucky to be coming home with an Osceola and completing my Public Land Grand Slam!

Trying to post pics below!

[POk3s]

https://ibb.co/PWP3Hyq
https://ibb.co/mDGxMPw
https://ibb.co/5ndbXC3

[zsully]

Congrats POK3s! Way to get it done early!!!! That's awesome!

[harleytom]

Congrats!


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[Yoder409]

CONGRATS !!!!!!!!!!!

Way to git r done !!!!

Sorry about the weather at home.  I've been watching eastern Wyoming's weather.  It hasn't been the best.  But it's coming back around now.

[Yoder409]

What county were you hunting down there ??

[Mossyguy]

Good deal man...congrats!

[twyatt]

CONGRATS!  Great bird, great story, and great pictures!!!

[Tom007]

Fannnnntastic......great job my friend......

[Meleagris gallopavo]

 Congratulations!  Well earned!


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[POk3s]

Thank you guys. It was an awesome experience that I'll now have to do at least one more time. The hunt was great and I'm happy with everything, he's just not the big beautiful, long spurred Osceola of my dreams and it feels like I have a bit of unfinished business. I'm sure you guys understand that!

Yoder, there have been a couple guys that were very gracious in helping me narrow down a place to burn my points in a public land area and expressed the want for me to not divulge too much. Being a public land Hunter out west, I fully understand their request, so I'm afraid I can't say . I will say I was in the lower third of florida. I wanted there to be no doubt it was an Osceola if I was lucky enough to kill one!

[Yoder409]

Thank you guys. It was an awesome experience that I'll now have to do at least one more time. The hunt was great and I'm happy with everything, he's just not the big beautiful, long spurred Osceola of my dreams and it feels like I have a bit of unfinished business. I'm sure you guys understand that!

Yoder, there have been a couple guys that were very gracious in helping me narrow down a place to burn my points in a public land area and expressed the want for me to not divulge too much. Being a public land Hunter out west, I fully understand their request, so I'm afraid I can't say . I will say I was in the lower third of florida. I wanted there to be no doubt it was an Osceola if I was lucky enough to kill one!

No apologies needed.  None WHATSOEVER !!!  I get it.

Last, year I was lucky enough to be on two private properties that would get anyone else arrested or shot.  Yet, county is as far as I'll even go with those.   Yep.

Lower 1/3 should definitely have gotten you the classic, pure Osceola.   I really wasn't even aware til I had one on the ground last year of how much Eastern influence the birds in the northern part of "official Osceola range" have.  I guess, for the NWTF's registration purposes or whatever.......there has to be a line SOMEWHERE.   But, I'd have been a little disappointed if I hadn't gotten to go on south and pick up one with the textbook look.

[POk3s]

Right, and further north you get the better the draw odds get, and seemingly the better hunting! So it's tough not to fall into the temptation to creep north. After a while I just had to get it in my head that I knew I wanted a PURE OSCEOLA HUNT without a shadow of a doubt, so that's what I did. Listening to their gobbles was spectacular, like an eastern losing his voice. Everything about them is just sneaky and quiet.

[Yoder409]

Right, and further north you get the better the draw odds get, and seemingly the better hunting! So it's tough not to fall into the temptation to creep north. After a while I just had to get it in my head that I knew I wanted a PURE OSCEOLA HUNT without a shadow of a doubt, so that's what I did. Listening to their gobbles was spectacular, like an eastern losing his voice. Everything about them is just sneaky and quiet.

Yep.   They don't make any habit outta gobbling on the ground.........THAT'S for sure.

First one was an afternoon bird.  Never gobbled.  Heard him spitting & drumming was the first sign he was there and coming.   Second one gobbled his nuts off from the limb.  It was HORRIBLE foggy so he stayed up a long time.  I pounded at him with a longbox.  He gobbled back.  I cut him off.  Nearly a half mile across a grass field, later, he appears out of the fog.  Not a gobble in between.

Ears turned on and head on a swivel to kill the goofy things, for sure.

[POk3s]

Right, and further north you get the better the draw odds get, and seemingly the better hunting! So it's tough not to fall into the temptation to creep north. After a while I just had to get it in my head that I knew I wanted a PURE OSCEOLA HUNT without a shadow of a doubt, so that's what I did. Listening to their gobbles was spectacular, like an eastern losing his voice. Everything about them is just sneaky and quiet.

Yep.   They don't make any habit outta gobbling on the ground.........THAT'S for sure.

First one was an afternoon bird.  Never gobbled.  Heard him spitting & drumming was the first sign he was there and coming.   Second one gobbled his nuts off from the limb.  It was HORRIBLE foggy so he stayed up a long time.  I pounded at him with a longbox.  He gobbled back.  I cut him off.  Nearly a half mile across a grass field, later, he appears out of the fog.  Not a gobble in between.

Ears turned on and head on a swivel to kill the goofy things, for sure.

Yep. The first morning of the hunt I got it surprised by one on the roost while heading towards a different bird on the roost. It all didn't work out, but I was back that afternoon sitting where he flew down that morning. After a few hours of lightly calling, I hear vrmmm vrmmm vrmmmmmm, directly behind me. I try to sulk down, pivot, and get prone under some palms for a shot. I never saw him and he faded away...