Man, what an exciting and special past few days I have had. Last Friday, I graduated from law school. I ended up being a lot more proud of graduating than I anticipated. My family came down the night before and stayed. We went out to eat, and all that good stuff. On Friday, graduation was at 10:00am. I had packed mine and Maggie's bags and we were sitting on go. After graduation, I did all of the picture taking and grinning and all the jazz that comes with it, but I was about to bust at the seams to get on the road.
We left Greenwood about 4:00pm on Friday. We struck out for southern South Dakota. Somewhere around 20 hours later, we arrived. We got situated in our motel, and struck out about 3 pm on Saturday to hunt. This was my wife's first turkey hunting trip. I was dead-set that she would kill her 2 birds before I even pulled the trigger. As a matter of fact, on Thursday, my good buddy Morgan gave me a FINE teak pot for graduation. I realized that it wasn't signed and in our normal banter, I told him to sign it or I didn't want it. He told me he wasn't signing the pot until I called up Maggie a turkey with it.
#1
So, we hop out at the first drainage/draw we get to. It was hot and I figured they'd be along this little creek in the shade and come past us to some ag fields. Maggie and I sat down and I pulled out the pot and ran it. Then I pulled out some new mouth calls I got for graduation from a new friend and a member on here, Spurcollecta. [cool] I ran them. We just sat back and kind of relaxed because we were finally out of the vehicle and just going to enjoy the afternoon. Not 2 minutes after I had called I saw something dead ahead of me across the creek. It was 3 red heads coming through the woods, up the opposite side of the creek we were on, at a sho nuff clip! [blink] I eased my binoculars up and could tell one was a longbeard. They came into 40 and eased off, with no shot. I told Maggie to get herself situated facing up the creek in the direction I was facing. BUT, right before I told her that, I cutt and gobbled on my new mouth call. As she was easing her gun barrel my way, I about soiled my pants. Standing in full bloom 30 yards away just across creek was ol long whiskers himself. He couldn't take it anymore and flew the creek. When he topped the hill, he was at 15-18 yards and I could hear Maggie say, "you gotta kill him." So, even though I didn't want to, I did. [cool] She loved it and we had our first Merriam's on the ground together in under 30 minutes.
A 2yo with typical Merriam's stats. 1/2" spurs and 7 3/4" beard.
Maggie did take a picture with the teak slate Mo made me though. For some reason, she thinks he is a good guy. [notagain]
Mouth call I used that my ol buddy Spurcollecta hooked me up with.
#2
This hunt is one of, if not, my most memorable hunt. A little background. Maggie has watched me kill 4 or 5 longbeards in Mississippi and for one reason or another hasn't gotten to close the deal. Well, ten or so years ago, Maggie's brother unexpectedly had a heart attack and passed while working a summer job, at only 16 years old. Well, I decided to get his Mossberg 835 and clean it up for her and get it working good because it hadn't been fired since his passing.
So, the first morning out, about 11:00am we struck out after 4 strutters. They came into a drainage we were setup in, and it got HOT. They were just over a rise in shotgun range and gobbling their brains out. I decided it was time to make a move. We tried to circle around them. While doing so, they gobbled and about knocked us down. We ended up having to lay prone for over an hour. For the majority of the time, we could see the birds in range, but they would only move to the shade when the sun would move. They were very content on staying cool and gobbling us up. After about an hour, the 4 couldn't stand each others company anymore and one broke off. Luckily for us, he walked into a perfect hole for Maggie to shoot in. She let her brother's 835 roar and she got her first longbeard, and with her brother's gun.
#3
This was the coolest hunt to me of the entire trip. Maggie and I dropped off in this long creek drainage and started our way up it. Since the turkeys were responding good to calling, we would walk a couple hundred yards and make a call. About a mile into the walk we got an answer. He was a couple hundred yards south. We sat down and called sporadically for the next hour with no other gobbles. We got up and moved 150 yards. I called again and he answered me along with a buddy. That went on for 15 or so minutes, and they got to gobbling on their own pretty good but they stayed in the same place. The next time one of them gobbled I gobbled back at him on my mouth call, and him and his partner jumped all over it. We gobbled at each other 3 or 4 times. Then I pulled out my "killing pot," it's a Zebrawood Browntie Slate I got 3 years ago.(this was it's 15th or 16th kill) Like so many before them, they loved it. Then, I heard Maggie whisper, "I see turkeys running." They crossed a small opening and as soon as they hit the woods we were in, they came out of a full run and in unison went into strut. They were racing one another through the woods in full strut to the turkey gobbling at them. There was a large open field behind us and I just figure they thought that's where we were. In any event, they had us pin-pointed and Maggie thrashed the bigger of the two birds at 15 steps with her brother's gun. He didn't even quiver, and Maggie was tagged out in South Dakota in less than 12 hours.[cool] I had a slight lapse in judgment and shot at his partner running off and missed him. [blush] This bird was a 3yo Merriam's with 7/8" sharp spurs and a long Merriam's beard at 9".
#4
The same evening as Maggie's first two birds, we went to a spot we had heard birds at that morning. We thought they headed off North into the hills and we couldn't catch up with them. We got there, facing the hills, the sun was scorching us. About 2 hours into the evening hunt, Maggie said she thought she heard a gobble behind us. I finally stood up in some bushes and started glassing this HUGE field. After about 10 minutes I heard a faint gobble, and spotted him. He was all alone and walking toward us gobbling. I started to call as loud as I could on my mouth call because he would have to walk through trees 600 yards or more away from us to come to us. I felt certain that's where he'd roost. However, he wanted to come roost with an ol Mississippi hen, and walked ALL THE WAY across the field. Dad got setup, nearly in the wide open and 45 yards from the cattle gap the bird had to cross to get to us. I watched the bird stand at the fence for a good 2 minutes just looking. He slithered under the fence and I thought, "he's gonna walk right in dad's lap." The next thing I know, I see the birds head snap back and him start flopping. Dad leisurely walked over to him and stepped on his head and said, "good calling." I asked him, "why did you just shoot him at 40 yards when he walked a half a mile to us and was gonna walk in your lap? His response, which is his classic attitude and answer, "hell I'd been in a bind the way I was sitting and I was tired of looking at him." [rofl]
The heaviest bird we killed, but smallest beard. He was a 2yo with 3/4" spurs and a 6 3/4" beard.
#5
Dad and I hunted until noon in SD and called up 3 gobbling jakes, but had no more luck in South Dakota. We jumped in the car and drove 400 miles South to KS, and got there about 7:30pm. The first morning there, we got on some birds we roosted the evening before. I watched this dadgum bird walk two sections before I got in front of him. He walked in with 4 other friends with long whiskers and he was the first to get to me so I let him have it. He had the best spurs of the trip. One was 1 2/8 and other 1 3/8. He was a 3 yo with a nice 9.5" beard.
#6
On the first evening in KS, we drove past a field with 4 or 5 strutters in it and about 30 turkeys total. They were in a freshly planted corn field along a creek. It was off a fairly "main road." Dad wanted to ask for permission but I dismissed the idea being so late in the year and figuring everyone had asked to hunt them. The rest of day one in KS went by with no birds after I killed mine. About 7 that afternoon, we ride by to see one in full bloom in the same field with 11 or 12 other turkeys. Dad drove in and asked for permission. The woman was super nice and said she had some people deer hunt her land, but no one turkey hunted it and to please kill some because they were eating her freshly planted corn. [biggrin]
We roosted that bird that night, watched him squat on the limb and were under him the next morning. Like a turkey, he pitched out the other way. About 8:30, I figured he was done until that afternoon and I'd come back and kill him that evening. Well, dad decided to wait till 11:00. He txt me at 9:00 and said the bird was in the field all alone. [huh] At 9:20 he called me and all he said was, "I'm outta shells." [rofl] While looking at the turkey in the field, dad said he thought he heard drumming but dismissed it. Then he said 5 minutes later, he just felt something over his shoulder. He peeked over his left shoulder and there was a strutter standing there facing the other longbeard in the field. He leveled the boom on another nice 2 yo.
3/4" spurs and a 9" beard
#7
Dad dropped us back off at the private land we got permission to hunt, where he killed the bird earlier that morning. The drainage was so long, that we figured the bigger bird might come back out, and just be further up the drainage. Maggie and I sat there from 3:45 until 9:15pm. We saw 6 or 7 jakes and 10 or 11 hens, but no longbeard. [crying] We were a little dejected because our hopes were so high to kill that bird we had watched the evening before. I noticed a vehicle way up on the road ride by a couple of times that looked like dad, but I knew it wasn't because he was still hunting, or so I thought.
This story goes, he dropped us off, went back to the room and loaded up the vehicle and was going to where we had seen a bird mid-day. Well, he pulls up at 5:40 and sees the bird through his binoculars standing not far off a wood line in full strut. Dad parked the vehicle, took his Browntie Slate and had him back in the car by 6:05. To say I was surprised when I walked up to the car, to head back on a 15 hour drive home, and there was a big ol 3 year old laying there is an understatement. This turkey had 1" and a 1 1/16" spurs and was a double bearded turkey. He had beard rot, but you can tell it was a thick beard, or would have been.
All in all, it was a great trip with my dad and wife. There were some great memories made and I look forward to doing it next year! Trips like those are trips that I pray that I never forget as long as I live. Sharing things so special to me in the turkey woods with two of the people I love the most is what keeps me going back for more.
Maggie and I have been together for 9 years now, and she has done a lot of hunting, but I was throughly impressed with how hard she hunted. We pulled 4 straight 15 hour days and she didn't complain once. [blink] After 4 days of hunting, we ended up with 7 beautiful birds and a PILE of wonderful memories. The more I hunt with my dad, the more I love it. I had the pleasure of calling up 5 of the 7 turkeys we killed and that brought my season total up to calling up 9 longbeards, which is something I am proud of. Now, the wait begins, only ten more months of torture until I can give em fits again. (maybe they give me fits. That's something to ponder.) [biggrin] Hope you enjoy the pics.
Here are some pictures of the country side that Maggie took.
