It's not often that my brother or I post on here, even though we each spend time each day reading and catching up on others from OG. When you share a passion with others as we do, it's the next best thing to being out on the road or in the woods...
The spring of 2015 was a personal best for my brother and I, so I felt it should be shared! Between the two of us, we visited and were successful in 5 states this spring with 3 of those being new territories! Let's face it, we would like to hunt every day that there's a season open, but juggling our obsession alongside work, our families, and other responsibilities, we are only afforded a certain amount of time to do the thing we love so dearly...
With that said, our spring started in late March in south Florida, where we were both able to take nice Osceolas! This was a first for me, while my brother already had one under his belt.
Then, in early April my brother and another good friend visited a new tract of public ground in TN! While they were only there for a long weekend, there was no shortage of success! My brother was able to take two nice TN gobblers, while his buddy took one himself...
Next up was our home season here in NC! We spent the month of April hunting with friends and family on our home turf and were blessed again here. Both of us were able to tag out in the first couple of weeks, so we spent the remainder of the season hunting with friends & family...and gearing up for Kansas and Nebraska!
Oh...and my second bird in NC turned out to be very memorable! I was able to take a gobbler that I had seen off and on now for two springs. I watched him as a poult, growing into a jake, and now this year as a mature gobbler. I only got to lay eyes on him twice this spring, and I was able to capitalize on the second sighting!
Both of my brother's birds from NC were public land...and the second bird was a really nice one!
Here's mine:
Next up was Kansas! We left NC Friday May 8 at lunchtime. Drove the remainder of the day and all night, headed for the WIHA properties that my brother had located in the Atlas. With little to no sleep, we arrived at daybreak to the first walk-in hunting area. Our plan for Saturday was to scout and hopefully locate birds to hunt on Sunday. However, we ran into a group of 4 strutters with a dozen or so hens and several jakes at 9:00 am. Shortly thereafter, the group of 4 was now a duo! Both of the gobblers we killed were around 1-3/8" limbhangers.
Day 2 in KS we learned about what rain does to the "black" roads! The morning hunt was postponed due to inaccessible roads pretty much everywhere. We spent the remainder of that day scouting for more birds, which we were able to locate that afternoon.
Day 3 my brother tagged out early that morning, and I got my second bird at 10:30 on another WIHA. Unfortunately, with 40 mph winds, picture taking can be a challenge. Especially when you are using cell phones with no tripod or photographer!
By lunchtime on Monday we were headed to Nebraska! We had planned to go up to Pine Ridge, but a phone call to the folks at the station up there informed us that they had 18" of snow and the roads were all but impassable. Given that, we decided to stay out of the snow, so we hit a public land atlas online and came up with a new plan. It ended up being a great plan, as we found the public land and got into birds immediately!
We spent the next several days around that area and were able to punch a few more tags before another buddy joined us for the weekend!
After Lance arrived, he wasted no time joining in on the fun!
And with that, our spring was over. As others have said on here many times...there's no way to give each hunt justice. It would take far too long to share all of the details on the forum, and even then I don't think you can tell the stories the way they need to be told.
Like I said in the beginning, I just wanted to share a recap of our spring 2015. It was memorable to say the least! Great hunting, safe travels, good friends, and blessings to be able to do what we love! Hopefully 2016 will constitute another post like this...
