Has been full of ups and downs and has been a little weird. I started off in Mississippi and hunted there until the Louisiana season opened. Opening day weather was terrible, but I called in a very talkative hen but heard zero gobbles. The next day I found myself on the right ridge, but not in the right spot. I had three very talkative gobblers that would not commit to coming my way, but walked away gobbling. I was unable to get in front of them. Unfortunately this was a lottery hunt and I only had those two days to hunt.
Then work got in the way and I had to travel to D.C. Then my daughter got pneumonia and was hospitalized for two days. She got better and all is great now.
Then I got to head to Oklahoma for their opener and took out aggressions on some Rios!
Opening morning found us on a ridge where we had roosted on the night before and he may have been the most fired up turkey I have ever hunted. I can't even guess how many times he gobbled. He stayed in the roost for quite a while and soon enough here came the hens. He had zero interest in coming my way so I got in the creek and made a move and was able to give him the belly crawl and got under a cedar. He was willing to come over and check out a close "hen" I used a TSS #9 shell and rolled him up! He was one of the best Rios I've taken. 19 pounds 12 ounces, 9 1/2 beard and 1 1/14 hooks.
That afternoon my buddy and I hunted an area where turkeys typically like to go before they roost. We set up some decoys and proceeded to get situated for a long sit. My friend called a couple times and sat down. I was getting my video equipment ready, didn't have a mask or gloves on when he said $hit! There he is! I looked up and a beautiful Rio was in full strut marching to the decoys! At 25 yards he realized something just wasn't right under that tree and gave the ole nervous wing flap and stuck his head up. I gave the shoot signal and my buddy rolled a great three year old with a 20 gauge.
We decided to stay put and let things cool down since it was only 4:00. About an hour later we heard a gobble ring out behind us. He responded aggressively to some sweet yelps from a Gooserbat call and made his way to us. He stopped somewhere about 50 yards behind us and proceeded to spit and drum for what felt like an eternity before he made his way into the field toward the decoys. This was the first gobbler I've had in decoys that completely ignored the jake and went Casanova on my DSD hen. After he finally decided to turn so I could see his head and neck, I ended his lover boy ways. Another solid three year old turkey.
Then, the weather changed and the wind blew like crazy and we barely saw any turkeys the second day. Saturday didn't start off much better. We just couldn't find birds like we did on opening day. . . until that evening when we saw some several hundred yards off the road in a wheat field we can hunt. With no other option, we grabbed a couple fans off my earlier birds and made a crawl. Now, I will probably get blasted for this, but by golly it works and if you've never hunted 1/4 section wheat field, they you don't realize the scale and the difficulty of hunting open country birds. That being said, I will never do it again! At least not until I get in better shape! Holy crap I was worn out and hurting by the time we got to these birds! But, luckily they were overzealous two year olds and I tagged out!
I thought this was a neat picture, give a good idea of how spurs grow. Two year old on the left, what I would call a three in the middle, and 4+ on the right.
I've hunted a few more times in Louisiana, almost always hearing gobbles, but I just can't seal the deal. All the WMAs I'm familiar with are now closed, so I will likely try to get one out of Mississippi.
