I don't mean for this to be a "look at me" post and I hope it doesn't come across that way at all. I consider myself to be a slightly below average turkey hunter and anyone that cares enough about it to put in the work I have would probably be more successful than me. I just can't go a day in the spring without knowing I've done everything I can just to have another interaction with these birds. Most would consider this an addiction, and my wife and family would wholeheartedly agree, but I just can't imagine not being this way.
It doesn't have much to do with turkey hunting, but it is the most important thing to happen in my life so far, so I am starting this post off on January 8th. That was the day I came home from work and found out my wife had been keeping a secret from me for a couple days and found this sitting on our kitchen island.
And the day before I left to go to Florida we got to shoot blue water out of the fire truck at our gender reveal.
Florida was an amazing experience and completely different from anywhere I had ever been before. I was a little more prepared than I would have been thanks to a great new friend I had made on a forum. I will be greatly indebted to this man the rest of my life and he has no idea how thankful I am to have met him.
I had been drawn for a Special Opportunity Hunt on a WMA. These hunts greatly limit the number of hunters to give people a good chance of getting on turkeys. I was also the only nonresident drawn for the dates I was there. It was an awesome place and there were plenty of turkeys on it. I got there a couple days early to do some scouting before the hunt started.
Even with all of the turkeys and sign I had found, I never heard a turkey before the hunt started. And that trend continued the first day of the hunt. I was starting to get discouraged, but my friend had mentioned a different patch of public he could take me on. After talking to him on the phone several times I could tell we both had the same passion about this sport and I was really wanting to meet him anyway so I abandoned my Special Opp hunt for a day and went with him.
We got to his place where he had a boat stored and motored in to a beautiful riverbottom. We got out and walked a few hundred yards, close enough to where he thought turkeys may be roosted to be able to hear them. We sat in the dark for an hour whispering back and forth about turkeys and just life in general. When it got close to gobbling time he asked if I wanted to owl hoot. I use my voice and I know I'm not the greatest in the world so I told him if he had a tube he may want to use it. He hooted and a turkey immediately answered 100 yards away! I had finally heard my first Osceola! He was gracious enough to swap sides of the tree with me and that was all the moving we did.
I yelped softly to him just to let him know a hen was there and he thundered back. I looked down and noticed my knees shaking so violently that I was afraid he would see them if he did come in. I was reminded of Tom Kelley's qoute, "I sat there with my hands shaking and my breath short and my heart hammering so hard I could not understand why he could not hear it." What a great feeling it was to be back in the game after almost a year!
This turned in to an absolute textbook roost hunt. We had a small conversation on the limb and he flew down. He was acting like he wanted to stay in one spot (for all of 2 minutes), so when he gobbled I cut him off with a few quiet cutts and yelps. That was all it took and he came in to 15 yards looking for us. I pulled the trigger, thanked my buddy again, and went to look at my first Osceola turkey.
He was an absolutely beautiful specimen with as dark of wings as I've seen on any I've looked at pictures of. We spent some time reliving what had just happened and headed out so that he could get on the road to do some hunting.
I ended up hunting on the WMA one more day then headed home since it worked out better with my schedule to allow me to do more hunting later and I had accomplished my goal. I never heard another turkey while I was there so I can now say I've killed the only Osceola turkey I have ever heard!
I stayed at home for a week and then headed out for public land in Mississippi way before daylight on the last day of March. I was going to a place I had hunted last year and only heard one gobble over three days of hunting. I had no expectations because of this and was only going because it killed me knowing there was an open season so close to me.
I got there before daylight and walked in a couple miles to where I wanted to be. The walking turned out to be an all day thing without much else going on. I covered 8.5 miles that day and never heard a turkey noise. I did find a few tracks but there were easily 10 times as many boot prints as there were turkey tracks. Even going in to this trip not expecting a thing this was still a huge let down.
The next morning I headed in to what I thought was the best looking area, some ridges dropping down into creek bottoms joining fields. I got in there before daylight and finally after it got light enough to see I heard a gobble. I moved towards him but he only gobbled 4 times in the tree and never again on the ground. I got close and tried calling but still nothing. It was cold out so I checked the fields where the sun was shining until about 9:00. I made my way back to where he was early and noticed instantly how much warmer the woods were since they had the wind blocked. I got back to where he was roosted and thought I heard the spit of a spit and drum but I still don't think that's what it was. I sat down anyway and yelped a few times. Before I got the last yelp out he cut me off! I cutt at him and I could tell he was excited. We went back and forth a little and he quit gobbling. Before long I could hear drumming and a few minutes later I caught sight of him sneaking through the trees. He was almost in gun range and then he went behind a tree. He stayed behind that tree for a good 5 minutes and I was almost to the point of thinking he had slipped away from me, but I kept my gun on that spot. When he finally came out he was within range and as nervous as he was making me I took the first shot I was presented. He went down and I had killed my first Mississippi turkey!
I also figured out why he was playing the game like he was. These hooks along with the copper plated lead pellet I found in him (I shoot TSS) let me know that he had been in a few of these situations before.
I was ecstatic and called one of my buddies from home that I had talked to about hunting down here a couple days before. I told him the hunting was going to be tough but he still wanted to come down.
The next morning we headed out and got to our listening spot. Without hearing anything at daylight we started driving around to check a few places. We got out at about the fifth stop and heard 2 turkeys from the road. They were on public but they were between us and another truck we had seen so we knew someone was on them. While standing there trying to figure out what to do we heard another the opposite direction. We took off but when we got close, we never heard him again. We sat down anyway and began to hear three or four more turkeys but they were all on private. They were way off but we had nothing else to go on so we set down and I had him pointed towards them where he could cover every direction but one, and there's not way a turkey would have come in from that direction anyway (yes, sadly this is foreshadowing).
We were sitting there calling and talking a little bit when all of a sudden a hen cackles to our left 100 yards and a turkey gobbles right on top of her, can you guess what the one direction he couldn't shoot was? I called to her and could tell she was coming. She started yelping, keeing, and cutting all the way in. Before long I saw her and he said he saw a strutter with her. When the hen got to 50 yards she got below the ridge where my buddy couldn't see her but I could. She kept coming to about 10 yards and then starting getting nervous because she couldn't see another turkey, and she let out a "questioning" cluck. But, the whole time she was getting closer, so was the gobbler. By the time she started to leave he was at 40 yards. With my buddy's view obstructed I had no choice but to shoot which really broke my heart. Well, not really. It's hard to be TOO upset when you just killed a beautiful gobbler, but I do still wish he was the one that got to pull the trigger.
He may have been calling me a few choice names which made my smile a little bigger in this picture...
After him running me out of camp (there were storms moving in), I went back home for a day with plans to come back that Friday. I again left home way before daylight, and walked back in to a spot before gobbling time. With daylight's arrival came the gobbling of two different turkeys. I could tell they weren't super fired up but I felt like hanging with them all morning might pay off.
They flew down and started gobbling once every 30 minutes or so which allowed me to keep track of them. I got to a big creek that I had to use a log to get across and I could tell they were on the other side. I hoped this meant that they hadn't been pressured on that side. About 30 minutes after getting over there, one of them started gobbling a lot better. I was moving on him and had gotten to where I thought was a good position, kind of between the two, and I thought I heard a fighting purr. My first thought was that someone was on the other side of the creek and was about to blow the whole thing. As I set there waiting to see what would happen, I heard wings slapping. I looked up and I was about 100 yards away from two turkeys fighting but couldn't tell what they were. I tried jake yelps and fighting purrs but they paid me no attention. About 5 minutes after they quit I answered the gobbler when he gobbled. I was cut off by a hen yelping and I tried to act like a lost hen wanting to regroup. I never got aggressive but I would answer the gobbler every third or fourth time he gobbled. Every time I did this the hen would cut me off. Eventually I just took the risk of getting aggressive with her, and it worked perfectly! She called me every name she could think of and then some. She started yelping and cutting as loud as I have ever heard a turkey call, every bit as loud as a gobble. She was trying to get rid of me but I just kept giving everything right back to her. She started running to me and then I saw him. He was trying to strut and keep up at the same time, which wasn't working out to well for him. I would have given anything to have a video camera instead of a gun because this was the most spectacular thing I had ever seen while hunting. His head was beautiful shades of white and blue. I was snapped out of the trance by the hen clucking at 15 yards and hated to end the show but my 20 gauge did it very effectively.
I was super excited to be tagged out in a state I knew I would be lucky to kill one turkey in but I was brought back to reality by my phone vibrating. I was within hearing distance of my same buddy. He still hasn't spoken to me...
With that I was headed back home to await the Arkansas opener. I felt like I was in pretty good shape but that quickly changed with hunting pressure and just the absolute lack of gobbles. I hunted 13 of the days and had the most silent days I have ever had. Even with the lack of gobbles I was able to enjoy the beauty of my home state, and it easily rivals anywhere I have been.
I was able to eventually luck in to a turkey. I was at home for lunch after hunting all morning and my dad called to let me know he spotted one with a hen. I slipped around on him and must have caught him right as the hen went away to go to the nest because he came in on a string.
After Arkansas closed, I headed north for Missouri as I have the past few years. It seems the area I hunt has been losing turkeys ever since I started and I had several "gobbleless" days there also. I kept after it anyway and finally found an area where I was hearing turkeys almost every time I went, even calling a couple in to me but not quite getting a shot.
One morning it was raining so I slept in until my wife's alarm went off and the rain had stopped. I headed in to my spot knowing I had a good chance because I love hunting midmorning. I got to where I thought I needed to be and set up. I hadn't heard anything on the way in but when I called I had one answer me from a couple hundred yards away. I waited and called again and could tell he was closer. After 5-10 minutes he gobbled again on his own and he was closer still. I waited a few minutes and called but he didn't answer. I knew this was a good sign though because these turkeys make their approach silently most of the time so I got ready. In less than 10 minutes a saw a head bobbing and a beard swinging. When he got in range I pulled the trigger and he went down. I hate showing off a wet turkey but he was one worth showing off and the sun never came out to dry him.
We didn't have much more action in Missouri besides my brother missing one that I called up for him. One that I had already had a run in with that had a missing tail feather. I still don't like to think about it...
After Missouri closed, I made my way to another new state, New Mexico. I had seen the white tipped Merriams and being a "part time" taxidermist, I really wanted to bring one home with me. I got there late Monday and went out to try to roost one. The first place I stopped I crow called and two funny sounding gobbles came back to me! I had a starting point for the morning.
These turkeys were roosted on the side of a cliff and I expected them to go up, so that's where I started my day.
They quickly proved me wrong and went straight down. I had to follow along behind them as they walked within shooting range of my truck. That makes you feel dumb! I stayed behind them as they followed the same trail I used to get up the mountain before daylight. Even dumber! Once I got up top to the meadow and snuck past some mule deer, I saw a gobbler and a jake strutting. I called and the boss answered me and starting coming my way. I thought I was about to get my chance but a hen I hadn't seen took them almost running the opposite direction. I was let down but still had plenty of time to make something work.
I went and checked a place a contact with their Game and Fish had recommended and found a gobbler strutting with 5 hens in another meadow. I watched them for 2 hours all the while running back and forth out of sight of them trying to get in front of them. They finally got over some ridges and I knew it was now or never. I hunkered down and ran across the meadow and crawled up the other side. I knew the cedar trees the gobbler was behind and knew the hens were to my left. Well, I was halfway right. I got in the open using the brush between me and the gobbler to move and caught movement to my right. A hen was 40 yards from me with nothing but air between us! She was nervous but just kind of shuffled over towards the gobbler. The other hens had somehow ended up behind her and all went that direction. Thinking I had either screwed up or was about to get a shot, I eased up to the cedar trees and found them all 30 yards going away. I saw a blood red head and a beard swing out so I took my shot and my first Merriams was on the ground!
I had family hunting some private ground in Kansas and with only a Rio needed to complete a single season Grand Slam, I made plans to hunt one more day and head over to meet them.
I started back after the same turkey that walked by my truck the day before the next morning. I had some hard feelings against him but he made himself hard to get after since he only gobbled three times that morning and took a different route getting to a different place. I decided to go check a few more places then come back after him later in the morning. I hadn't found any other turkeys on public but a couple hours later I was looking at a gobbler and jake in a field by themselves.
Once they moved off in the brush and I thought I had a chance of getting by them undetected, I made my move. I really didn't have much faith because everything was so open but it was a small public piece so I had to try. I got over on the same hill side as them and called, and to my surprise he answered! I have always heard the more you call to a Merriams the faster they come so I called a little bit more than I would have back home. He gobbled a few times without moving but after 10 minutes I could tell he was getting closer and going up high. I couldn't see at all that direction so I moved up and hunkered down in some brush. I few minutes later I saw him coming, head high looking for the hen was hearing. When I made sure it was the gobbler I was looking at and not the jake, I pulled the trigger. I usually get so caught up I don't even remember shooting, but I'll never forget the red dot on his neck and the sight of his neck feathers flying off.
After that, I loaded up and was headed to Kansas. Some distant family has control of this land and after visiting with them and enjoying a few brown bottles, 4:00 came early the next morning. I walked out to a horrible amount of wind but when daylight came I was greeted with the sound of distant gobbles. Way distant. They were too far off the property to get after and I wasn't hearing anything closer so I drove around to check another field on the place.
I got over there and saw a flock of hens and jakes and one lone gobbler. I have seen the "fanning" or "reaping" craze take over and I have always said I'd like to try it one time even though I didn't think it was for me and this was a perfect opportunity for it. I was able to hunker down behind my fan until I got about 100 yards away then I hit my knees and inched forward. It was like I was completely invisible the whole time, they would look at me but not pay any attention at all. I got to within about 35 yards of the closest turkeys and the strutter started acting nervous. I was afraid he wasn't the dominant turkey and would start easing off so I pulled up and shot. I am 99% positive that he was within range but he just jumped up and walked off, leading me to believe I must have pulled my shot. Luckily, he didn't walk very far before he stopped. I pumped in another shell and walked a little closer and finished him off with another shot. As many pellets as I found in his head I am even more confident he was in range the first time. After my fanning experience I can tell its not for me but I will never condemn someone else for doing it as long as its legal.
Getting this turkey in hand meant I had accomplished something I never thought I would be able to do. I started this season just wanting to hunt the two subspecies I hadn't had a chance to hunt even if I didn't get to kill them. With that being said, getting a single season slam was in the back of my mind from day one, I just didn't think I would be fortunate enough for it to happen. God has blessed me much more than I will ever deserve!
I was hoping to make this post in June after I had made another trip up north to hunt some more but the look my wife gave me when I mentioned this yesterday told me that's probably not going to happen. Even if I don't get to, I have had a season that I couldn't have ever dreamed of! Now I get to look forward to September when my little boy will be born and hopefully memories like this I get to make with him!
My "Camper"
This gobbler's bodyguard
And my favorite picture of the season
