So David Clark apparently likes to fall turkey hunt in his home state of Arkansas. Good times right? Well it would have been except the state canceled the season due to a poor hatch this past summer. Bad times, but what can you do with a poor hatch? Well Mr. Clark filed suit, twice actually. The first time he apparently filed in the wrong county. A judge denied his motion to reinstate the hunt while the parties prepare the case, but apparently there will be a more in-depth preliminary hearing before the scheduled October 26th opener.
dihardhunter over at The Outdoor Smorgasboard spent last weekend a bit south of here in the SE corner of Kansas. The purpose of his trip was to hang treestands, scout, shed hunt, and generally prepare for a deer hunt this fall. He also hoped to end his long dry spell with regard to turkey hunting. I won’t ruin the story, but he certainly has some action and an entertaining story.
Another buck I’ve seen during the spring turkey season. Nice mass on those bases eh?
I had a relatively slow bowfishing expedition after work on Friday. The river was way up and the water in the lakes and streams was very cloudy. I stuck 2 gar and a carp in about an hour.
Today I had a close encounter with a button buck, a very pregnant doe, and a coyote while turkey hunting. Nothing terribly exciting.
Sorry for the sparse posting here in the last few days. Friday morning I chased turkeys with little action. I closed within about 80 yards of a tom but he had no interest in me and I couldn’t get any closer. Eventually we parted ways. It was blowing like crazy and the turkeys were quiet and hunkered down in the trees.
On the way home I swung by a public wildlife area that I thought might hold a few fish that could be stuck from the shore. I found a tributary of the local river that was absolutely full of carp, gar and buffalo. Unfortunately I was due in court so I had to file the spot away for later.
Friday night The Wife and I drove to Springfield, Missouri to chase redneck turkeys around for a couple of days. Saturday morning I did almost everything possible to screw up a turkey hunt. I set up tight on a tom only to let him fly down behind me. He was too close for me to turn around without blowing him out, so I sat tight until he wandered off. While waiting another tom flew down 200 yards in front of me all by himself. Money right? Oh no. He’s strutting back and forth on top of a hill so I hit him with some soft yelps. He starts heading my way but the fly-down tom and another tom farther behind me fire off. Plus a fourth tom is closing fast from my right. As I’m drawing a bead on the turkey in front the others have joined up behind me and start raising hell. The poor tom in front of me wants nothing to do with them and drifts off never giving me a shot. Once again I can’t get turned around and they eventually drift off as well. I tried to get reset in front of the group of toms but it didn’t work. So I picked up and hoofed it several hundred yards to a smaller field where I figured the single tom would eventually end up. Two jakes showed up, but no tom. That is, until I had to quit. Of course he was 35 yards behind me in the woods, coming in silent, when I stood up. I’d had 4 toms in range, at least one had been in range twice, and I never fired a shot! Apparently I’d become the worst turkey hunter, ever.
This morning started slow. Two toms that I tried to work at fly-down had no interest in me and my fake hens… I picked up and headed in the direction of most of the gobbling only to run into a tresspasser who occupied my next few minutes. Eventually I got set up and did a bit of calling. I was down to about 20 minutes of hunting time left when The Old Man called wanting to trade turkey reports for a crappie breakdown. While I was talking softly to him I could see black shapes working their way through the tall grass a ways off. I hung up the phone quickly and yelped a bit more. 5 minutes later 3 toms came over the hill 45 yards in front of me. I took some time to savor the show.
He was a 2 year old bird with a thinish 10 1/2″ beard.
The Missouri turkey opener this morning continued the trend. I passed two jakes at about 15 feet.
I also busted a hen trying to close some ground on a tom, game over. The Old Man scored on a nice 3 year old bird. Between the two of us we thought we might have heard as many as 12 toms, so there should be more action ahead.
I also had this coyote within about 30 yards. (Sorry for the bad pic.)
After hunting until around noon I spent the afternoon chasing fish around with my bow. It’s a bit too early to get into the heavy action but the gar were certainly up and moving around.
So I chased Kansas turkeys with my bow on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I’ll fill you in on the details later. Now it’s on to Missouri and I have a brand new pair of turkey tags in my pocket (at the bargain rate of $170.00!). We’ve had a bunch of rain around here lately so I may only be able to access half the farm I plan to hunt tomorrow morning. The good news is that I pulled my turkey gun from the safe this afternoon. This farm doesn’t lend itself to archery anyway, and I don’t have any blinds built or setup there, but mostly I’m just sick of sitting in one place. I’m looking forward to real turkey hunting again.
My camera’s packed, and I’ll be surprised if I don’t have some pictures for you tomorrow afternoon.
I’ve never met Ms. Anastasia over at That’s Probably Not How it Happened but I found her blog through dn’s blogroll at Tornado Slide. Her writing generally makes me laugh and occasionally reminds me of Lawrence. Anyway, apparently she went on her first turkey hunt.
Everything about it was so cool. Even the fact that we sat in mud through torrential rains was just great. The guys were so nice, the farm was beautiful, the air was sweet, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with my first hunting trip.
I’m starting to get frustrated again with this archery turkey thing. If you remember, I tried off and on all of last season to stick a tom without a blind. I had several opportunities and each time was spotted or the turkeys became nervous before presenting a stationary shot. So this year I was hoping to solve that problem with a commercial blind or 3.
Well Saturday I had my blind stationed in a natural pinch point. After getting setup it wasn’t long before I started seeing turkeys.
After watching several hens and jakes wander around a tom appeared to my right. Generally turkeys on the right will pass through the narrow opening in the woods directly in front of me. That, in fact, was my plan. This turkey appeared headed into the woods out of range when I hit him with a few yelps. He puffed up a bit to show that he heard me then headed my way. As he wandered behind me I hit him again and he gobbled. He walked by broadside at 30 yards but there was brush protecting him from my arrow. Then he wandered into the woods in front of me, having never passed through the narrows. I still held out hope he’d come out the other side of the woods and check out my decoys. Nope. No more gobbling, no more sightings, until fly-up time when he flew out of the woods and into tree right above me. I kid you not, he was 20 yards from me.
So my slam dunk with a shotgun got a reprieve due to my voluntary exile to Inferior Gear Land. I waited until dark to try and slip out but he was not there when I returned the next morning. Unfortunately no other toms were either. I could hear several toms firing off on the backside of the property, half a mile from where I was. There was no way to pick up the blind and reset quietly so I resigned myself to sitting tight and hoping they would trade back my way during the course of the morning. Three incredibly dumb jakes did follow the script perfectly. They came from the right, passed through the pinch (and thus my shooting window) and then tried to decide what to do with Clarence.
I saw a few more turkeys, a coyote, and several deer, but no toms. After it started to rain the action turned off and I packed up and left empty handed and wet.
I was set to guide Wednesday and Thursday for a college buddy from Southern Missouri but he had to back out due to a family health issue. As such, my schedule is clear and hopefully I’ll be able to get my revenge. I’ll let you know.
So today opened the shotgun season in Kansas for spring turkey. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I wouldn’t be carrying a shotgun though. I’d agreed to guide the younger half of a father and son who were going to open the season with us. Unlike last weekend, we would be hunting our very best spots this morning. Unfortunately work had kept me from getting down there in time to scout last night so I had to take a blind flyer based on past years experience. With two of the best spots selected The Old Man and I each headed out with shooters in tow at 5:30am.
I stopped to cut some fresh cedars and still arrived at our destination well before the first gobble. I put out my home-made tom decoy “Clarence” with a hen and touched up the brush job on the blind and still we hadn’t heard anything. We settled in and eventually heard a lone tom across the field 300-400 yards in front of us. He was in a bad spot for our current setup but I couldn’t believe he was the only game in town. About the time it got too light to move the entire draw started firing off. Crappy jake gobbles plus 4-6 toms were spread out in front of us and to our right. Unfortunately the historic pattern for our chosen spot is that the turkeys work from our left to right. I was afraid all these turkeys would fly down and work away from us, and it was now to light to make it to a blind that would be in the likely travel path.
Before long we were watching 4 toms strut 300 yards in front of us with 6-8 hens milling around. In addition, there were jakes and toms to our right we couldn’t see. I could generate gobbles but nobody seemed too interested in crossing towards us. After 30 minutes of watching this, the dominate tom in the big bunch ran two other toms off. They stopped 100 yards from the big group and started strutting. When I saw this I really leaned on them with my diapragm. One good sequence of yelping and cutting and they’d both dropped their fans and were trotting towards Clarence.
They ran up behind Clarence and postured a bit before moving around to face him. Unfortunately when they got in front of him they’d seen enough and started to walk away. Fortunately I’d brushed the blind pretty well because my shooter still had his gun laying across his lap. He was able to raise it up, take careful aim and thump the right hand bird at 33 yards. I told him to hold still and see what the others would do. The remaining tom returned to flog his flapping buddy and two jakes came running in from our right to see what all the commotion was about. One of the toms we hadn’t been able to see off on our right gobbled at the craziness. It was quite a show. After a while everyone wandered off.
While the toms had been trotting in I’d felt my phone vibrate signaling a likely text from The Old Man indicating their success. Indeed they’d also been in the middle of a big bunch of turkeys with several toms and scored on an old bird with huge hooks.
We met up and much picture taking and back slapping ensued. What a great way to start our season!
Actually that title is a bit misleading. There was very little action to report. Yesterday morning I strung fence to ward off 4-wheeling trespassers at a deer and duck hunting spot. One cut-up hand and several hours later we were done and I was off to chase turkeys about 30 miles to the North. Unfortunately the action was slow. A group of turkeys were in the timber a few hundred yards from me for most of the hunt but they paid me no heed. Same story this morning except add snow and a 25 mph wind. Not exactly turkey killing weather. I was disappointed in the lack of action, but really discouraged by the lack of sign.
Fortunately this spot isn’t a staple of my rotation. It produced nicely for us last year, but that was somewhat unusual. I’m not sure if I’ll try it again.
