Day 4 started with a heavy dose of rain, but the weather soon cleared enough for us to check some trail cameras and prep some more stand sites.

Trail cameras had a nice mix of velvet-nubbed bucks, does, and a bunch of turkeys – including a couple of real boss turkeys.

The first place we went to hang a stand ended up being a futile effort because rain had fallen to the north and the entire riverbottom was flooded between the levees…exactly where we wanted to hang a couple of stands.

There isn’t any wading through that.

Road flooding was a common annoyance as well, but fortunately there was a back way to everywhere we needed to be.

The above picture is a great bottleneck stand on the riverbottom.  There was a 135″ 10 pointer spotted from this set 8 or 10 times last year, so hopefully this spot will be a good producer.  To the east is a good chunk of timber located in the turn of the river.  This is where the water was high and we couldn’t get in to hang a couple of sets.  Should be a great all-day stand location, especially in the pre-rut/rut when bucks are cruising for estrous does.

Here is another riverbottom stand site, that will be hung in the near future.  High water kept us out of this spot as well, but I saw several sub-shooter bucks at this crossing last year that should be quality deer this fall.

Stand #8

Back to stands that we did hang, there is a bulldozed pipeline where the green food plot is located.  The food plot is still in its imaginary stages, but this spot should be a good producer regardless of whether there are extra groceries located nearby or not.

Stand #9

This stand should be a great morning spot with CRP and good bedding areas to the east and crop fields to the west.  A creek helps funnel deer past the selected osage orange tree and the food plot tapers to a point within 20 yards of the tree stand.  There was a 150″er using this patch of woods last year, and we think he’s still alive.

To round out the day, we put in a good 4 or 5 hours of chopping up limbs and trees that had fallen over at Brad’s brother’s place again.  It was a good exchange though because he also smoked 2 turkeys over hickory smoke along with several dozen country-style ribs.

After a good night’s sleep, I decided that turkey hunting one more time before I turned my truck east would be a good idea.  Brad’s dad ended up going along with me and we visited 4 locations between 5;30 a.m. and 8 a.m.  Surprisingly, we found birds at every spot, but couldn’t put a long beard on any one of them.

That was my cue to leave and 800 miles later I was pulling back into my house in Auburn, AL.

Great trip, thankful for safety (both driving and storms), and the ground is laid for a great November archery hunt during the Kansas rut.

The third day of my Kansas trip started out in the woods carrying a 12 gauge shotgun with a turkey choke screwed into the end of the barrel.  We were hiking in to a spot where Brad had seen 5 toms the week before, when I looked up and saw birds roosted in a tall tree only 125 yards away.  It didn’t appear as if the turkeys had seen us, so we hunkered down right where we were and waited for more light to start calling.

Pretty blurry but you get the point.

Didn’t take long for the birds to fly down, and it wasn’t long before they were close enough to see only hens and jakes.

All blowed up, but no beard.  Jakes.

Not exactly what we were looking for, so we moved on to another spot or two.  No birds to be seen or heard though.

After breakfast, we spotted a couple toms strutting down on the riverbottom.  After a little strategizing, we were walking down the backside of a levee and into position.  Unfortunately, no amount of strategizing can prepare you for a wad of deer exploding right into a good turkey set-up.

After helping Brad’s brother clean up some of his storm damage (toppled pole barn that had 2 trucks inside, trees, branches, basically a $10,000 mess) for a couple of hours, it was time to go hang stands.

Stand #3

Stand is the white splotch (bad “Paint” job…sorry) with the green food plot.  Several funneling necks of timber collide.  Several 110-120″ bucks spotted out of this plot last year during muzzleloader season in September, but no shooters.

Stand #4

Located in the middle of a large bedding area, this stand has a specific deer in mind…one that should push 180″ this fall.  A hunter had a disappointing encounter with him last rifle season, but hopefully we can seduce him into the back corner of this timber jungle with a little seductive calling.  Worth a shot!

Stand #5

What more really needs to be said.  A no-brainer 4 lane funnel highway with CRP on 2 sides and crops on the other 2 sides.

Stand #6

Didn’t actually put this one up on this trip, but I checked it out to make sure it was safe and shooting lanes were clear.  A major creek runs right past the stand and helps to funnel the deer even more dramatically.

Stand #7

This might have been my favorite set.  Several trails following fence lines, creek beds, and natural openings intersect to create one humdinger of a set-up.  This spot should be good from September’s muzzleloader season to the last day of rifle season.  Crop fields to the northeast and southwest.

That was it for hanging stands on Saturday, but there was one more order of business…finding a turkey!  With bad weather expected on Sunday, Saturday afternoon might be our last legitimate chance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I hope everyone has a great tail end of the week.  I’ll be leaving out early in the morning and hope to arrive in Kansas by 6 or 7 Thursday evening.

Plans are to hang stands (maybe a little shed hunting too) on Friday, do a little turkey hunting Saturday morning, hang more stands during the day, more of the same on Sunday, wrap the weekend up with a good cookout, and be back to Alabama by Monday afternoon.

The X factor is certainly the Neosho River.  Hopefully, the river will come down a little from its current flood stage so we can get to all the stand locations we hope to reach.  If not, well that will just leave more time to find antlers and hunt turkeys.

Have a great weekend, and I look forward to sharing the trip with you next week on The Outdoor Smorgasbord.

My buddy Colter guided his buddy Mike to his first turkey ever on Saturday morning.  They were hunting a farm in Whiteville, NC.  Around 7 a.m., 2 gobblers came strutting to within range, and Mike did the deed.

Gobbler weighed a deceivingly light 16 lbs., but carried a 10 1/4″ beard with average 1″ spurs.

Congrats Mike on your first gobbler!  May there be many more to come.

Alright Colter…you (though definitely not your first) and me now.

Little bit of a different post here, so brace yourself…

Disclaimer: I do not intend to tick off any Philadelphia Flyer fans who also happen to read my blog.  But if that happens…tough.

I am not typically a facial hair kind of guy.  Not because I can’t grow it, well…that might be partially true in patches…but because I just don’t like having facial hair that much.

That being said…

Workin’ on a little chin action the last week and a half.

Now, I can’t say whether to call this a turkey beard – meaning that it will not be shaved off until a big old tom hits the stage at the end of my 12 gauge barrel this spring

OR

…call this a playoff beard (you hockey fans know the significance of such a sacred emblem).  For the upcoming week and a half or so, this blog has been declared:

because I hope like heck that the Pittsburgh Penguins can dismiss the Philadelphia Flyers from the first round of the playoffs which starts…you guessed it…TONIGHT!!!  Get Pumped!

So, turkey beard or playoff beard.  It doesn’t really matter as long as I kill my first turkey soon and the Penguins make another good run at the Stanley Cup…shoot, what I am thinking…WIN the Stanley Cup!  Go Pens! and Gobble gobble.

Well, I had the opportunity to go out again with my neighbor chasing turkeys.  After a rough night of dodging some serious storms, we met out in the driveway at 4:45 a.m. to give us plenty of time to listen for gobblers on the roost. 

All was quiet until about 6:00 a.m. when an ol’ tom struck back at a crow that was squawking in his vicinity.  The gobble wasn’t loud, but after a second listen we thought we had a good chance of cutting the distance down quickly.

15 minutes later, we were sneaking into position with the turkey slamming every crow that dared to utter a “caw”.  We had snuck within 200 yards or so and were debating on our best approach to finish off this easy hunt, when we ran into trouble.  Trouble in the form of a beaver.

We were separated from the bird by a large pond and as we were gathering our thoughts and strategies, a beaver detected our presence (course he could have been just slapping the water for the heck of it).  Regardless, 2 tail slaps and the gobbler never made another peep the entire morning. 

We set up and did some hen calling, but after we heard 2 different wingbeats down to planet Earth, the hunt was over.  They headed in the opposite direction, and we were left birdless.

A future NWTF magazine cover

But we would not be denied.  Read the rest of this entry »

This is exactly why I am fired up about my trip to Kansas in early May.  Great story from fellow blogger dukkillr at The Daily Limit. Doubling up on big tom turkeys!

Yesterday, I saw some really pretty Red Buckeye trees that were flowering out down at the study site. Red buckeye flowers are prime hummingbird nectar sources, though otherwise the plant has little wildlife value.  The small fruits that are produced are poisonous to humans.

Mom and dad were in from North Carolina to visit for the first time in Alabama, so we headed down to walk the woods and see if we couldn’t scour up any antlers.  Fortunately, we found several but most all of them were old and chewed up.

Dad did manage to find this set down in a marshy creek bottom, but they were a couple years old at least.  The other antler is in the position of a capital “L” directly above the other antler.

I thought the other interesting thing about the day was that we saw 4 groups of turkeys, but each group consisted of only 1 turkey.  All lone hens, so if that helps you plan how to go after an Alabama turkey in the morning…

A whole bunch of southern states start their spring turkey season this weekend.  Alabama’s will start on Monday, a day later than their normal start because of the 15th’s coincidence with Sunday.  As wet as the weather is going to be the next two and a half days, the birds should be ready to gobble by Monday morning when the weather breaks.  Best of luck to all you turkey hunters this weekend.

I won’t be getting out this weekend, but I do plan on bagging my first wild turkey in the spring of 2009.

Many folks, and even friends, don’t believe me when I tell them I have never killed a turkey. Probably because I haven’t hunted them except for a handful of times, but more likely because when I lived in North Carolina all the land that I hunted was south of Interstate 85 in Alamance County.  For whatever reason, those 8 lanes of traffic appeared to be an obstacle that the turkey reintroductions of northern Alamance and Caswell County never managed to cross in any sizeable numbers.  In all the years of hunting southern Alamance County, I only saw 4 or 5 turkeys – and all those sightings were in deer season.  I didn’t hunt them for the simple reason that there weren’t any to hunt on the land that we hunted.

The last 4 years, the reason I haven’t gotten into turkey hunting is because springtime is also the time to pull out the fiberglass arrows and go bowfishing.  So, whether you are planning on pulling back a bow to stick fish or centering up a Tru-Glo sight on a turkey wattle, be safe and have a great weekend!

Sunday, my wife Kara spotted the first sign of game species wildlife in the backyard (except for squirrels of course).  8 turkeys – all hens – waltzed through the woods where I had just lit a fire to burn some brush.  Apparently, they weren’t at all deterred by the big pillar of smoke that was just 15 yards away from them.  Can’t really see them too well, but good to see some critters close to home.