Day 1:
What a beast of a drive it is from Auburn, Alabama to Southeast Kansas – especially when you miss a stinkin’ exit and think you can outsmart Mapquest. I missed an exit in Birmingham and instead of just going to the next exit and turning around, I thought it would be nice to see some new country and meet back up with the road I was supposed to be on around the Mississippi border. Well, I met up with the road again, but it wasn’t after I had wasted at least an hour of driving time on 2-lane roads when I could have had the cruise set in the mid 70s. Oh well. 800 miles after leaving Auburn, I pulled into my buddy’s house in SE Kansas and got settled in for a much needed sleep.
Day 2:
It seems I have a habit of attracting bad weather when I visit the Midwest in the springtime. 25-35 mph sustained winds all day with drizzling rain and that was the nice weather. Evening storm front was supposed to bring torrential downpours and high likelihood of damaging winds, even tornadoes. With turkey hunting out of the question and not really wanting to get soaking wet hanging treestands, we stayed in the shop all day woodworking. Not exactly what we had planned to do, but very productive. After a visit to the lumber yard to supplement the materials we had already had laying around, we finished the last of 3 deer hunting box blinds at 11:00 p.m. that night. 4x4x5 wooden box blinds that are airtight with plexiglass windows. After my buddy gets some tin for finish roofing them, we’ll set them out in good muzzleloader/rifle spots. Should make the mosquitoes of September and the bone chilling temperatures of December a lot more bearable this fall.
Day 3:
Time to turkey hunt. The storm front was a little over-advertised from the previous night but still dropped over an inch of rain. Clearing skies and warming temperatures had us excited to chase some turkeys.
First opportunity of the day came when we spotted a bird strutting with 2 hens in a field of corn stubble. They were dangerously close to the wood’s edge, so we elected to stalk rather than call to close the distance. The bird of interest was a Rio Grande variety, but even after closing the distance to 50 yards we still couldn’t tell if he was a jake or gobbler. I belly crawled to the edge of the field and got within 35 yards before we decided that it was either a really large jake or a gobbler that had his beard frozen off the previously winter. I was leaning towards the latter diagnosis, but regardless…I passed. If he can survive a couple more weeks of hunting pressure, he’ll be a 3 year old bird at least next year and certainly worthy of pulling the trigger. We crawled off and the birds were none the wiser.
After we grabbed breakfast, we headed down to the biggest chunk of our hunting ground in the riverbottom and started working on stands. Removed 2 stands, put up 2 ladder stands, trimmed lanes for 2 more already established stands, and knocked down a 50 yard long wall of trees and brush to force deer to pass within 30 yards of a killer funnel stand. It the most extensive habitat altering work I’ve ever done in order to funnel deer past a stand and I’ll be very curious to see how well it works. Now they either have to swim the river or come within killing range.
The second opportunity of the day turned out to be the last opportunity of the trip, but we made good on our hunt. We spotted a bird in full fan strutting in tall grass in the middle of a pecan orchard and the strategizing began. Should we try and call him back to the woods line which was 300 yards way or put a couple big tree trunks between him and us and sneak closer before trying to seduce him. Because we thought the tall grass would be enough to use for cover, we opted to use a little waterway that ran in the middle of the orchard to take the more direct approach. It only took a few calls to attract the tom’s attention and pretty soon he dropped his tail feathers and came in looking – not strutting and lips sealed but definitely interested.
He was closing within 100 yards when 2 teenagers on 4-wheelers tore up the road and he didn’t like that one bit. He tucked his head down and headed across the field before disappearing into the timber. We hoped he hadn’t been spooked too much to stop thinking about the “hen” and we followed him to the edge of the forest where we set up behind a huge tree trunk. This time when we hen called to him, he answered with a loud gobble and even though we couldn’t see him yet, we both knew he was coming.
My buddy kept calling and 4 gobbles later, we rounded the nearest corner of the field edge in full strut. 30 seconds later, he was stretching his head to gobble when he spotted us behind the tree trunk and stuck his head up in alarm. Fortunately, I had already planned to raise my gun and pull the trigger so everything was ready to go. He made one step away from us and my 3″ shell dropped him at 25 yards.
Solid 2-year old Eastern. 9″ beard with sharp 7/8″ and 15/16″ spurs. Only my second turkey ever and a whole lot less unnecessary excitement than last year’s hunt. If you don’t remember that episode, follow the link and have a good laugh.
More after the jump…
After carrying the bird back out to the truck, our productive day became sidelined by a honeybee stinging my buddy right below his right eye. Needless to say, there was a lot of Benadryl and ice doled out over the next couple hours, but we successfully kept his eye from swelling shut.
By the time the pain subsided, it was time for dinner and that was essentially the end of the day.
Day 4:
Another whopper of a storm came through during the night and brought 3-4″ of rain with it. To top it off, we woke up to 20-30 mph winds and much more humid temperatures. Our plans to turkey hunt were out and we decided to hang another couple stands before I planned to leave at noon to return to Alabama. Stand hanging went without incident and I was back on the road east by 11:30 a.m. Funny how a 13 hour drive out seems like a 26 hour drive back.
