SJ
New member
I would have never thought in a million years that you could get the kind of hunt I got right at the end of the season on ranches that have had quite a few hunters on them already and a lot of turkeys already killed off of them and in the minuscule amount of time I had to hunt (1 1/2 days, 2 evenings and one morning). Got to the first ranch in Baylor county just north of the town of Throckmorton around 10am Monday and our outfitter we represent gave us a very nice tour of the ranch and the whitetail hunting areas and shooting houses, blinds, food plots, etc, etc. Hotter than the blazes. At around 4pm it was still 96 but I suited up and went out. By 5:30pm I had a gobbler called into gun range but I think he might have seen me try to make a small aiming adjustment because he took off putting. called in 3 hens after that but nothing else that evening. Next morning you wouldn't have believed there were hardly any turkeys left on that ranch it went so dead. I did hear 2 far off gobbles and seen 3 hens in a food plot and called in 3 more hens but that was it. We had to leave that afternoon to be at another one of our outfitter's we represents ranch about 20 miles back towards Throckmorton for an afternoon/evening hunt that day and a morning hunt the next day if needed, (this was a 1x1 guided hunt by a guide/outfitter who is a turkey hunting son-of-a-gun and turkey calling champion). We went out to the first place and bumped about 10 gobblers trying to get to the place he was wanting to go to. We still worked that place for an hr without nothing so we slipped across the HWY to another of his places and was walking a road when the beautiful thunder started in. With the first roll we heard a reasonably close gobble and took off. When we got what we thought was fairly close we set up. He started playing this box call like I have never heard and the turkey (we found out turkeys) were talking. They were on the other side of a dam of a mostly dried up pond. I thought they were on the dam strutting back and forth behind a big tree on the dam where we couldn't see them because they would get loud and then farther away and back and forth. The guide knew better. He told me get your stuff we are moving in on these birds. We took off across a fairly open area and I thought this is a bad move. The guide knew what he was doing. We got all the way to the base of the dam and he belly crawled to the top of it and when he got back down to me he said there were 6 just on the other side of it from us. We set up right at the base of it and he began his magic. (I have turkey hunted for years and I am not to shabby at it at all if I say so myself but it is a work of art to see a professional go at it) That move we made right into their living room sent those birds into orbit and it wasnt but minutes that they were headed our way. He even told me how they would come. I aimed right at the right side of the dam where he told me to where there was a break in ithe dam and that's exactly where they came. 3 in the first group and 3 in the second group and everyone of them was trying to out gobble the other. After all 6 gobblers were in front of us another gobbler showed up still behind the dam and started going nuts with double and triple gobbles which made the 6 in front of us go berserk. I had 4 really nice Rio's in easy gun range including the biggest of the 6. Only one of the birds was strutting and he was unquestionably the dominant Tom even though he was by far not the biggest, but did he put on a show. I picked him to harvest just because he was an absolutely beautiful Tom with the most beautiful colors in his fan I have ever seen. I shot him at 32 steps with my Remington 12 gauge "Super Mag" 3 1/2" Magnum and really flopped him hard backwards, he never twitched. I could have easily filled all 4 of my tags as the remaining 5 gobblers just stood there, but I only wanted the one so I let them go about their business maybe to excite another hunter as much as they did me some day. My Rio is in my freezer waiting to go to the Taxidermist. He is a really nice 3 year old, I'm not sure of the weight as we didn't get to weigh him but I am guessing around 18-20. He has a 9" beard and 1 1/16" very sharp spurs on both sides and both spurs have some really good hook to them. He is definitely a limb hanger, I hung him just to see if he would. I will post some pics when I get back.
