And the wind cried.... Turkey!

[Charlie Lamb]

I was on the long drive home searching for some semblance of a radio station when I came across the signal of a classic rock station. Not much of a signal, but music none the less and I'd listen subliminally to the tunes while I replayed my Kansas turkey trip in my head.

It had started with a phone conversation with my old friend Rusty from western Wyoming. We'd been out of touch for a couple of years and like old friends often do we fell right into our conversation as if we'd left off only yesterday.

Catching up on old news and the new Rusty mentioned that he'd purchased a little acreage in eastern Kansas and that it had lots of deer and turkey on it.

Why didn't we get together and do a little spring turkey hunting, he'd mused.
Well, you don't have to bend my arm behind me and back over my shoulder to get my attention when it comes to hunting.
SURE!!!

He was renting a place in town where we could stay and the farm was just a few miles outside of town... even better!!

I'd looked forward to our visit ever since that first call and as time neared we talked again to firm up plans. My schedule would put my arrival at the day before opener.

For Kansas, that is the first day of April this year and it was archery only for the first week. Gee! Why couldn't my home state of Missouri be that thoughtful.
I wondered how hunting this early would play out. Missouri's own season didn't open until almost three weeks later and that's the way it had always been.

There were plenty of questions and I'd be pleasantly surprised by the answers.

First of all I wondered about the terrain. What in the world would it be like. I know there are those who imagine Kansas as this wide, windswept, featureless, place. With only one tree per 8 million acres. Not even close!

[Rob DiStefano]

Originally posted by Killdeer:
Been on the Turnpike, Rob?    :D  

jes' down the road a spell at red house ......  

[Charlie Lamb]

Eastern Kansas is a lot like western Missouri. Rolling country covered with native prairie grasses cut through with watercourses which support forests of locust, walnut and burr oak.

I'd find plenty of all three on Rusty's place. Of course Rusty's little place took up a complete section. A thousand acres of prime whitetail and turkey habit.
I get a little dizzy just considering the possibilities.

Rusty gave me the quick tour the first day and it seemed that if I wasn't stumbling along some rutted deer trail or getting poked in the eye by the nibblid off end of a branch hanging over a bare spot of ground along that trail, I was spotting turkeys at every turn.

In a short couple of hours of walking we must have seen forty or fifty birds. I thought that if this wasn't heaven then it was darn close.

Gleaning as much information as I could from my buddy I formulated a plan which I hoped would put me in range of birds.
I knew I'd be seeing them, I just didn't know how close I could get them. I had almost no experience hunting turkeys this early in the season and I wondered how responsive they would be to a call.

At the end of the day I'd set up house keeping in the Double Bull blind along the edge of a food plot that showed a ton of sign. Cast off feathers, tracks and the J shaped castings of gobblers littered the field.
 

[Charlie Lamb]

Greg... yep, that's a Berger Button. All of my personal Sunbears wear them and a fuzzy Velcro shelf. Very forgiving set up and will tune to within a gnats heiny with just about any arrow.

Looks like many of you here had way too much fun during the sixties. I don't think I did... at least I can't remember if I did.
  :p

[Gatekeeper]

 It begins!

[Charlie Lamb]

It was good to get back to town and the little house on Main street. I'd been having serious back trouble for a couple of weeks and while my friend and hunting buddy Chris Kinslow had helped it a lot with some emergency treatments at his office, I dearly needed to sit down and rest.
A couple of "Dr. Rusty's" hand made margarita's would round out the evening. Couple that with a hot supper and great conversation and I'd be ready for beddy bye.

I carefully set my alarm and was soon fast asleep dreaming of crusty old gobblers with paintbrush beards tripping them as they walked.

I don't think I moved a muscle until sometime early I heard Rusty call my name. "You going hunting?"
I looked around the room and realized the alarm hadn't gone off and gray light was sifting through the bedroom curtains.

[Over&Under]

   

[Shaun]

Good stuff Charlie. I'm settling in, this may take longer than a cricket match, set up the wickets and bowl em down.

[Charlie Lamb]

Got side tracked and will be off and running again in the morning.  Sorry guys.
 

[bowhunterfrompast]

     will be waitng

[Killdeer]

Will be a bit groggy in the morning, so I will be in the right frame of mind for the continuation of this tale.

Oh, I get up before you do.   :(

Killdeer
Gold and rose, the color of a dream I had, not too long ago...

[SouthMDShooter]

looking forward to it

[Chris Surtees]

           

[Mo. Huntin]

I aint a #$# Kisser but I am really ejoying this story and the pictures really help to share the experience.  I Just get a neat feeling when I see a blind sitting there or that bow with the string tracker coming out of it.  Reminds me of the Traditional Bowhunter Magazine stories.  No people or anything to distract from the picture just simple.

[Charlie Lamb]

Crap!!! I'd overslept for the first mornings hunt and now instead of a leisurely start with coffee and time to reflect, I'd be hell bent to get out of the house.

Fortunately Rusty's better half, Rosemary, had prepared the coffee pot the previous evening so all I had to do was punch the button and get dressed.

That only took a minute and I stepped outside to check the weather and get some idea how many layers I'd need for the morning chill.

Imagine my surprise and chagrin, when a lusty gobble reached my ears from just the other side of town.... did  I mention it is a small town?

Soon no less than three different birds were sounding off at different points of the compass. I was more than a little miffed, but tried to take it as a good sign.

Just as soon as the coffee maker gurgled that finishing sound they make I had my Thermos filled and was racing out the door.
It would only take a few minutes to make the drive out to the property, but I'd have a good twenty minute walk to the blind and and I was burning daylight.... BAD!!!

Maybe it was a good thing that I had overslept. The morning light that I had cursed now made negotiating my way to the blind for the first time easier than it might have been.

Down the two track I went, across the three little water courses, left along the brush after the third one and up the hill.

As I crested the rise a slight movement ahead caught my eye. The unmistakable "PUTT, PUTT, PUTT" of alarmed turkeys slammed against my ear drums.
The next few seconds went by slowly as I kicked my own butt up the hill to the blind. As I approached my hide I could clearly see no less than 20 birds running off to who knows where.
 

[Roughcountry]

Hot diggety, the story teller's back          

[Charlie Lamb]

There is always a sense of relief when I finally zip the door of the blind behind me. Now I would be invisible and from that point on it would be harder for me to mess up....operative word "harder"! Not impossible.

With nothing to do but wait, I settled in. The little Coleman Sport Cat heater was fired up and began to take the chill off the morning quickly.

My calls were laid out on a white bucket which was there for just that purpose. And my little chair was arranged just right so I could shoot with little movement in the direction I planned to have a shot.
After that I arranged the window in the Double Bull Matrix with screen up and open to about twelve inchs for a full 180 degree view.

I poured a cup of coffee and let the morning wipe away my stress.

[Guru]

[Charlie Lamb]

While I waited I could here gobbles in the distance with the calling of hens from almost every quarter.
I added my own calls to the chorus figuring that even if breeding wasn't in full swing I could at least make the local bird think there were buddies in the food plot.

They are like that, you know. Turkeys like to be around other turkeys and I believe they will often come to a call just to see who's around.

The answer to my oversleeping debacle came to me while I was sitting there. I'd last used my little travel alarm before the spring time change and I'd never reset it.

I'd checked it's accuracy against Rusty's computer the night before and it was right on. Of course Rusty is from another time zone and he'd not changed the time on the computer to match the time zone eastern Kansas.

I guess it wasn't totally my fault, but I'd sure be addressing that problem before I went to sleep tonight.

I watched a lone fox squirrel, fat and auburn red in the morning light hop along the edge of the forest where it dropped off into the creek bottom. Here and there he'd stop and scrounge through the grass and leaves for some unseen tidbit.

Two little birds landed on the roof of the blind and I was in the midst of messing with them (I reach up and poke their little birdy feet and giggle like a school girl when they blast off like they were shot from a cannon) when the calling of a hen got my full attention.

This one was close and from the sound of it, getting closer. Where there are hens there are likely to be toms this time of year so I made ready for action.

That action wasn't long in coming either. A long corridor of food plot ran between bristling rows of honey locust trees and down the middle of that avenue came no less than fifteen hens.
I watched intently and at last bringing up the rear of the band came five gobblers, beards swinging to and fro as they waddled along behind the girls.

[MI_Bowhunter]

Originally posted by Killdeer:
Hendrix?
I think he's hearing Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict.

I'm hungry.        
Killdeer

Ummagumma, that may be one of the most obscure references I ever seen here. LOL

I'm liking this turkey story.