Off to Kansas

On May 19th, my buddy JW and I packed up and headed for Kansas for some run & gun turkey hunting with our buddy Donovan with Arrowhead Wilderness Outfitters.  We headed out around noon with beautiful driving weather.  That all changed about the time we made a pit stop at Cabela's in K.C. .  Never fails, I always forget to pack something or I dont think i have enough of something for the trip.  This time I happened to be running low on # 4 shot.  So we swung in quick, and came outside to a down pour of rain.  We ran for the truck, hopped in, and off we rolled.  It down poured pretty much all the way to camp.  We arrived at camp with the rain subsiding enough to get our gear unloaded and into the lodge.  Donovan informed us that the area had received almost 6 inches of rain in the last day and a half, and the next day was supposed to be more of the same.  I didn't think much of it, JW and I have killed plenty of turkeys in the rain, but the idea of being wet & muddy all day wasn't sitting well with us.  Since we only had 2 1/2 days to get the job done, we decided we would go out the next morning no matter what the weather.  We grabbed some food, a couple of beers & hit the rack.

Day 1, 5:00 AM

After a sleepless night of thunder & hail, we got up bright and early to head out.  Little light rain, but nothing rain gear can't handle.  Donovan, JW, and I headed for the first location to get set up.  Anticipation and hesitation was in the air.  More heavy rain was headed into the area right about sun-up.  We got out to the property, got the decoys set up, and I didn't even get back under the tree's when the skies just opened up again.  Rain, and lots of it.  We sat there until about 7:30, when Donovan suggested we move to an old barn back closer to where the truck was parked.  We all agreed quickly, that was a great idea.  We moved to the barn, and called, listened and watched the timber for another couple hours.  Nothing, absolutely nothing!  So back to the lodge we went, mud head to toe and looking like drowned rats.

10:00 AM

Clothes in the dryer, a little breakfast, more rain, and time for a nap.

12:00 PM

Recharged and ready to go.  I look outside, no rain and the sun is starting to come out.  Awesome!  Anyone who has turkey hunted Kansas knows, if the sun is shining you are going to see alot of turkeys, and kill a lot of turkeys.   We got ready and headed out.  JW was up first, since he didn't have a chance to kill a bird here in Iowa.

1:00 PM

Out driving around Donovan's properties, we come up on a big tom strutting with a couple of hens.  We made our game plan and got a head of them and waited.  The hens were trying to take the tom out across the field.  So I made a few soft calls on the slate, and the tom came in on a string, strutting all the way.  Boom, JW dropped him at about 25 yds.  Real nice 2yr old rio-eastern hybrid.  8 7/8" beard and 1 3/8" spurs, 18.5 lbs.
First bird down 1:30 PM.

1:45 PM

We headed north, after some quick pictures, to another property.  My turn.  We pull up to the farm and there was a huge tom standing on a hillside 150 yds away watching us pull up to the gate.  He immediately hotfooted up and over the hill.  We got out of the truck, and made some loud aggressive calls, and got another bird to answer up a draw above a pond about 400 yds away.  It was on.  We moved up the spillway below the dam of the pond, and belly crawled up the dam to see if we could locate the bird visually.  We found him directly across the pond in a swale, about 150yds away from us and moving away.  Donovan and I immediately start moving around the west side of the pond, where we had a little cover.  (Nothing like going 400 yds to make up 100yds).  We ran out of cover and it was time to crawl, hoping we hadn't been busted in the move from the dam to our current location.  I picked out a log, between where I was currently and where we had last saw the tom, and started crawling as fast as possible to the log.  I just didn't have a good feeling about the tom sticking around long enough to get on him.  I got to the log and looked down the swale, no bird.  My heart sank a little, then I just saw the tips of his fan moving over a little terrace.  So now its a belly crawl in the wide open, not knowing were the hen is.  I belly crawled about another 40 yds or so to get within 60 yds of my target.  I raised my gun to shoot, and Donovan startled me, "Where's he at?"  I about had a heart attack.  I thought he had stayed back.  I said "He's right there behind the first terrace."  I just had to wait for him to raise his head.  Ten seconds later, I had my first KS bird in 2011.  One shot dropped him at 65 yds.  9" beard, 7/8" spurs, and 19 lbs, 6 oz.  Here's a picture of the first 2 birds.  2:30 pm 2 Birds Down, 2 to go.

Next Up: Kansas Part Duex