Stupid turkeys are kicking our butts here in SD...

[Dakota]

Well, Friday after class I went out scouting/hunting for Saturday's morning hunt. I traveled all across Lincoln County, the unit that has taken me four years of applying to draw, in search of birds. I saw some deer and heard a few hens in Newton Hills State Park, but didn't see any sign of gobblers. So I decided to go up to a spot I'd heard of close by where I live called Lake Alvin Recreation Area. The area was promising and within a mile of the Iowa border and, towards evening, I heard a couple of Easterns heading to the roost. That was where Ben, my good friend and hunting buddy and fellow HCO Team SD staffer as well as cameraman, and I decided to go early the next morning. Will write more later, but my liberal English class calls! We had a lot of fun the next day though!

Dakota

[Dakota]

And now the dramatic conclusion! :D:D

Saturday morning came bright and early. I was up by 4am and had everything loaded in the "beast" (my suburban). I put on the coffee and popped a couple of biscuits in the oven. I was supposed to pick up Ben, who lives in a town not too far away, at 5 and, while the biscuits baked and the coffee bubbled and hissed as it filtered, I went out to start up the beast. Apparently she was deciding to be a little tempermental and had an awkward growl to her rumble, I swear I don't know why she was mad at me! Well, I didn't trust her with her moods to take Ben and I across our unit so I called Ben and at 5am sharp his beast (another Chevy suburban) pulled into the driveway.

We got out to our spot around 5:45am, rolled down the windows and killed the engine. After talking in hushed tones for a few minutes, a faint trace of light on the horizon signaled the approaching dawn; a gobble from the riverbottom to the east broke the early morning silence. It was only a matter of minutes before the entire southeastern South Dakota riverbottom echoed with the sounds of close to a dozen gobblers, Easterns and occasionally the easily distinguishable choppier gobble of the Merriams. With as much silence as possible, Ben and I slipped out of the vehicle grabbing both the gun and HD video camera. Slipping a diaphram call into my mouth, Ben and I slowly made our way through the pines and openings above the riverbottom, stopping occasionally to listen. Here is where we made our mistake: instead of going through the pines and along the fenceline, Ben and I set up on an overlook intersecting two valleys and ravines where we had heard the Easterns gobbling. If we had just gone along the fenceline we would have come out right on top of the 2-3 Merriams gobblers and our hunt would have been over. The only turkey we actually saw all day was a hen sleeping in in the top of a giant riverbottom cottonwood. It started raining and Ben and I went down into the riverbottom where we then had our hearts jerked around the woods by those unmerciful turkeys. We would hear a group of gobblers (the Merriams) in one ravine and, once we were where we heard them, they would gobble behind us and vice-versa.

After a mid-morning of that, Ben and I headed to Marlins for breakfast. We decided to head to Newton Hills, but the only wild turkey we saw was a Merriams gobbler that tried to hide amongst two mixed wild/domesticated turkeys in a farm yard. It was funny to see the three of them strutting around the farm yard and gobbling at my calls; needless to say, Ben was droolin' and was desparing of getting anything on film. :D:D That was basically the end of the hunt. However, Ben and I will probably be going out again this weekend for birds.

Dakota

Edited April 22, 2009 by Dakota

[Rhino]

Well the good news is you know where there's enough gobblers to more than fill up a sack. Just hang in there with them and try to position yourself to work them between where they're roosted and where they tend to want to go or where they're going if you can't get in there.