Here are some pictures from my 2009 hunts.

CHC,
Looks like a good time was had by all. Although I think the boy with the rabbit may be the proudest.
GWB

That young man was rhe only hunter I had this year that was unable to kill a javelina.

Shooting the rabbits was really fun for him, and one day while I had the group out trying to jump some javelina, that kid found a young horned lizard.

I think that meant more to him and his Dad and Grand Dad than uf he had killed a javelina.

That group was down here on Spring Break from Wisconsin.

Many Thanks for the comments.

THANKS for sharing the photos! I agree with GWB: that young man is indeed a happy camper -- and rightfully so.

The terrain still looks pretty parched. Did you get any beneficial rainfall with the recent systems that moved through the state?

A couple weeks or so back, we got right at 5 inches of rain -- the first significant amount in a long, long time. IIRC, I think we ended 2008 at something like 21+ inches below the average rainfall for the year.

I don't know what they have got since I came home on the 7th. of April, but up to that point, from the first of January till I left, the ranch had received less than 1 inch of rain.

Fort Stockton had received about 1 and 1/2 inches during that same time frame.

Here are a couple more pictures from my March 2009 hunts.

The first one is of the 50 pound javelina I killed with an old Herter's 40 pound pull fiberglass recurve bow, using a hand made wooden, flint tipped arrow.



The second is of me and the two turkey gobblers I killed with my Marlin Model 60 22.

I am jelious my turkey hunt didn't work out this year i hunt in Parker and Jack county.Nice jalavinas.Good Luck

I had 5 clients hunting turkeys in March, and all 5 were able to take nice birds.

This has been a very unusual year for me. I hunted less this year than any time in the last 10 years. The last time I was at my lease it was March 12. I had seen six gobblers and I stopped and got out my foxpro fx 3. Started calling. Counted coup on a great gobbler with a fine beard. But although tempted, season was 2 week away. This is the first time in 10 years that I did not take a spring turkey.
GWB

I usually go out before my clients that are going to be hunting turkey come in, and kill a jake so as to have fresh turkey meat for at least one of the meals for each group.

This time I didn't get to.

Because season opened on the 21st. of March and my first two clients were coming in that afternoon and starting their hunt on the 22nd., and my pick up decided it needed to have a senile seizure.

Luckily for me, the rancher I work with, besides being somewhat of a business partner, is also a good friend, and he helped me get the p.u. back up and running.

In fact my clients arrived as I was trying to get the p.u.fixed.

Because of that I did not get to go out and shoot a jake, and the way my bookings fell, I was not going to have time between clients to go out.

When my last client got his bird on March 31, and then his javelina on the morning of April 1, that finished up my bookings.

That client was not leaving until the morning of April 3, so on the 2nd., I asked him what he would like to do for the day and he said that he would just like to go set in the blind where he had shot his turkey and just take some pictures and watch the wildlife coming into the alfalfa field.

I told him that was fine with me, and while he was doing that, I was going to another part of the ranch and shoot me a turkey.

I dropped him off at the blind and went a few miles north of the fields to another pasture and got in a blind and set for an hour or so but did not see anything.

It was beginning to warm up pretty good so I decided to go back down and see if my client was ready to get out of the heat for a spell.

Instead of going out of the pasture and taking the highway back, I worked my way thru the pastures to a spot where I had been running a corn line and where both javelinas and turkeys had been hanging out, along with several deer.

The deer part played a Big role in what happened next.

I stopped back a hundred yards or so from the spot, and eased my way thru the brush toward the corn line.

I had gone about 60 yards or so from the p.u., when I came around a clump of brush, and there about 20 yards in front of me, were three does feeding on a bush of some kind.

I stood there watching them for about 3 or 4 minutes, then the wind shifted a little and they looked over and saw me standing there, and busted out hard and fast.

The way those does ran was directly past where I was headed.

I figured that anything that had been where I was headed was long gone.

So I headed on over that direction, but decided to ease up on the place just in case.

When I came around one last bit of brush, I saw 3 or 4 gobblers at least, I think it turned out to be 6, standing there, watching the direction those does had went.

The range was about 30-35 yards and before they had time to re-act, I had the 22 up and hit the closest one to me.

He took off running and I took off, hauling my fat ass after him.

I knew I had made a good body hit, and from experience on turkeys hit in the body with a 22, they will run about 10 to 30 yards before running out of life.

I am hauling out thru the pasture as best I can and the next thing I know, I am less than 10 yards from two turkeys fighting, or at least that is what I thought, and then I realized it was another turkey fighting at the one I had shot that was in his death throes.

I got my head on straight fairly quickly though, and shot the second gobbler for being so rude as to attack a dying comrade.

Turned out that they were the two biggest turkeys I have ever killed.

One had an almost 10 inch beard and 1 and 1/4 inch spurs and weighed 18 pounds, and the other had 1 and 1/2 inch spurs and weighed 15 pounds, but the odd thing was that some how his beard looked as if it had been cut off at some point.

It was less than 2 inches long, total length, really thick, and squared off almost completely even.

It was an older bird but had the most unusual beard that I or my client had ever seen.

Great looking toms and a good story to boot!

Thanks
Matt