I purchased one of the hunts to benefit Stu Taylor. I also bought a hunt so my oldest son Ryan could go with me.

Dates- April 19-21, 2013

Outfitter- Gobble n Grunt

Location- near Atkinson, NE

Weather- cold, windy, snow

Guns- Benelli Super Black EagleII

Shells- Hevishot, 3.5 inch, #6's

April 18- We flew to Sioux Falls, SD from Orlando on Delta. Everything was perfect. Upon exiting the airport, we noted it was snowing pretty hard with high winds. Regardless, we took off for Nebraska. When we exited the interstate for a 100 mile leg on a 2 lane road, we immediately noticed substantially worse conditions. There was often ice, snow and white out conditions. Frankly, I was terrified. We often drove less than 20 miles per hour. We continued as we had no other options. The pictures below will give an idea of what we dealt with on our drive.




The car the next afternoon:


I was confused and thought I was at the beach!



April 19- We leave at 5 to meet the cameraman on a dirt road near where we are going to hunt. This hunt was filmed for The Zone. The cameraman is about 15 minutes late. We got to the blind with virtually zero time to get set up. Due to not knowing the blind and the lack of time, to be totally honest, I screwed things up. We were too forward in the blind and we had it too open. There would be a price to pay for that mistake. Let me add that it was 21 degrees with some wind. Cold for a couple of FL crackers!

Within 5 minutes of getting in the blind, I started to hear the birds gobble. I recon they are all in the 150-200 yard range. I start calling with some soft tree yelps. A bit later we simulated a fly down. The gobblers flew down and started heading the other way. I called to them. They turned around and headed our way.

I looked to my left. About 125 yards away, I could see about 15 gobblers strutting , gobbling, etc. I tried my best to entice them. Some headed our way. At some point, I realized that something was wrong. Personally, I thing some of them made us due to my having too much open on the blind. Regardless , I got some to head our way. A fully mature bird was less than 20 yards directly in front of the cameraman . The gobbler was less than 15 yards from me . I hammered him good and proper. There was zero doubt that he was down for good. I tried my best to call one back for Ryan . No luck! Please see pictures below.



View from the blind:


Ryan at his best:





In the afternoon, we headed out with James Brion. He is on both The Zone and Nosler's Magnum TV. In addition, he owns GnG. We saw a big bunch of turkeys well below us. We made a big circle using gullies and cedar trees for cover. We got to a GREAT spot and set up. We waited. About 50 turkeys were headed our way. We could watch then get closer and closer. They started angling away from us and were a bit too far. I then noticed 2 big gobblers that were on a line to get closer to us than the others. One stopped at about 50 yards. I told Ryan to shoot as soon as he could see all the head and neck. He shot and the gobbler was down for the count. There a giant gobbler 3-4 yards away from Ryan's. I hammered him hard. He was finished. Then, a 3 rd gobbler runs over to Ryan's and starts beating the hell out of it. Ryan hammered it. We have 3 gobblers in about 15 seconds or less. My gobbler was massive. He weighed 26 pounds! Please see the pictures below.





April 20- we drove about an hour and a half to where we were going to hunt. I sat alone. Ryan went with the guide, Caleb. It did not take long before the birds started. There must have been over 100 gobblers hammering away about 300 yards away. I thought this was going to be easy. Famous last words. I did not even see a turkey.

Ryan on the other hand left the blind with Caleb. They got up on the birds. Ryan believed there were more than 200 birds in the bunch. They managed to get close. He killed a nice gobbler from bad breath range.

On the way back, it started to snow HARD! This couldn't help at all.

Caleb and I went out in the afternoon in the snow. We had a rough time. Late in the afternoon some unknown individuals ruined our hunt by walking in the field at prime time. We left.

April 21- Caleb & I went out for 2 hours in the morning. To make a long story short, no luck. We were back at 7:30. Ryan & I packed out stuff and took off.

This is a fantastic hunt. Tons of gobblers. We also saw incredible numbers of waterfowl and deer. I will definitely head back there.

Sorry, we failed to take pics of the last gobblers.

I hunted there last year. Great hunt and nice place to stay.

Sounds phenomenal....look forward to the pics.

Well done Larry! Three gobblers in 15 seconds has to be some kind of record for turkeys hitting the ground!

quote:

Originally posted by bwanamrm:
Well done Larry! Three gobblers in 15 seconds has to be some kind of record for turkeys hitting the ground!

Thanks Russell.

We have a saying around here. "Even a blind hog gets a root every now and then." I guess it made up for all the times I left the field empty handed!

In all seriousness, the set up was perfect. The turkeys cooperated. Ryan and I each shot one basically BOOM BOOM. Done! The 3rd ran over and started pouncing on Ryan's downed bird almost immediately.

We unfortunately did not have the cameraman for this one. It would have been fantastic.