S.Tx 2022 turkey season

[hoyt21]

Figured I’d give a write up of our 2022 spring turkey season. This place has less and less hunting threads so why not. I’ll start this off by saying this was my first year chasing rio grand turkeys, and I’m hooked. Over the last couple years we accidentally end up having a turkey outfit here in south Texas. All of our customers have gone home very very happy with many out of state guys killing their biggest birds to date with us. We personally never really got it, we had birds so we sold the hunts and everyone was successful and truly stoked about what we had here. Till one day…… our customers finished out a day early so my partner and I decided to see what the fun was all about. I had a old box call I’ve had for over 10 years. It had never even been to the woods. One of those things you think you need at the time then it just sits there. We decided we’d try to hunt some birds we had roosting along a field. These were birds we had never had to take customers to. The evening before I listened to the NWTF sound libraries and mimicked them for about a hour in the living room while no one was home. Called one of our good friends that hunts with us got some tips, and hit the woods before day break. We parked and when we got out the truck the birds were already hammering. We snuck into them and as light broke we were roughly 100 yards under two roosted toms. But as they would gobble we quickly realized we were around alot of toms. When fly down came the two in front flew away from us. Our inexperience had us believing our hunt was already over but I remembered there were more gobbles to the left of us. I yelped a few more times and before I knew it I caught movement to my left. We sat still when all of a sudden two toms broke out the brush and were already within 30 yards I gave a quick light purr and that sealed the deal they came walking in and we both doubled with in 15 yards.( it happened just the way we drew it up the evening before) We were hooked we came out that brush absolutely pumped !!! High fives were had and the shakes !! The dang shakes !!! Deer don’t even make me shake like that. The hooks were in and we were quickly off too spending the rest of the season chasing gobblers when we didn’t have customers.

That’s the story of the first bird.

[hoyt21]

Story of bird #2

Like I stated before, the hooks were deep and we absolutely loved chasing gobblers. A couple weeks later we dropped clients on roosted birds and left the area. We were on a rather large ranch and the ranch manager told me he’d like to kill a bird to mount for his game room. Whether he or I shot it, it didn’t matter just get one killed. About 9 am we were driving around customers had already reported two birds down and were still after them when we drove into a flat we thought no turkey were and bam ! We have a gobble to the south I quickly stopped the truck and told
Him give me 15 mins to see if I could get one killed. I crept through the brush and spotted two lone gobblers in a grass field. I hunkered down and crawled out setting up a Tom decoy. Sat back maybe 5 yards from decoy and started striking. I had him fired up then he went silent. I crawled out and peaked and could see them closing in from my west. I sat the hen decoy next to the Tom and got back into position. Couple more yelps and he popped out 15 yards away. I was lucky enough to have enough brush around me that when he crossed in front of me at roughly 7-10 yards he’d pass a bush and I’d be able to raise my rifle. When he got behind that bush I raised my rifle and ended up killing my second time of the year at 5 yards or less. It was close and it was awesome.

[hoyt21]

After hat the mission was on to kill all four tags !! I continue rest of stories tomorrow. Happy Mother’s Day !

[J Loves Huntin]

Pretty cool man! Cool story and pictures

[stickman]

Not much I can think of I would rather do more. Turkey hunting is my jam

[hoyt21]

It’s seriously addicting lol

[hoyt21]

Bird number three a week before my buddy had gotten his second bird of the year. We went for a evening hunt and settled along the brush line the turkeys were using to roost. We had already had 20 or so turkeys behind us in the brush already. We set up trying to get those to come back when we looked behind us and some
Turkeys had moved Into the field behind us. Two toms worked from 400 yards away to about 30 yards. We 1,2,3 and shot I missed and he killed a hell of a bird. Turkey number two down for him

A week later we got up early ( no clients ) and we headed out. This time a younger buddy of mine that’s into photography asked if he could tag along so we brought him. We snuck into the field edge knowing the turkeys would fly in. As we were setting up we looked and a dang Tom had already flown down. It wasn’t even 7 am yet. We back up as quick as possible. My buddy with the camera set up beside me and my partner set up behind us. No time for decoys. My partner let out a series of yelps and before I knew it the tom was coming in from our right. I told the camera guy get ready he’s coming. The bird worked to roughly 25 yards and I let him have it. 3rd bird of the year down and on video. It was 7:01 am and we were already with a bird down. We spent the rest of the morning trying to get on birds with no avail. Our buddy took some really cool photos of us while we walked around. It was neat cause he truly captured us just being ourselves. He never noticed him cause he was just a buddy tagging along.