-Virtual-Hunt-2003-
Turkeys & Buffalo at
Buffalo Mounting Ranch
| Day three at Buffalo
Mountain Ranch started the way yesterday ended - Windy. The
night was wild. I don't remember a time when I recall the wind being
as hard and as long as that storm was. I am not sure what the
official wind speed was, but it was enough to do damage to some buildings
on the ranch.
By morning the wind had died down somewhat, but it was still breezy. I was hunting alone this morning, back between the to feed plots. Jim tried out a new stand near a different food plot. It was breezy, and I didn't hear anything. No gobbles, no hens,
nothing! The wind was strong enough that at times my portable blind
would nearly collapse on me. I was pretty discouraged thinking that
I wasn't going to see anything this morning. Without warning, however, two hens walked within 12 feet of my blind. They were on a mission to get to the food plot and they never even looked at me. I was so surprised by them that I didn't even get any footage from my digital camera as they walked by. From then on, Kattie bar the door! I had more turkeys around me than I can ever recall. They came in groups of 2's and 3's, feeding as they moved, and sometimes even completely circled my blind. But no Tom's.
|
I watched these birds for nearly an hour as they came and went. At
one point, I could see a new group of birds coming in. They were
big, and moving fast. They passed me out of bow range and I counted
five tom's in the group. I don't know where they were going, or what
they were looking for, because they by-passed the food plot and ignored
two hens 12 yards from my blind.
At one point, a tom came in to my quite calling, and would drop into a strut each time I called. I thought he was going to be my next victim. He was within 20 yards, but at an angle I could not get a shot at. As I tried to coax him over, two hens came in, and he immediately strutted after them. My morning ended on that note. Oh, for a shotgun! Jim didn't have much luck at his stand, but saw four tom's across the fields just as he was leaving his stand. We got back to base came to find that Greg Abbas had scored on a nice tom with a nine inch beard. That made 5 for 8 on turkeys so far. The evening found both Jim and I in different stands near different food and roosting sites. Rick Worley, the Ranch hunt manager, decided that this was the best places for us for the next couple of days. Jim had two hens come in and entertain him for the better part of two hours. Although he heard gobblers on a number of occasions, none came calling on the hens in front of him. I had six separate hens come in, fully expecting toms to follow, but it was not to be. As night fell, I could hear the birds going to roost in the trees to my east. Gobblers announced their presence, but not their where-abouts. The morning looked promising. |
