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Back from Big Red Country

I was wondering when I was going to see the pics. Now I just need the stories. Awesome photos, looks like you had some tremendous hunting.

Kratz
 
Are you hunting on a turkey refuge??
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Sweet pics. How many times did Ol' Pretty Boy get his ass whooped?
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We arrived Thursday afternoon to high winds and heavy rain in the forcast for the remander of the afternoon so we decided to hold off on hunting until the morning. When the skies cleared around 4 pm we hit the road checking out the spots we had secured to hunt thanks to a good friend we met there two years ago due to a twist of fate... We needed to look no further when we arrived to our first spot and found close to 100 turkeys in the field drying off.

We were familiar with this piece of property from the year prior so we set up in a likely ambush spot that would not be too close to the roost... When light broke all reality left we sat in utter amazement at the number of birds that were in this area! This will make awesome video!
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Was going to get some of the pre game and turned on the camera an immediately got the low battery warning. Not good Maverick, not good. Well long story, short it was my fault. There Weasel, I said it...
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However, not all was lost because we had a roost full of birds and were about to witness something that neither of us had seen before... Not ten minutes after I figured out we would not be with a video camera we watched in amazement as 120 birds flew down from what appeared to be just a few trees. It was insane. As a long time waterfowler it reminded me nothing short of a bunch of greenheads filling a whole. Well as you can tell from the pictures it was like the next filming of march of the penguins. Over the hill they went in single file line leaving us with nothing but shock. We figured we had a pretty good chance at getting at least one bird out of this group...
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We spent the next hour trying to decide what to do and decided to head over to the roost area and wait em out... and that is what we did... all day...
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It would have been totally mind numbing had we not discovered a hen that was absoultley baffeled by a woven wire fence... she spent the whole day walking back and forth along that fence and I mean the whole day. I looked at my watch when Scott said something about her and it was 9:01 am and fast forward to 4:30 pm and she was still there.
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About that time a group came out of the timber and wanted nothing to do with our set. They continued to feed over the hill and then about 5:00 pm I looked to the gate opening and 4 longbeards were on the march straight to the decoys. I readed and was going to let them come all the way in and the wind must have blown our tom decoy and they turned 90 degrees and started to walk out into the field. I figured 20 yards and let er fly... right under the bird I was aiming at...
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So they were really spooky now, Scott grabbed an arrow, drew back and ancored one of the birds. It went down and every tom in the county took their shots at this bird... and I watched as they were all at 69 yards...
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We decided we wanted to get pictures before it got too late and we had some cold blue cans that we could hear calling us from our camp ground...
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So we packed up and drew up a plan for Saturday.

Saturday came and we headed to a place we knew well and there was always plenty of activity in this area. We made the mile walk then down through a ditch and were contemplating what side of a wash out to set up on when in the tree above us was a thundering gobble...
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Decision made we would set up on the other side of the wash out...
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Once again, the morning lit up with what sounded like a turkey farm. I have never in my turkey hunting career heard that much noise out of turkeys. It was insane. The birds flew down and continued to gobble good and we figured it was only a matter of time before we had something check out our set... About 6:10 we heard three getting closer and then shut up so we figured they were on their way. Scott spotted them first then hit the call with a purr and that was all it took... Three longbeards shoulder to shoulder doin the mean walk to our pretty boy decoy... After they had a fairly easy time knocking the decoy down due to someone leaving the stake in the truck... Ahhh hummm...
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I decided to put one in the hurt locker providing I could make the 8 yard shot... The shot hit perfect and the other two as you can see just kinda hung around. Then two more came, then four jakes came, then four hens came, then four more longbeards showed up. I was again in awe. If that wasn't enough when we were taking all of this in we see a shadow coming from no where and all of a sudden a immature bald eagle swoops down and knocks down a hen decoy... the turkeys ran for the trees and as you can see from the picture the eagle just decided this field looked like a place to sit for a spell.
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Well the eagle finally took off and we look over and a yote was running across the field (I had to hold Scott in the blind at this point as he was going after it no matter what). At that point we had decided we better leave before the cougar showed...
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We then ended up going back packin up and heading home on Saturday morning... Short trip but many firsts and I don't think I will ever forget to charge the camera battery again.
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On a side note I would highly recommend the carrylite pretty boy decoy we had trememdous results with it.
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But, I think the odds were stacked in our favor.
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Limb,

Awesome pictures and story. Great way to start the season off! Can it get any better?
 
Good deal, Matt! Look like Nebraska treated you well again this year. and that you ran into a few winter flocks. Lots of eyes to deal with, but like you said it makes for some amazing video and pictures. Weasel's bird looks pretty much like the Rio hybrids that I'm used to out in central Nebraska and yours is a little darker with some strong Eastern blood mixed in.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission estimates there are roughly three times as many turkeys in the state as there were in 2000. In some areas, they are even getting to be viewed as pests by landowners. I'm headed out to the Middle Loup River valley in a couple of weeks with the shotgun, so we will see what happens. Last year I didn't even have time to set up a decoy before I had a bird on the ground.

Anyway, congrats all around!
 
Nice work, fellas!! That definitely gets me pumped up for next week! Limb, the fourth pic down is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!
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Congrats to both of you! I don't think I've ever seen that many turkeys at one time.....amazing! Once again congrats!
 
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