I took a small group out to my lease in North Central Nebraska for Merriam's week before last. We left here @ 9pm Thursday night and got into town about 5pm Friday. We got set up at our motel, changed clothes and headed for the ranch.
My main ranch is 8000 acres with 2000 acres of that in river bottoms. We spotted two birds strutting on the edge of the river nearly 1 mile away. We drove down to within 300 yards of where we thought the two gobblers were and parked. I sent two of the guys to the left and I took another guy with me and went to the right. On the way to get set up on the two gobblers we spotted another gobbler with a group of 6 hens. I got set up and started calling and the entire group headed our way. The group got to within 40 yards but we couldn't get a shot because of brush. The lead hen got pissed and went back the way she came and the group followed.
We then went towards the first two gobblers that had been gobbling the entire time we were there. Before we knew it, we were within 70 yards of the two strutting gobblers. They had two hens with them. I began to purr some very sexy tones and the two birds ignored me. I felt like a true champion at that time. Twenty minutes later they were still in full strut. I had been softly calling on and off for 20 minutes when the two hens finally left. They walked to the left and the two gobblers came towards us. At 49 yards I said 1...2...boom and both gobblers hit the dirt. Both birds were probably two year olds. They both had 10" =/- beards and 5/8" spurs.
We messed around with a few more birds later that day but we couldn't make anything work. As we were driving out of the river bottom, we drove under a cottonwood that had 5-6 gobblers and 10-12 hens in it. They all flew across the river into another cottonwood tree and roosted. We knew exactly where to start on Saturday morning.
These two guys that I had with me had seen my partners mounted porcupine and they both wanted one so bad they couldn't stand it. On the way out we came across a couple and they both shot one each.
The next morning we crossed the river via foot bridge and set up close to where the turkeys had roosted. We had gotten a late start and the birds were on the ground. We split up again and I took one guy with me and my partner took another guy with him. We had just got set up when three gobblers walked up on them. This bird is one of two hybrids that we saw on this trip. The other hybrid was a hen.
After we took some pictures of that bird we headed to a high point to glass. I spotted a bird strutting over a mile away. We got into the truck and drove to him. We were on top of the canyon and the gobbler was in the canyon. We drove and walked down a drainage that we thought was right on the spot were the bird was strutting. We came out about 300 yards beyond were the turkey was strutting. I took my guy and we were able to use cover and get within 75 yards of the bird. The bird never came of strut. When he would have has back to us my guy would belly crawl a little farther. We ran out of cover at 56 yards. The gobbler finally realized something was going on and came out of strut. At the shot the bird dropped like he had been struck by lighting. Two hens that we hadn't seen flew away and we then realized why he had been strutting for nearly 1 hour. That bird is the new #2 all time SCI Merriam's turkey. It had 1 1/2" spurs and three beards. (10 1/4", 4 1/8", 3 5/8")
After a photo session, we headed back up into the hills to try and spot another bird. When we were going through a patch of pines, we jumped a group of 15 or so birds that had 5 gobblers in it. We quickly got set-up and started calling. They spotted one guy and ran towards the guy that had just shot the 3-bearded turkey and he shot two more gobblers. One of them is the new #4 SCI Merriams's gobbler. It also had 1 1/2" spurs and two beards. (10 1/8" and 4 3/4")
