Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs Back From Our Nebraska Trip (Pic Heavy)

BC, his son Hunter and myself had a great time in Nebraska. We had safe travels, a lot of laughs, made lots of memories and even managed to kill a few turkeys. The hunting wasn't easy by any means. The birds were grouped up and didn't want to work to calling or decoys but we did find a few that wanted to play with us before it was over with.

I'm going to tell the stories behind my hunts/kills and I will let BC tell his and Hunter's stories.

It rained us out the first morning so we rode/walked around and done some glassing. One spot that we located birds at was on the edge of a big corn field. We couldn't do anything with them that day but watch them through the binos but there was a beautiful white tipped strutter in the group and I set my sights on him from the beginning. I REALLY wanted that bird in a bad kinda way.


Monday: I went to the corn field where the white tipped strutter was and set up before daylight. I didn't know the layout of the land very well and there is a flat near the roost trees beside the creek that leads up to the corn field. there is a big gully that runs up the middle of the flat. When the birds fly down most of them flew down on the other side of the gully. i did have a few hens and jakes fly down on my side and check the decoy out. I called to the strutters and and they came to the edge of the gully and strutted back and forth but wouldn't come across it. I waited until all of the birds finished feeding and left before i got up and left. I went and met up with BC and we were done for that morning. That afternoon I went to a different area near where BC and Hunter were planning on hunting. i heard several birds gobbling and called up 4 jakes but no longbeards.

Tuesday: As you all know by now BC got up when the clock went off and went to the bathroom. The door locks on the bedroom will lock you out when you close the door if you don't make sure you disengage the lock. He got locked out and tried beating on the door. I was so wore out from the drive up and the 3.5 hours of sleep I got monday night that I never woke up so he went and got on the couch and went to sleep. I cost us all a hunt Tuesday morning. I felt horrible and apologized several times. He wasn't mad and said we all needed to get some rest but I felt horrible about it (and still do) but we got past that and we were ready to get after them after that. That afternoon I went back to the same area I went the evening before. I seen several turkeys but none of them came in to range. I did kinda figure out their pattern and told BC what they were doing so he could put his son on them the next afternoon.

Wednesday: I went back to the big cornfield that morning. This time I got on the other side of the gully hoping they would fly down to that side again. Just in case they didn't BC and his son set up on the other side. They flew down on the other side where I had set up the morning before but never got close enough for any of us to get a shot. We did get to hear a lot of gobbling and see a bunch of turkeys so it was a great morning anyway. We left there and went to another block of land to see if we could find a bird that wanted to play. We get out of the truck and hear a bird gobbling down in a bottom on the other side of the pasture. We take off that way and close the distance. When we got to where we wanted to set up BC told me I was up to bat. I told him I really wanted Hunter to get a Bird before I did so after a few minutes discussing it we put Hunter in the shooters seat. i sat down to his left and BC was beside me with the bird at his back. We were all tucked up in a big cedar tree. We called and sure enough here he came. I seen the bird coming and told hunter to get ready. When the bird got in range we gave Hunter the green light to shoot. He pulls the trigger and missed. The bird takes off running to Hunters left angling away from us running toward my 2 o'clock. Without even thinking about it rule #2 kicked in and I flipped the gun over shooting left handed and swung on the bird. He was about 40yds and when the dot was just pasted his head I touched off the trigger and the bird just crumbled and never moved. I had my first NE longbeard. I hate that Hunter missed and didn't get him because thats what I wanted more than anything. BC and Hunter both jumped up and congratulated me on the bird and on the shot. from there we went to taking pictures.






That afternoon we went to where I had somewhat patterned the birds the evening before. BC and Hunter went down in the bottom where the birds were going and I stayed up top to catch any birds that wanted to skirt the high side near the cornfield. BC and Hunter were in the birds that afternoon but I will leave that story for him to tell.

Thursday: I went back to the cornfield and got back on the other side of the gully where I went the first morning. Of course the birds fly down on the other side where I was the day before where they flew down the first morning. Several birds never went to the cornfield that morning and went straight to the pasture behind them. the strutters and a few hens went to the cornfield. I was watching them feed in the field trying to figure how to get on these birds. BC had told me that being where a turkey wanted to be is key when they don't want to cooperate. I noticed that the 3 longbeards kept staying right with this one hen in particular so I thought maybe if I could figure out where she wanted to go I might get lucky and she would bring them in with her. She started slowly heading toward the other birds that went to the pasture instead of the cornfield and I figured I needed to get between them. I dropped my vest and took off in the bottom behind me that wrapped around and used the gully to my advantage. When i got to the gully I belly crawled up the side under a cedar tree to see where the birds were. They were about 150yds out and were going a way that I had no way to close the distance. I wrapped around the bend and set up in a mule deer trail next to a tiny little cedar tree. I yelped on my mouth call and they all gobbled. the hen got kinda mad at that and went to yelping back at me. i cut her off and started cutting at her. she called back at me and was a lot closer. I raised my gun up and got ready. after 5 minutes had passed I called to them again and they gobbled just out of sight. I could hear wings dragging on the ground from strutting. A longbeard appears followed by a hen, then another longbeard, and then the white tipped strutter I had my sights set on. He was turned kind of away from me so I yelped and when he gobbled I squeezed the trigger and down he went. I finally had the bird I had set my sights on the first day. NE longboard #2 for me. I didn't shoot his feathers out. i was toting him out on my turkey tote that BC gave me and i reached over to pull my gun sling up on my shoulder and when i did the tote slid down my arm. without missing a step I tossed it back up on my shoulder. little did i know i was standing on a few feathers.









Friday: It was a pretty uneventful morning. After BC and his son were finished with their hunt they came and picked me up. We went to another spot to see if we could hear a bird. We hear one and take off that way. I'll leave the details to BC but Hunter got him one! We went to take pictures and while we were taking pictures we had birds gobbling over the hill and across the field from where we were. After we had taken pictures BC asked me if I wanted to go after those birds. He was sure he knew where he was and how I could get to him. We drive out to the farm road and I get out. BC points me in the direction I need to go and I take off. I get in there near them and before i can even start calling something spooks them and a hen and a longbeard fly over the top of me. I text BC and ask him if he seen what spooked them. He didn't have a clue but he seen them fly over where I was. Not knowing where the other gobblers were I sit tight for a few but nothing ever happens. As Im coming out BC texts me and says the other 2 gobblers were laying down in the wheat hiding and he seen them get up and they were headed my way quickly. I didn't have time to set up so I just back up in a cedar tree standing up and pull my mask up. A minute later I see them walking in the wheat. When the first one gets to 30yds I pull the trigger and down he goes. NE longbeard #3 and Im tagged out! Me and hunter even got to take pictures together!






It was a great trip and I can't thank BC enough for letting me tag along. I got to see Hunter take his first NE longbeard and I got to take my first one as well. I had the pleasure of getting to know Hunter better and spend some quality time with both of them. We made memories that will last a lifetime and I hope to make many more with BC and his family along the way.

Congrats agin Darryl. This time last year you were still a dang deer hunter, by dang I think you might like this turkey hunting thing finally. That's a good thing because I can't have any friends that are deer hunters so you were about to get cut loose.

Glad y'all have fun. It can be very rough on your body and mind if you let it be.

Congrats on a great trip

Sounds like y'all had a great trip. I had a blast last year going up there. Ole BC is a straight up great guy. I took my favorite bird up there sitting next to him. Always wanted a white tipped bird and he even let that old turkey walk past the front of his gun barrel allowing me to take him. I will never forget that hunt.

Great trip!!

Thanks for sharing.

Good job man, congrats

Good job man

Congrats Darryl! Looks like a great trip

Congrats on a great hunt!

Looks a sounds like a good time

Awesome read, congrats on some good birds!

Congrats on a great hunt! I think you are changing your tune about these turkeys huh?! Addicting!

BC is a great guy. His plan was to not even kill a bird until me and Hunter had killed a few. It just so happened to work out to where he killed 2 before I killed 1 and he had killed all 3 of his before his son killed any. It was either kill them or let them get away and that would break rule #2 . After he killed his first bird he said he wasn't even going to tote a gun again until we both killed one. There was no way i was going to let that happen. He felt bad for killing a bird before us and i know that put a lot of pressure on him. I told him that it happens that way sometimes and there was no hard feelings at all. I was happy for him on every bird he killed and theres no way i would have wanted it any other way. I had much rather him kill the bird than for none of us to kill it. After he got the second one he was really hard on himself and kept apologizing to me and Hunter telling us that he never planned on it to work out that way. I still insisted that he carry his shotgun anyway . Heck he even felt so bad at one point that a gobbler came in from behind us right up in his lap and he threw a stick at it to run it off (I will let him tell that story)

Congrats guys on yalls trip I'm proud of you DC, you might make a turkey hunter after all

I will leave my kills off because most of them were largely uninteresting as I was mostly killing birds that were bugging out after Hunter missed them.

Here's the stick story:

Sunday afternoon Hunter, Darryl, and I were going to make an extremely long walk to a couple of roosts that n2deer and I found several years back. The little block of land is about a mile from where you park the truck but you have to follow the creek around because it's too deep to cross so you wind up walking at least three miles to get in there. I absolutely detest going in there because of the walk but killing a turkey is almost an automatic. Hunter and I were going to hunt this strip of hardwoods that borders a big CRP field and Darryl was going to go over the hill to sit on an old ancient oak tree that always has turkeys roosted in it. Driving in to our parking spot we ran into a hen and a gobbler and they just sort of eased into the bottom and never really spooked. Darryl decided he was going to hunt around the truck and see if he could get that bird to come back, instead of doing that long walk.

Long story short Hunter and I hunted on our strip of roost trees and worked some gobblers in the CRP field but they shut up and never came in there to us. Close to dark we got up and went over the hill where we could see the tree that Darryl was supposed to be sitting under and it was full of turkeys. I'm guessing there were at least 30 birds in that tree and at least 7 - 10 were longbeards.

I devised this plan to leave them alone the following morning and sneak in there like ninjas the next evening and catch them coming to roost. Darryl had not killed a turkey at this point and I was feeling some pressure to get him on a bird. I told him if he made that walk it was a done deal! I had been sick the whole trip and was having a problem with coughing when I got hot. I wanted Darryl and Hunter to go in there by themselves and Darryl wouldn't have none of it. He told me if I didn't hunt it he wasn't hunting it, so I reluctantly went in there with them and set up behind them so I could coach if need be. Now to get a better picture of how this thing unfolded, you have to have a general understanding of how the land lays. This roost tree is on a creek, and it's in the bottom of a huge pasture. It's downhill all the way to the tree. There are several small hills and once you sit within proximity of the tree you really can't see anything until it's on top of you. My vantage being behind them was a little bit higher which allowed me to see further. That allowed me to watch their back and make sure no turkeys came from behind and surprised them.

About an hour before flyup time, I saw a hen top the hill behind Hunter and Darryl and there were several birds that sounded like they were closing in, in front of them. I was watching for the birds in front of us and not doing my job watching our back and I glanced back and there was the hen I saw at about 60 yards and coming in fast. I told Darryl she was coming and asked if he wanted me to run her off. He told me to do whatever I thought I needed to do. She keep closing the distance and finally I pick up a stick and toss it towards her. She immediately goes into alert mode and I see her head drop into the grass. A second later a head pops up out of the grass at like 15 yards and it's a gobblers head. At that point in the hunt I had already killed a bird and as Darryl mentioned I didn't even plan on killing one until if and when him and Hunter had tagged out. So I'm sitting here and this gobbler has no clue we are in the world but his hen is leaving and he follows her. I refrain from shooting him because I just know he is going to loop around to get to his tree and will give one of them an opportunity. Wrong! He went back across the pasture and pitched up in a tree. The other birds we were waiting on roosted where Hunter and I were at the evening before. So my speech about a "sure thing" made me look like an idiot because I decided to throw a stick at a hen.

Smooth move huh?

We all had a good laugh at that one. me and Hunter started ragging on him about it. We told him we were never going to kill any birds if he kept throwing sticks at them to run them off

Sounds like a great hunt and that countryside sure is pretty. Congrats guys!

Darryl and I talked on Tuesday and I told him I was pressing trying to get him and Hunter a bird. I told him I needed to stop being more aggressive and dial it back a bit and things would turn around. After that we put on a turkey killing, and in Hunter's case, a turkey missing clinic.

After we got back to the basics and slowed down, Darryl quickly killed two birds and Hunter subsequently missed 4 birds in a row. On Thursday evening he missed his 5'th bird in a row and I was beyond frustrated. We came out a little early due to his 18 yard whiff so there was a little light left when we got to the truck. We decided to go check a little creek where we used to see birds roost but haven't seen them the last two years. We slow rolled by and sure enough there was a huge old oak down there with a gobbler in the left fork and a single hen in the right fork. I told Hunter that one right there would be his bird on Friday morning. We get up really early on Friday and sneak in on the creek. When we get to the tree I can see two birds on the left fork and figured the hen had limb hopped and went over there to the gobbler.

Long story short it gets daylight and those two birds were a couple of hens. I have no idea where the gobbler went but he was GONE. Dejected and not knowing what to do I walked back to the truck with my tail between my legs and a disappointed 14 year old in tow. We made it back to the truck and Darryl was coming out of the woods and I guess it was around 8 am. We rode over to another area we haven't hunted much and slip in there. We hadn't been in there long when I heard a turkey gobble and then as luck would have it we spot 4 strutters coming down the fenceline with a couple of hens. We were able to use the lay of the land to get down to the fence and waited on them. The first one popped out from behind the hill and I told Hunter he could shoot that one or wait on the group and try to kill a couple of them. He elected to shoot. I remember hearing that safety come off and I cupped my hands and said a little prayer "Lord please let this boy hit this turkey". Boom!, and finally a bird folded up. I tell you what, after all the frustration of five misses... I couldn't have been more proud of him.




We got to talking on the way back to the lodge that we should probably just pack up and head on out now that Hunter had gotten a bird. We got back to the lodge and talked about it some more and Hunter expressed that he would like one more opportunity to fill a tag. We were there and had time so why not?

Darry took us to an area we had not hunted at all because there is nowhere to park a truck. We slipped in on the creek and went to the backside of a big pasture that I have killed a many a bird out of up there. We sat there for hours and listened to birds gobble across the creek but we didn't move because I knew there would be some birds in that section we were in before the evening was up. Sure enough about an hour and a half before dark I see a couple of turkeys duck under the fence out of the CRP field and I quickly identified them as 2 hens and 2 jakes. I was watching them through the binos about 200 yards away and Hunter says "DAD! A Strutter!". I looked up and down that fence line and said "Where"? He said "Right in front of us"! and I dropped the binos and he was hard charging left to right in front of us. I threw the binos down and snatched up my box call and started yelping loudly. He stopped and I told Hunter to shoot. He got on the turkey and Boom! I looked and the old turkey was just standing there like nothing was wrong. I said "Did you miss"?, and I had barely got the words out of my mouth and he just fell over like an old tree. I got up and realized just what a poke it was to that bird, and I'm guessing it was close to 60 yards. He didn't look that far but I mean the entire thing went down in seconds.

So ol Hunter missed a bunch of birds, but he made it count on the last day with two awesome Nebraska turkeys. I couldn't have been more proud of him.

Way to recover, Hunter; congrats buddy!!

Hunter was one happy feller when that bird fell but he wasn't nearly as happy as his daddy. BC had a grin on his face that went from ear to ear and his whole attitude changed from that moment on. The pressure was off now that Hunter had got him a bird. He was chilled and relaxed the rest of the trip...