We have some tough birds here in PA, and I wanted to take my 13 year old son on a fun hunt with cooperative gobblers. We found it in Uvalde, TX.
We've been teased by our host with pics of big gangs of longbeards for the past year and he couldn't wait for this trip. We flew down last Friday for a three day hunt.
On the first day, we hunted with our host. A big longbeard came in across a pasture to the decoy spread. He realized something was wrong at the last second at 20 yards and went into high alert; my son got a shot, and I THOUGHT it was good, but he took flight without a scratch and didn't even leave a feather.
Later that afternoon, we set up in a different area, and had several longbeards around us. Unfortunately, one came around the bend and my boy got excited and moved a bit in the blind, and the turkey saw something and took off. More frustration. We had a few more almost come into gun range closer to sundown, but they wouldn't close the deal.
The second morning, we hunted alone. Rather than hunt out of the blind from the first morning, we climbed into a deer blind about 25 yards from it and across a high fence so we could see down the access roads better. We ended up calling in a longbeard but he hung up trying to cross through the high fence. He ended up making it through, and disappeared into the mesquite. In the meantime, another longbeard showed up to feed about 100 yards away. He responded occasionally, but was more interested in eating.
Eventually, the longbeard that crossed the fence popped up on the road halfway between us and the feeding gobbler. I gave some yelps, the feeding one gobbled, and the closer one saw the feeding one and they apparently decided that since there was competition, they would race to the the hen! Both of them came running down the road as fast as they could and stopped yards away from us. My boy got ready, and face-planted him into the dirt at 15 yards. After reviewing the video from the first morning, we're almost certain it was the same one he missed the day before. I was so focused on him, I never picked up my gun and missed a chance at a double. This one was 17 lbs, 9 3/4" beard, 1 3/8 spurs, his biggest gobbler to date. He got this one around noon.
Logan was tired after a full day and a half of hunting, so he went back to nap at the hotel while I hunted that afternoon. We went back to the previous day's afternoon spot but instead of hunting from the blind I tucked myself back in the mesquite and watched an access road intersection. Within an hour or so, I had turkeys all around me. Eventually a longbeard came walking up the road in front of me, and I gave him a load of TSS in the wattles at 11 yards. 9" beard, 1 1/4" spurs.
On the third morning, we decided to go back to the spot where we had hunted the previous mornings, and where Logan got his first Rio. The host set up in the blind, and we climbed into the deer stand. We each put out a hen decoy. It was really quiet after flydown, and the turkeys didn't start talking until 9am or so. Then a longbeard showed up, then a jake. We called in the jake on our side of the high fence, and the lone gobbler started working towards us on the other side. He was taking his time. Then some other gobblers started going off in a meadow about 80 yards through the mesquite on the other side of the meadow we were watching. After an hour or so of watching this longbeard slowly come towards us, he stopped strutting and his head became blood red... a bunch of gobblers were coming out into our meadow through the mesquite, he went submissive! Suddenly we went from a longbeard and a jake to 9 or 10 mature longbeards in this field, and the only hens in sight were our decoys. There was some posturing, lots of gobbling, some fighting, etc... there were birds EVERYWHERE. The host couldn't see half of them and didn't know why we weren't shooting, but I was waiting to take my shot until one was in range for Logan. I was tracking my bird, when I heard Logan start counting quietly... "One, two.." oh crap, I guess we're shooting... "three!... BOOM!" I squeezed the trigger on mine after I heard his shot, but nothing happened. The hammer of my single shot fell on the fabric of my glove! I cocked the hammer back again and the longbeard was still there but not for long... but I got to take the shot. We had our last two Rios flopping within seconds of each other. Of the four gobblers he's gotten, this was our second double. Logan made a great shot at 37 yards, mine was about 28 yards.
Overall we had a phenomenal time. I've never seen so many birds that were willing to play. Logan said this was the best vacation he's ever taken, no exceptions. Nothing else compared... beaches, Disney, hog hunts, all paled in comparison for him. The great part was having all those longbeards in front of him all this time. We probably tripled his several years of PA experience in front of birds within 3 days, he learned a LOT and got a lot of confidence while getting to observe multiple birds, how they react to calls, and that just because a bird "leaves" doesn't mean he's really gone. No regrets at all on this hunt. Logan's goal is to get a grand slam, and this puts him halfway there. We're sure that after we get the other 2 subspecies, we WILL return to hunt Rios again!
I also learned that Logan can jump 10 feet straight in the air when he sees a tarantula scurry under his feet and into a burrow. Oh yeah, sorry Logan, I forgot to mention that there are tarantulas here...
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