Part 2

If your following my blog than you read part one of my turkey season in Wyoming. The next weekend of my turkey season was maybe going to be my last shot at filling my tag. I had a vacation planned smack dab in the middle of my season. I would be going to Jamaica for a week and left me no time to come home and get a bird. This weekend was all or nothing.

I was able to get out of work early Friday so on my lunch break I went home and packed my truck to stay there the whole weekend. It was a warm sunny spring afternoon when I got to the same spot I hunted the weekend before. I set up my decoys out in front my blind and waited about thirty minutes and started calling. No turkeys, but did I ever get the pheasants going crazy. Over the next three hours of hunting I must have seen over 50 different cock pheasants in front of my blind. I know where I will be pheasant hunting this fall! It was past shooting hours so I decided to pack up and call it a night. I never even heard the birds roost that night, not wanting to spook anything on my way back to camp I walked down a deer trail to the main road and headed to camp.

The next morning I was wide awake before sunlight. Hunting out west is very different than in the Midwest. We have mountains out here so even though the sun is not up it’s bright before it peaks the mountain tops. I put on my winter hunting cloths.. YES I said winter cloths. It was in the low 30’s when I got up. So dressed to go deer hunting, not turkey hunting I headed to the same spot I hunted the night before. I set up my decoys and sat in my blind waiting for shooting hours. I never heard a bird that morning. I used every type of call that I had with me. Mouth calls, box call, slate, locater calls, I even tried a gobble tube call. NOTHING! The first thing that came to my mind was that coyote is in the area. I sat there for about an hour not making a call, I remembered something I heard from a guy at a turkey seminar I went to a few years ago in Michigan. He was talking about hunting birds out west and he told us that the birds out west love box calls because the sound travels long distance. He also said slam your box call, make the loudest, craziest call you could ever think about calling. It was starting to get warm as the sun started to get to mid morning height, so I started to strip off layers. With nothing to lose I decide to break out my box call and let a nasty call yelp go. I didn’t even have enough time set down my call and these two gobblers fired off so close I thought they were inside my blind. I pulled up my gun and go ready. These two birds were close I could hear them spitting and thumping there chests. I decided to hit the box call one more time loud and crazy. They thundered off with everything they had, they were coming and coming quick. I heard them come through the trees and gobble one last time in the bush that was less than 20 yards from me. I saw them fanned out and strutting there way towards me. I gave them a soft cluck on my mouth call and gobbles rang out! Finally I see red heads waiting for them to clear some sage brush I was able to see the ones beard. I looked at this bird down the end of my barrel gave him one more cluck, Gobble BANG! He dropped right there. I racked a shell into my gun set the safety and flipped my pop up blind into the air. I was so excited and happy to get my first bird in Wyoming, well so I thought. As soon as I got out of my blind that bird got up and took off across the field. I was stunned .I fired one more time and rolled him. I racked another shell into my gun and slowly headed towards him. I got up to him and he was dead with that shot. I paced off the distance of both shots. The first one was 30 yards from my blind shooting 3 ½ mag. #6 shot that bird should have been done from that shot. The second shot was 60 yards from where he laid. I was amazed in that shot, but I think it was nerves that made him run like that. Reason I think that is they was a hole the size of my fist in his neck when I picked him up.

My first bird in Wyoming was a 2 year old Rio with about a 6 inch beard. No spurs just some nubs it didn’t surprise me that he didn’t have spurs because of the mountain terrain that they live in the spurs tend to break off or wear down to nothing. This bird was about 17lbs.
I was excited to kill my first bird in Wyoming and my second for my quest for my grand slam. I have a Merriam and the Osceola to complete my grand slam. Wish me luck I hope to finish spring of 2011.

Thank you for taking the time to read my turkey hunting experience in Wyoming. If you have any questions or comments feel free to post or email me. If you really like reading my blog and care to join click on the follow my blog to the left. Thanks again and check back soon for my next outdoor adventure.

My first Wyoming hunt

Part 1

This was my first season hunting for turkey in Wyoming. This was my first ever hunt for me in Wyoming. I’m still a non resident until this July. It all started for me back in February when I started to apply for my spring turkey permit in my area. I put in for an area called Yellowtail Management Area. Yellowtail is located east of Lovell, Wyoming. It is a state game management area for fishing, hiking, boating, and hunting. The National Wild Turkey Federation transplanted turkeys in this area, and the birds have done very well since then. The area has Merriam’s and Rio’s and a hybrid of the two species.

I wait everyday crossing my fingers for a month for the mail to arrive with my results. To my luck I drew Yellowtail! I received my results in mid March and my season started April 10th through May 20th. I had no time to lose to get over there and do some pre season scouting. If you have never been to Wyoming in the in the spring, weather can be crazy. We had temps in the mid 70’s and snow the next day, so turkey hunting can be tough. On one of many scouting trips in the month of March I saw a nice gobbler in on of the fields. I decided then I would hunt that field opening weekend.

April 10th finally arrives and I loaded and ready to hunt my first western bird. I camped out the night before just north of the field I would be hunting the next morning. I was wide awake at 4:30am, dressed and ready for big daddy tom to make his way in range of my Mossberg. I made my way down the tree line on the edge of the field and set up my Ameristep pop up blind. I just got my blind and decoys set in the field and the tree tops thundered with gobbles! I sat in my blind and let them gobble off for about ten minutes. I gave out a few soft clucks and purrs, GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE. There were six different birds responding to my calls. The field I was set up ran parallel with another field, that was split by a section of Russian olive trees. The birds were on the other end of the field from me that was over a mile long. I heard the birds hit the ground in the other field and they kept responding to my calls. I was thinking to myself “no way it’s going to work out this easy” I heard a group of the gobblers head off in the other direction, but two kept coming my way. I heard them walk all the way down the edge of the tree line in the other field right next to my pop up. They gobbled and I yelped back to them. They turned around and started heading back the other direction. My heart sank. I gave out one last blast on my box call and here he came. I watched him come through the tree line out into the field I was in. He saw my decoys and started to strut, just out of gun range. I had my gun up and kept saying to myself “ ten more yards, ten more yards” This gobbler had a beard that was almost touching the ground as he strut back and forth out in front of me. All of the sudden he stopped! Put his head up and took off across the field and out of no where a coyote leaps in mid air after this bird. This bird just made it up into the tree before this coyote had him for breakfast. I sat there in shock, what just happened I thought? I was mad, yet I got to see something that a lot of hunters don’t get to see that often. This coyote came around the field and noticed my decoy’s he slowly stalked up on them, and finally noticed they were not real birds. The coyote then turned and sat down and watched up at the turkey in the tree. The turkey flew down into the field from he came from and that coyote took off after him. I heard the bird fly up into another tree not even five minutes later. For the rest of the day I never heard or even seen a turkey. I packed up and called it a day that evening.

If your interested in hearing part two of my turkey season , check back over the next week to see if I was able to get my first western turkey. I hope you enjoyed reading this story and if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave a comment or you can email me. Thanks again

That time of the year

Today I will be showing you how to clean and store your mouth calls. It helps with killing bacteria that can grow in your calls and could potentailly make you sick. Everyone has used their call and stored it somewhere, then come next hunting season pop the call in their mouth and it tastes bad and the reeds are dried out. This little tip can help with making your calls sound their best come hunting season and help with not getting sick from using a nasty call.This works for any type of mouth call you might own.First thing you want to do is get a container that you can use to soak your calls in, I use a small plastic container, and fill with COLD water and about an 1/8 of a cup of mouth wash (do not use Listerine or it's off-brands, the alcohol content is too high) to the water.Then put your calls into the container and let them soak for about fifteen minutes.After they have soaked for the fifteen minutes, take them out and rinse them in cold water.Once they are rinsed well, pat them dry with a paper towel. Once they are dry, break tooth picks in half and carefully slide the pointed end between the reeds of the call to keep them apart.Be very careful with this part!After all the reeds are separated with the tooth picks, put them in a sealable plastic container and store them in the refrigerator until your next season.Storing your calls this way will help the reeds of the calls not to dry out and will also taste better the first time use them. Just a little tip from myself: during the season, I still store my calls in the refrigerator when I’m not using them. The only time I use the tooth picks between the reeds and soak them is during the off season or during long periods of no use.I hope you enjoy this and hope it helps you out. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to e- mail me. Thanks for checking out my blog.

Welcome to my blog

Hello my name is Jim Stephan. I would like to thank you for checking out my blog. On my blog I will be taking you along on all my hunting, fishing and outdoors trips. I will post different information on how to's, tips, and tricks. I also will be giving you tips on taxidermy work. On my blog I'm going to show you what you don't see in the hunting shows on television, everything from scouting for you hunt, geting your tag for an out of state hunt, to getting your vehicle ready for your trip. Thanks for checking me out and check back for more info.