Hunter’s Journal

It’s opening morning of the Nebraska Turkey Shotgun season.  Our guests are 3^rd year repeat customers from Colorado. 

The weather leading up to opening day was horrible.  A huge snowstorm that covered the Rocky Mountains, Denver and the Eastern plains of Colorado was moving fast towards us in Nebraska!  If you’ve ever scouted your birds, knew their patterns then had a storm drop 4-6 inches of snow on you 2 days before your hunt, you know what I was worried about! 

Most of the snow had melted by opening morning but the wind and cold temps hadn’t left us yet.  As our 3 guests a cameraman and I left the truck I heard a flurry of gobbles in the direction we were heading to.  I stopped and looked back at the guys with a huge smile and a sigh of relief.

We slipped in about 200 yards from the roost.  Mike and Joe on either side of me.  Rick was behind me to the right and the cameraman was directly behind me.  We couldn’t set up the decoys out of fear of exposing ourselves to the still roosting gobblers.  As the sun slowly rose the birds started their fly-down to an opening not 120 yards from us.  We watched and laughed as the Toms strutted their show.  There were 4 groups of 3-5 Toms strutting for the next 45 minutes.  With quiet purrs and putts from Mike (guest) and myself we had 2 Toms show up moving in from our left.  They made a large circle in front of us to our right, while leaving a hen behind.  She brought up the rear and made more of a “B-line” to us.  The 2 Toms circled around the back of us giving Rick an opportunity to double up.  The first Tom wasn’t 15 yards from Rick but the second one hung up behind a tree.  The hen was 10 yards in front of us and then it happened!  Putt, putt, putt – the skinny was up and she busted one of us.  As she walked away the Tom’s pulled away with her.  She wasn’t wasting any time but wasn’t running either.  I tried to calm them down but they were listening to her body language.  The Tom’s were to our right at 25 yards when I told Mike and Joe to get ready to lean up and take them at the same time.  (Now here’s the fun part about hunting with these guys.  They hunt so much together that I didn’t have time nor did I feel it necessary to tell them which one each of them should shoot – they already knew how to make this play.)  I said, “take ‘em now boys” and they leaned up and pulled the trigger almost at the same time.  Mike took the one on the left and Joe took the one on the right.  As we approached the birds I looked at Joe’s gun and realized he was shooting a 20 gauge Beretta O/U!  I stepped it off afterwards at 42 yards!!!  What an unbelievable shot. 

Not a bad opening morning.  2 Tom’s by 7:15 am and eating breakfast shortly thereafter. 

The following afternoon Rick pulled the trigger on a decoying Jake – after we had to wake him up, again!  To date every bird Rick has harvested while I was guiding him was after I woke him up.  I’m glad he knows how to relax.

To Mike, Joe & Rick:  Thanks again for the memories boys we’ll see you again next year.

To Danny Dodge our cameraman:  Thank you for being there and capturing this fun hunt on video.  I can’t wait to see it on the Pursuit network and have you on future hunts.

Be safe, have fun and preserve our heritage,