I’ll post pics once I get to my computer. Went out for my first two weeks of work in Wyoming...first week was actually the “off week” of my on/off schedule. After several days of chasing Jakes and hens on 10,000 acres of private wonderland I’ve been blessed with access to...I had to work. So second week, I’m working or on-call 24/7, so I can’t hunt unless I’m 30 min to the hospital. I find a great group of strutting Merriams in range, but it’s very, very off-limits.
Taxidermist in town, Wade from Abbeville, suggested a public spot...it was 30 min from hospital sitting in truck...no way to hunt and be within 30 minutes...oh well...looking like tag soup. Finally, it’s time to drive the 22 hours trek back to Indiana for my boys pre K graduation...but that tag was working on me. Decided to give the ole boy from SC’s advice ago and hit that very same-as-everything-else spot on my way out of town. 1/2 mile in I hear gobble. Drop left into a coolie and end up in a dry creek bed with decent cover. I continue to descend...GOBBBBBLLLLE! Hmmm. I ease out where this coolie plays out into a gorgeous green creek bottom surrounded by Cottonwoods...never would have known it if not for ONX gps map, but even then, I did not expect this place to be so beautiful. I think I have to be on private, check my onX...smack in the middle of Wyoming land. Gotta fired up gobbler to my right around the bend and a loud hen about 30 yards in front of me just overs rise. I lay on my face until I think the hen has worked away a bit. She moves off...he ugobbles farther away...I see my opportunity to make a move to some good cover at a good vantage point...this is few and far between out there. I miraculously make it. Settle down. See three turkeys ~100 yards coming in from left. I let out an easy yelp run with my cheap knight and hale mouth call. All three go into gobble-seizures while the one around bend to right is losing his mind. I’ve had a couple gobble at me some over the years...I’ve got four blowing my hair back all at once on public land in Wyoming on my last hours of my season there...and while I was in the thick of some mighty fine cover, my heaving breath and pounding heart had everything I was touching dancing...my gun was resting on a branch that rested on five others and everything in the tree was moving to the rhythmic, massively amplified breathing patterns. The three seem to be wondering why the bushes are moving. Where the fug is this famous Wyoming wind? Now the hen has decided she would not be outdone by me...so she jacks her calling up a knotch or two and starts making strange noises, strange cadences, strange timing...so WTH...I try to copy her. She yelps three times with last one slow and drawn out...me too. This was fun, as all four Toms gobble day every-freaking set of sounds we made. I’m nearing passing out due to hyperventilation when the three leave back to the left...they never strutted...as they left, I pulled out my rangefinder and range the miracle-tree at 60, the “there is a snowballs chance in hell” downed log at 72, and the pretty good chance spot at 80-90. Knowing my pattern is supernatural at 55 and having seen the same setup with dead every time patterns at 75 on the YouTube, I was going to give it a chance at 90 in. So I have the one around corner gobbling every noise I make...every noise she makes. He chases her into the 80-90 yard clearing. He’s just strutting his ass off and hammering at everything. She bolts back to where she came from, he turns to follow...I call, he turns and gobbles trying to see what he knows is there...she’s calling, he turns and gobbles and struts her way...this time, I yelp and throw a double quick cut-cut thing in the middle and he gobbled twice super hard and I’m pretty sure both of us neared orgasm right there. That did it though...he came puffed up and glowing right out 10 to 15 on the other side of my 72 log and I knew there was no way he was going to break strut and cross the log for a hen he did not see. Now or never...I lined it up and 3.5”
Longbeard XR 5s with the longbeard xr choke flat salt-shakered his head at 82-85 yards. Would feel a little bad, but I found out a lot of folks hunt them with .17 rifles out there. Calling in a Tom off a horny hen on public ground to 82 yards is something I am going to be proud of although a lot of lucky decisions allowed me not to screw it up before it ever got going good. Please help me with ID....I was a bit let down...not over size, but I was so zoned in I never paid attention to fact it wasn’t Merriams. Then I thought how stupid disappointment in any aspect of that hunt was...and was jacked again. I’m thinking this is 100% Rio....if hybrid, lots Rio/little Merriams. What say ye. I did not weigh, but he was light...maybe 17-18#. Spurs were jake like nubbins (if this was eastern). Just non-sharpened/developed two year old rounded nubbins. Beard 7.5” and pencillike. This bird never did not gobble and had the three others convinced that they would suffer mightily for a close up of the trim he was wooing. Any ID help much appreciated. Will be using driftwood and cottonwood bark from that spot to display the fan/beard/and “spurs”. Pics are in my gallery in my turkey album, but Ill post once I get to a. device that’ll let me.