Bucket List Trip (Legion Poetry Warning)
It has been a long time goal of mine to hike into the Big Cypress in the Florida Everglades and camp until I kill a gobbler. BC is heavily pressured, very remote, and is about as inhospitable place as there is in the southeastern US, but they have the earliest turkey season in the country.
The issues I would face would be that I haven’t camped since I was 10, I don’t have a lot of hiking knowledge, and that many yum yums hiking around the woods with shotguns. My wife insisted that I not go alone, which I agreed was probably safe, and We spent the last 9-10 months obsessing over maps, aerials, reports, rules, and talking with folks who had seen this place with their own eyes. The one thing that we did not want was specific locations. I wanted to figure out the birds, plan their response to the pressure that would hit Saturday morning, and kill them when they made mistakes.
The entire planning period was spent under the assumption that we would be hiking in from some private land that a friend had access to, camping remotely, and trying to use isolation/separation from people to our advantage. We had determined a route, picked what appeared to be a good site, and studied a 4 mile radius of said site to the point that I knew it better than my house. We felt confident in our plan and had the timing of our hike, the return to the truck for more supplies the next day, and the plans to kill from that base. Well, Monday of last week that whole plan had to be scrapped when the caretaker of the property decided he didn’t want our vehicle there. A Plan B has to be constructed in pretty short order.
Plan B consisted of bicycles, a primitive backcountry campground, and far more contact with the yum yums. The great thing about bikes is the amazing number of 40 year old dudes that have a nice, lightly used mountain bikes around. So, we rounded up a couple, hoped our skills from being hell on wheels at 12 years old hadn’t faded, and strapped em to the truck. There was also the possibility of getting a ranger licensed by jumping through a few hoops, and that would make things far easier. We considered that a potential luxury, and proceeded as if that wouldn’t come to fruition.
On Wednesday afternoon we threw more crap than could ever be needed in the truck, hooked up the ranger and headed south. We grabbed a hotel south of Orlando and headed on into the jumping off point Thursday morning. We packed up all of the camping gear, left the hunting stuff in the truck, and started pedaling. The packs weighed right at 50 lbs each and the ride was about 7 miles. Half of that 7 miles was a primitive trail that was mud, roots, and sand. The bottom line is that bikes largely suck.
We reached the campsite, got everything set up, and headed out to put boots on the ground to match aerial intel with what terrain actually looks like. As a first impression, the place was as raw and thick and nasty as you can imagine. The expectations that it was inhospitable were dead on. It was also a gorgeous place that was very largely undisturbed by people with an insane amount of cool critters. We tried to embrace the difficulties and focus on the plan of finding turkeys and shooting them with small pellets.
We covered a lot of ground Thursday afternoon, and confirmed some terrain that we had studied indeed looked like it might hold turkeys. We never saw or heard a turkey, but saw a few tracks and learned how to move around.
The plan for Friday was to listen/scout until 11, then set about getting the ranger licensed to expand our range and give us more supplies. I biked into an area that we hoped would hold birds, and as soon as I got off the bike at 6:05, a gator fight in a cypress dome produced my first Big Cypress gobble. One of our biggest concerns was the reports that the place just didn’t have a very high turkey population. Friday morning wiped that worry off the board as I went on to hear at least 6 different birds gobble, and gobble very well. One of the choices that I obsessed over was choice of footwear. I had to balance the desire for long range comfort, the amount of water that i’d constantly be in, water moccasins and having a young family, and protecting my feet from all of the thorns. By the time the sun rose on Friday, I was down to these
I did put on crocs when I headed off road, but the squeaking wasn’t going to allow that to be a long term strategy. I ended up settling on the rubber Lacrosse Granges that I wear here.
A few landscape pics
The biggest surprise of Friday morning was only seeing one other party. We knew the rush was coming, and out plans really counted on the pressure, but it was strange to have such a huge area almost to ourselves. We met back up and my partner had not heard a single bird, but had talked to a ranger that gave him a lot of insight. Last year was a very dry year, allowing the explosion of the fire ant population, which had driven the turkeys out of the high areas. That caused a problem with this being a very wet year, and the places the birds had been pushed to were now very wet.
We set off to try to get the ranger licensed and that proved to be no problem. We got the truck licensed as a bonus and were now going to be very comfortable. We found a pretty good soft shell crab sandwich and headed off to the grocery store, now that we were going to be living in luxury.
When we returned to camp the small campground had almost filled up, and the folks we talked to promised more to come. We saw trucks from NY, MI, WI, TX, GA, FL, OK, and OH. ATV’s were suddenly everywhere, and adherence to the closed trail rules seemed to be nonexistent. It wAs more or less a free for all. We thought that played into our hands.
We continued to put boots on the ground and match terrain with aerials. One major challenge is that it is very difficult to tell a devil palm flat from a longleaf pine flat on satellite imagery, but we learned very quickly that the “a turkey would never walk through that” ideals that we carry in other places did not apply to these birds. They are tough and don’t give a damn. We also continued to learn how to move through the different types of terrain without sounding like a gyrotrac.
We never heard or saw a bird on Friday night, but hatched a confident plan for Saturday morning, shared a toast, and tried to sleep with the anticipation of opening day.
Saturday morning brought more ATV’s more yum yums, more noise, more disruption, and enough different variations of an owl hoot than I could imagine existed. We stuck to our plan, and got to our spot without too much disruption. We didn’t anticipate competition for our spot because there was no reason for most folks to think it would be the right place to be. We had chosen it for our reasons, and wondered if we were the crazy ones. The first gobble of the season came at 6:17 from the anticipated spot and the gobbling from Friday had clearly carried over. After flydown, we moved to our spot, and started working on him. We had chosen this one because he was the most remote and had gobbled the least. Well, he was feeling his oats on Saturday and it ended up saving him. He wouldn’t shut up. We had him on the way and were less than 5 minutes from killing him before two hooting yum yums bumbled right into him and sent him north. Game over. We stayed our course and continued to learn the back doors while people banged on the front door. We had another somewhat close call around noon on Sat, but it just didn’t work out. Big Cypress is thick. Shots are at close range through small windows, and it takes some pretty sporty handling of a shotgun.
In our unit on Sat, 1 Bird was killed overall by 39 hunters. He was shot in the road shortly after flydown and we think it was the first bird I heard on Friday.
Sat afternoon we continued to explore the remote areas and became more confident that the pressure would push them right into our laps. We are ribeyes cooked over the fire.
Sunday morning we stayed the course and approached our same bird from a little different angle and continued to keep our distance from him on the roost. He first gobbled at 6:10 and we simply moved with him and monitored him as he gathered hens and another gobbler. After lots of water moccasins and gators, we finally helped at 8:15. He answered. We thought we were in the spot, but were just off the X. Nonetheless, we were solidly in the game. We listened as they went about their business, and at 9:15 we made our aggressive move through a thigh deep cypress dome (that’s unnerving as hell when gators are bellowing all around you). As we quietly arrived at the other side of the dome, I whispered to my buddy “when I Dream of killing an Osceola, this is what the place looks like.” I knew we were tight, but didn’t know how tight until I sat down and immediately heard very clear drumming. I motioned my buddy to get down, and within 40 seconds I caught my first glimpse of the strutter at 45 yards. We had gotten lucky. He was on deck to shoot, and I passed a marginal left handed shot at about 40 yards in a split second decision. The drumming continued to intensify and we both caught glimpses of fans, wings, and a white head. Finally after about 25 intense minutes, Tim finished his Royal and grand slams at 28 yards at 9:56. It happened in one of the prettiest most wild places that God has created, and in a fashion you can only dream of. He took a risky shot through a tiny gap, and made it count. It was a great bird with sharp 1-1/4” jet black spurs and an 11” beard. A true black winged origin of the species.
After pics and toasts, his buddy was still gobbling in another accessible spot, so we headed that way. We never could get where we needed to be to feel like we could make it happen, so we kept our distance and left him for the proper time, which we hoped would be Monday. The trip and mission were complete, and now it was time to try to put some icing on the cake if I could kill one.
Sunday afternoon we drank too much beer, caught bass and Oscars and even skipped scouting because we knew the plan for Monday morning. We fried up Oscars with some grits for dinner and continued celebrating.
The celebration led to a slight foot injury for Sunday’s killer, so I would be on my own for Monday’s mission. I love to hunt with folks, and rarely hunt alone, but this was the way I had always dreamed about killing a Big Cypress gobbler. I took a shotgun, head lamp, thermacell, mouth call, and pot call. I headed out with enough confidence in my plant that I just knew it would go down. We had learned these birds and how they move and it was time to collect rent. (Poetry warning). I took over an hour to move through the thickets and domes and arrived right where I wanted to be with about 20 minutes to spare. It was dead still, the stars were amazing, and 6:12 brought a huge gobble from exactly where I had hoped. I took some time to appreciate all of the work that had gone into this trip, and how fortunate we were that our plans had worked, the weather was in our favor, and things had gone smoothly. I knew I was killing that turkey, and even though I was still half a mile from the spot, I knew where he would die.
He gobbled and gobbled until he pitched out at 6:40. I let him move off with his hens and slipped into my first setup. My first call was answered by him and his loud hens and all of the above started heading my way. We cut and yelped back and forth as hard as we could and he gobbled in an absolute frenzy. In the end, the hens came too fast and got within 15’ of me before he could get there. I got him to 35 yards but never got a decent shot and the hens got nervous, ending that encounter pretty quickly. It is just so thick. They moved off to the SW, and I killed some time just enjoying that bottom and watching a huge gator bellow.
Here is that spot with the oak tree being his roost tree
After giving them enough time to clear out, I moved off to the SE to head for our mid morning meeting spot. I was able to monitor the group by their occasional gobbles and my confidence in the plan continued to grow. I worked my way into the right bottom and got set by about 8:30. I knew I had time. He answered some yelps about 300 yards out about 9am, and the first set of hens showed up at 9:30. He answered some clucks from 70 yards about 20 minutes later and I saw him and his buddy shortly after. I finally got a good 18 yard shot and made it count. His buddy pitched up into a cypress, then pitched down on top of him to beat on him for a bit. I sent my buddy a text saying “Bam” at 9:56 from a spot about 30 yards from where he had killed the day before. It was such a calm cool feeling for all of this obsessing to come to an end in that cool dark place. I toasted the bird and the place, and took some time to appreciate what we had pulled off. His 1-3/8” spurs easily hung him on a limb, and I took as good of pics as possible by myself and without Ricky’s portrait mode.
I headed out to be picked up and we went to pack up camp to head home. We are still confident that we could’ve killed a couple more, but we had done what we came to do.
Since this sounds so easy to do, I’ll let you know that 138 hunters signed into our area over the three days. 3 turkeys were killed, with us killing two of them. There were a lot of things that fell in our favor, but we had planned so exhaustively, and executed our plan.
Overall, the place is incredible. It is raw and wild and dangerous and gorgeous and remote and unforgiving and crowded. I’ll certainly head back there some day, and I’ll be glad to help anyone that wants to do it and do it the right way. I won’t drop you pins, but if that’s what you want, you’re probably just looking for the easiest way to check a box.
Here are a few random pics:
Them that don't know him won't like him, and them that do sometimes won't know how to take him
He ain't wrong, he's just different, and his pride won't let him do things to make you think he's right
They don't put Championship rings on smooth hands
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Originally Posted by Chessbay
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