My Kansas Turkey - Kansas
Well after a long winter that never seemed to want to leave it was finally time to go to my favorite place in the world KANSAS!! It was going to be my annual spring turkey hunt for those beautiful Rios.
After some planning and getting packed up I was headed up to Virginia to pick up my good friend and fellow Posse member Terry Edwards. After loading all of his gear we were off on the long but enjoyable ride to my home away from home. We were to meet up with my friend Cody Butler once we arrived.
We pulled into the house in Kansas and Cody was there waiting. We jumped in my old hunting truck and headed to the ground that I hunt and there were turkeys everywhere!! We had high expectations for the week seeing all of those birds. After putting the birds to roost we set up an Ameristep blind for the next mornings’ hunt. Needless to say it was a sleepless night and we were up and out to the farm for our first morning hunt!!
We all got settled in with the decoys out and the thunder chickens were gobbling their heads off. The birds came off roost and hit the field. It was an awesome sight, but they were so henned up they would not cooperate....although we did manage to get Cody a bird that evening!
After a couple of days playing cat and mouse with the same group of birds we decided to go hunt another farm. We put the birds to bed the night before and we were up and ready for hopefully a successful hunt the next day. We got in our setup in a group of cedars and were enjoying the symphony of gobbles and yelps.......it was AWESOME!!!
The gobblers started to pitch down and do their ritual of strutting for the hens. After all the birds flew down it was an awesome show with the gobblers strutting and chasing each other around. I had decided not to do much calling until some of the gobblers broke away from the group. Once one of the toms spotted our decoys and started heading our way, I began some soft yelps with my trusty mouth call.
He finally locked in on the decoys and the calling and strutted to about 18 yards of our setup. I waited until he was facing away in full strut and brought my Hoyt back to full draw. Once Terry gave me the okay I released my Easton arrow tipped with a NAP SPITFIRE and let him have it!!!
He ran about 25 yards and just stood there. I was thinking, please go down, but I had hit him a touch low. I knocked another arrow and shot low–I was sick.........he then took off into a cedar thicket. We regrouped and I stalked up on the tom and put a finishing shot and he was down.
I was elated it had finally come together!!! After all our hard work it was well worth it. He was a beautiful Kansas Rio!!! One I was very proud of. We did our recovery and now it was time to celebrate!! It was a great ending to a hard hunt and I want to thank Terry for sticking it out and laying down the footage!!!
Hunter: Scott Carpenter
Cameraman: Terry Edwards
