One Weekend in Nebraska

DAY 1:

Last Friday Dad, Sarah and myself pulled out of the driveway at about 5 AM heading north. We were completely loaded down with hunting gear, video equipment and food for a few days. Arnold, Nebraska was our final destination and we were looking at a long drive ahead. The drive would take us approximately 10.5 hrs. As we approached Lincoln, NE, we were welcomed with temps in the low 30s and hard snow. The weather was supposed to get better through the weekend but I have to be honest, I was a little nervous. I began to wonder if the clothes that we packed were going to be warm enough. None the less, we were extremely excited about having the chance to each take our first Merriam. We arrived at the place we were staying at about

3:30 or 4 and waited for our guide to show up. He was coming in from Wyoming and was slowed down by closed roads due to the sudden snow fall. Our guide, Doug from Table Mountain Outfitters, arrived 1 1/2 hours later and we were off to check out the spots we would be hunting. This wouldn't be a typical guided hunt, as Doug would just show us the land we could hunt and let us go at it. As we were driving down the road, checking on the places we were going to hunt, we saw a bunch of about 30 turkeys maybe 10-15 of them were mature toms. This got us really excited and Doug said "ya, that's a good bunch, but the other day we counted 94 toms on this property." Of course I thought it sounded a little far fetched , but either way there was a nice bunch of toms heading right for the roosting trees. Needless to say, I knew where I was going in the morning.

Day 2:


Saturday morning came early with a wake up call at 4:30 but the excitement made it easy to get up and going. We drove out to our spot and started getting all of our gear together. The temps were in the mid 20s and we were crunching frost all the way in.

Since this was our first time hunting here, we really weren't sure where to set up. As we were getting closer to what we thought was the roost, we heard a soft YELP, YELP, YELP. We were close, so we set up the Avian X decoy and hunkered down next to a brush pile. As the sun started to creep up and it got a little lighter, the gobbles were going off like crazy. The noise was comparable to being stuck in the middle of a thunderstorm. It was constant yelping and

gobbling for at least 1/2 hour. It finally got light enough to be able to see the birds in the trees and there must have been at least 50 toms and who knows how many hens. Trust me, I would not believe it either if I hadn't have been there. There was a group of about 20 trees and they were absolutely full of turkeys. The fly down was really intense. We were about 150 yards from the actual roost but because there were so many flying down, it sounded like they were right on top of us. I called like crazy but it was pretty much useless as there were so many hens. It was the loudest turkey hunting morning that I've ever experienced. After about and hour the turkey started to make their way away from the roost and we decided to move a little bit and try to catch a tom without a hen.

We only made it about 50 yards when we saw a head poking over the hill. We dropped down, I set up the decoy and crawled to the nearest brush pile. Luckily they hadn't seen us, so I began calling. At this point, I was really trying to call to the hens and try to get them to bring a tom close enough for a shot. They were getting closer and after about 1/2 an hour of exchanging yelps with several hens, there was atleast 30 toms in full strut and at least 50 hens on the
hillside only about 80 yards away. It was taking them forever to make their way down the hill and I was wondering if we were ever going to get a shot. All of a sudden, I heard some drumming behind me and I knew he was REAL close. I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye, it was a mature tom in full strut heading straight for the decoy. I tried to remain as still as possible as he passed withing 5 yards of us. I waited until he got a few yards within the decoy and with my heart pounding, I was able to muster up a few soft clucks. He raised his head and without hesitation I squeezed the trigger. I had killed my first Merriam turkey!

Day 3:

Dad did not have as good of luck as I did the first morning, so we decided to go back to the spot where I killed my bird. He would set up on one side of the roost with Sarah and I on the other. Since the birds went both ways after the fly down the day before, this seemed like a pretty good idea. We headed out and got to our spots just in time. The birds were gobbling just as we were getting set up. The temperatures had risen and the toms were really fired up on the roost. The birds began to fly down and we watched a lot of toms strutting around and breeding hens. After about an hour of this we heard BANG............BANG! Two gunshots. I leaned over to Sarah and said Dad missed. The shots pretty much scared everything off but we decided to sit and wait for a little bit because we assumed that he missed. 15 minutes later I hear a whistle. I knew it was Dad, so I got up to go talk to him and maybe come up with our next move. As I was walking toward him I said "did you miss?", he responded "I didn't miss". I thought to myself "What?" As I got closer I could see something laying on the ground. Not one bird but Two! He had a group of about 4 toms come in and shot one bird then shot another as it was running off. Not Bad. We located a few different toms and tried to put some stalks on them but nothing seemed to work out just right. So we headed back in for lunch and a quick nap. After getting rested up and our bellies full, we drove back out to the hunting grounds. This time it was just Sarah and I. Dad got another tag and went out with Doug for the afternoon. Well we ended up chasing a few gobblers for a couple hours, either got busted or couldn't pull them away from hens. As it got later, we knew that the birds would be making their way back to the roost. We decided we would try to cut them off about a 1/4 of a mile before they got there.

We set up near another brush pile and waited, but it wasn't too long before we heard a gobble. I did a little bit of calling but I knew that they were headed our way. It seemed like it was taking them forever and we were getting impatient, but the gobbles were getting closer and closer. Finally, I could see a fan start to pop over the hill, then another and another. There were a lot of toms in this group and I knew it was just a matter of time before they saw the decoy and
came into range. There were at least 5-6 toms that we could see about 100 yards away but they were taking forever and the camera light was getting low. I wondered if we were going to get a shot at one. Then out of no where, a nice tom started walking real fast right to the decoy from about 15 yards to my left. It took me by surprise a little bit. The bird started to loop around in front of us on it's way to the decoy. Before he could get there, I hit him with a couple clucks and that was the end of him.

This was absolutely the best turkey hunt that I've ever been on. I have never seen so many turkeys at one place in my life. If you get a chance to go hunt Nebraska for turkeys, I highly recommend it. If you decide you might want to, check out Table Mountain Outfitters because they sure can put you on the birds. There were 3 other hunters along with Dad and I, and we ended up killing 9 birds in two days. Oh yeah, Dad ended up shooting a really nice Merriam on that last afternoon as well. He killed 3 birds in one day, and I almost forgot to mention that it was birthday that day. Not bad birthday if you ask me. We had an unbelievable trip and got some awesome footage. We should have the video up on here shortly. Thanks for reading.