Showing posts with label Osceola Turkeys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Osceola Turkeys. Show all posts

Monday, May 5, 2014

Chris Coffey Takes a Turkey Grand Slam!



I get to meet a lot of interesting people through by guiding and this year I was privileged to share some turkey time hunting with Chris Coffey from Iowa.

Chris had called me late in 2013 to discuss the possibilities of coming down to Florida to try to take one of the four sub species of turkey, the fabled Osceola.

Chris's goal was to complete a Turkey Grand Slam in one season and is an accomplishment few turkey hunters ever achieve, particularly in one season.

Since the Florida season opens earlier than most other states, Chris's plan was to try to get the hard one out of the way first, the Osceola. Noted for being tight lipped and particularly resistant to calling compared to other species of turkeys the Osceola is an accomplishment un to its own.


Chris and I had a tremendous time on our hunt together and were actually able to take not one but TWO nice Osceolas in just a few days of hunting. One of those was a public land bird, I might add! Impressive.

 

As if that wasn't enough, not only did he harvest two great Osceolas, Chris was able to knock down a really nice Hog and catch 3 redfish from a kayak in some back country saltwater flats! Absolutely incredible.




  • A Kansas Rio for Chris!
 
Well, fresh off of that high Chris went on to Kansas with his father and despite sub-freezing temperatures and 30+ mph winds, were both able to harvest 2 great Toms!







  • On to Iowa for an Eastern!


From Kansas Chris moved on to his home state of Iowa to try to take his eastern.


Once again Chris's Father was able to accompany him to hunt which is obvious from Chris's recount made for a special hunt for him. They had quite a difficult hunt due to other hunters in the area though they heard a ton of birds.  Someone actually shot into the birds they were working on the first setup and both the first and second setup had to be abandoned due to other hunters.



They were finally able to put it all together and harvest two great birds, one having 1 1/2" SPURS!


  • Last but not Least, Merriams in Nebraska!
This weekend Chris was able to accomplish his lofty goal with a double in Nebraska! Double is
 
 
significant because one of the two birds he shot had a "double beard." Incredible and another accomplishment most turkey hunters will never be fortunate enough to experience.


This was another tremendous hunt but he also got to witness some turkey behavior the very few have ever seen. One was a hen in full strut. I have seen it only twice myself. The other was a hen Gobble! I have to say, I wish I had been there to video that one!

Chris related that his first setup was nothing short of incredible. He called in 12 pissed off hens that beat up his decoy and 8 red headed toms that were gobbling! The unfortunate part was that they were all jakes so he had to move on.

Though he was plagued with gobbling jakes at every setup, he was finally able to find a couple mature birds  to finish his one year grand slam!!!

Way to go brother! Congratulations!!!!

Hopefully, we can get together for another hunt in the future!

Larry S.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

THE DEVIL OF THE DIKE!

I cannot now remember how many days I have been hunting this gobbler, 
but it is many!

I should have walked away from this bird in favor of something more cooperative, 
but I could not.

I have killed thinking it was him, but I was mistaken!

I have come close to shooting him, but only once.

I have scoured the woods only to find him strutting in the road within 100yds of my truck, 
parked in plain sight.

More than once I have stood exactly where he had stood, 
but 15 minutes ahead of me.

I have given up the hunt only to return the next day and find he showed 30 minutes after I departed.

I have sat in a blind for 7 hours straight only to have him strut to within 90yds and fade back down the road., offering no shot.

Now on this next to the last day of the season, the hunt has come to an end for us both.

This game will be played no more!

I have shot the devil down!
only to watch him rise again,
resurrected!

Yes, I am sure of it, this was the devil!

Larry Stephens, 2:15 pm, April 19, 2014, 
The Dike road, Quigley Bay.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Osceola Turkey Photo Slide Show!

The following photo's are just some of the recent photo's of some of the Turkey's I have collected.

These were mostly taken with Bushnell Trail Cameras. Set-up of your camera for getting quality photo's is very important and considerable thought needs to be given to where the animals are expected to enter the area, lighting throught the day, camera hgt. and angle, back ground and composition. Set your camera trap and surrounding just as if you were in a studio prepping for a quality portrate.


 
For more information on turkey hunting and wild turkeys, particularily Osceolas......visit
 
 
Best of Hunts,
Larry S.
 

Saturday, April 28, 2012

First Deer Fawn of the Year!

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I pulled my tail camera cards yesterday and was surprised to see all the deer that have started to frequent this spot. The interesting part was that one of the doe's showed up with the first fawn I have seen this year. I had been getting some pictures of a doe that had an incredibly huge stomach and Tammie, my bride and I were betting she was going to have twins she was so big. I think this doe and fawn is a different group of deer. Besides that, this fawn is 1.5 to 2 weeks old and I am pretty sure I have gotten pictures of the other doe since then and she had not dropped her fawn.




I also had a couple young bucks show up that are just starting to bud out some velvet horns.


As far as the turkeys, The hens are obviously spending most of the day on the nest and have all but disappeared. In fact, all of the turkeys have changed their patterns. I have been getting as many as 3,000 photo's in 4-5 days but that has dwindled to a 1/4 of that at best and the gobblers are starting to roost elsewhere.




It looks like the breeding is pretty much over for another year. Tough luck for the gobblers!

Thought I would share these pictures with everyone, Hope you enjoy them.

Larry S.






Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Of Gobblers, River Cooters and Alligators!


A recent cool spring morning found me laying for a long bearded Gobbler in a river swamp on the banks of the St. Johns River.

I had found the Toms strut sign two days earlier on a sand spoil pile and I knew he'd be roosting in the swamp within ear shot of his strut zone.

Unfortunately, the morning dawned partly overcast and just a bit breezy, not good conditions for gobbling and this morning would be true to form. Actually, the gobbler only gobbled one time that I ever heard and it was from the ground. He never gobbled on the limb despite my owling along with several excited cutts and cackles at fly down.

Once I heard him gobble I knew it was only a matter of time before he would be strutting in front of me on the little sand hill. I stopped calling at him and changed to the soft purrs and clucks of a contented feeding hen. I had my video camera rolling when he stepped out of the cabbage palm hammock. He immediately saw my hen decoy and broke into a half strut. He cautiously made his way towards the decoy as a wary old gobbler will do.

Against my better judgement, I could not  resist a few soft purs and clucks to try to pull one more gobble out of him for the camera. About 15 yds or so from the decoy the old gobbler realized something was not right with the motionless hen and turned around to come to my calling. Things were pretty touch and go there for a minute as he approached to within 10 yds, head stretched high looking for the source of the calling. Anytime you let a bird get that close you run a real risk of him escaping.  Absolutely no movement goes unseen. A tight choked turkey guns patter at such close range is very small and a turkeys head is always moving. Its a very difficult target to hit, especially if he spooks to flee. A body shot is about all you can hope for if your in a tight spot. IF the woods are open you might be able to let him get out to 20 where you have a better pattern before shooting but he'll be hauling the mail!

I got lucky with the shot and just caught him with part of the load and put him down. He was beautiful tom and make for another great hunt, all on video

Well, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Turtles like to crawl up from the river to lay their eggs on the sandy spoil pile and as usual there were numerous nests that had been dug into and eaten by various varmits. Probably, mostly by Coons.

I was doing some tracking in the sand to see if I could tell if all the strut sign was from one gobbler or if maybe there was another bird in the area. As I neared the weeds down towards the water I noticed a large turtle shell. It caught my attention and I slipped over to investigate. The shell was upside down and i immediately saw a golf ball size spot in the center of the shell that had been broken and crushed in. This however was not the cause of his demise. It was from a previous gator attack and had healed up. When I picked the shell up I immediately noticed two broken off alligator teeth in the top of the shell. Incredible!
Studying the shell it was obvious the turtle had survived many encounters with large alligators. There were lines of dots where rows of teeth had pocked the hard shell. Along the radius ed areas of the shell there were gouged lined where the gator's teeth slid down the shell.



The broken off gator teeth were absolutely amazing. I decided to keep the shell, clean it up and spray it with some clear polyurethane. It really shinned up great and is an interesting conversation piece.

The River Cooter is a basking turtle are often sold as pets. Anytime you are on the river in the middle part of the day you are liable to see them perched on logs sunning. The females are larger than the males and can live to more than 40 years of age.

They mate during May and June and seek out an open sandy location 50-100' from the water to bury their clutch of 10-25 eggs. With a lot of luck, 90-100 days later they will hatch.  While the species is highly herbivorous, river cooters will eat anything, plant or animal, dead or alive.

Judging by all the scars from the alligators this turtle must have been around for quite some time and survived countless attacks. I think I'll call him Lucky!

Keep your eyes open, you never know what interesting things you'll stumble across in the woods!

Best of hunts,
Larry S.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Monster Osceola Gobbler Spurs!

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Now this is a limb hanger if ever there was one! "Better than money from home" as one of my old fishing buddies used to say.

My good friend Rick Edwards stopped by my office today to show me a set of monster Gobbler spurs he took a few years back. They were so large I wanted to share a few pictures of them with everyone.

They are the largest hooks I have ever seen in person with the longer spur measuring a full 1 11/16" along the curve. These are as long and sharp as they come.

Don't know how Ricky managed to take such a monster. Obviously, the bird was older than dirt and had to be in declining health. Probably just came limping by, looking for some hunter to put him out of his misery......sorry Ricky! couldn't resist that. Probably just my envy showing thru.

All joking aside, if your a turkey hunter, you know just how special a bird this is. A Gobbler that has lived this long has seen it all and is one of the wariest creatures in the woods. No sense of curosity. If something don't seem  right, he packs his bags and leaves, no questions asked. 

The following is a short recount of how Rick felled this magnum sized Gobbler.

Rick was invited to hunt a private ranch near Green Cove Springs, Florida. Recognizing this could be a hunt of a life time, he jumped all over the opportunity.

In the pre-dawn darkness, the ranch's hunt master took Rick to a promissing spot where he knew a number of turkeys were likely roosting along a large rolling pasture.

As daylight began to crack in the sky and the red birds started to sing,  Rick was able to just barely make out the gobble of a distant tom roosted all the way on the other side of the pasture. Eventually, the tom pitched down to a big flock of hens on the back side of a rise in the field. After a considerable time the hens finally began to top the hill. Ricky pleaded as loud as he could on his slate call to try to pull the flock his way. Just as the hens were nearing a road along the field, the hunt master showed up and split the hens off from the gobbler.

Rick was pretty worried that this had just ruined his hunt but decided to stay put and play out the cards he was dealt. At least the Bird was split up from his hens.

Rick let things settle down and started calling again. A period of time passed and a big white head finally appeared beyond the rise in the pasture. The old king made his way in at a painfully slow pace as many wary Gobblers will. Strut, step and look, strut, step and look.....Ricky was eventually able to hold out and coax him in close enough to roll him up.

As most turkey hunters do, Ricky raced to the bird to make sure he was down. He grabbed the still flopping gobbler by the ancle but the old bird managed to exact a measure of revenge before he gave up the ghost. The big beating wings rolled the gobbler's almost 2" dagger in Rick's hand and just about punched all the way through between his thumb and index finger.

Rick came out on top but he was bloodied!

There's something about a floundering gobbler that just makes a hunter want to grab a hold of him every time. His beating wings causes his body to spin in a circle. If he's got sharp spurs, they'll catch in your glove and before you know it your cut and bleeding and can't let go! Gobbler's revenge! I can't tell you how many times I've done it myself. Guess i'll never learn.

I hope when I grow up, I can shoot a turkey like this!

Great job Rick, a Limb Hanger to be sure!

Best of hunts,
Larry Stephens

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Osceola Turkey Faces off with Coyote on Trail Cam!

. If you hunt turkeys and know anything about coyotes you will find this to be one interesting picture.


You don't see a turkey and a coyote in the same picture very often. Actually, I would bet you have probably never seen it your self and probably not even seen a picture like this before.

(click on photo to enlarge)
This photo was caught on a trail camera by my friend Rick Edwards and was taken in central Florida. Everything had to be exactly right to catch them at the same time in the same frame, pretty much a miracle! Here in Florida it is legal to feed game and I believe Rick was using a feeder in combination with the trail camera. This is a great way to get some really good pictures and a lot of them. I have literally thousands of photos and will be posting them as I have time.

One of the things that make it such a miracle that Rick's camera caught both animals at the same time is that the camera would have been taking pictures of the turkey as it milled around feeding and would time out in between shots for typically one minute. Turkeys are constantly moving and seldom stand still so the camera would immediately take another photo as soon as the time out period was up. At that instant the coyote would have had to come into the frame. It is possible the turkey had seen the coyote coming and had been standing still watching it and possibly the coyote tripped the camera but it would still be unbelievable timing regardless. If you have ever been fortunate enough to see a coyote in the woods you know they seldom stand still either. They are almost always on a trot or lope. Many cameras do not have a fast enough trigger time to even catch a coyote in the frame before he's gone.

Many thanks to Rick for sharing the photo. I know he has more and I’ll be prying them loose from him to post here!

Turkey season opens Saturday,
Good luck, send me a picture!

Larry S.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Three Osceola Gobblers Show up on Scouting Trail Camera

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Elvis have entered the building!
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I was wondering when a bird was going to show up around this big flock of Osceola hens. I have been watching them for several weeks now. Up to this point, I have only got a couple of jakes on the scouting cameras. Two mornings this week i sat in a blind and filmed then hens before i went to work. One of those mornings I was able to call a Gobbler from across the creek but he did not get in front of the blind where I could get him on film.

Last night I roosted a flock of birds over a flooded swamp. I shot a little footage slipping up under them on the roost. As soon as I can get it downloaded I'll post it for you. it's probably low quality but you'll see just how easy it can be. I'm going to set a camera trap for this flock tomorrow. There is a strutter in the bunch although he looks small in size. Hopefully I can catch him on film strutting.
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Trail camera setup tips:

Here is an important tip for setting a trail cam for turkeys.......Don't set it at the height you would for a deer or you'll get mostly head and back shots. You need to locate it about 16-18" to the camera.

Also, be sure to double check the camera is set to on, before you close up the unit! This sounds simplistic but you'll be surprised how easy it is to forget to turn it on. It's a big disappointment to show up to pull your card and you find out it's just been sitting there set to menu or off and you got nothing! It's like getting a lump of coal for Christmas.

If the tree you are mounting your camera to has a taper to the butt, don't forget to adjust the angle of the camera . You can leave the strap loose and wedge a stick, of the right size behind the top of the camera for the correction.

These pictures were all taken with (2) different type cameras. Both are Bushnell. One is the small Bushnell "Trophy Cam" and the other is the "Trail Sentry 2.1". Both are digital infrared units and work great. I highly recommend either unit but I prefer the Trophy. The only drawback to that one is it costs considerably more than the Sentry. As is usually the case, the extra money buys you more features. In this case they come in the form of extended battery life, more picture capacity, etc.. Check out the spec's on both before you decide. One of the other nice features of the trophy cam is its small, super convenient size, one of the smallest on the market!


One last though regarding the price. Camera theft is always a concern. The lower cost of the Sentry makes a loss a little easier to stomach!


Notice the all white head and neck on the gobbler in the middle, in the second photo compared to this bird in the first photo. When his neck turns white he's hot to go!













































































































These guys just made the "most wanted" list, that includes that pesky red boar hog. He's got a rendezvous with one of my muzzy's.
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If you have any good trail cam pictures of your own, send them to me and I'll post them for everybody to enjoy.
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Good hunting,
Larry Stephens
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NOTE: If you would like to receive an email note when I make future postings, just click on the follow button in the upper left corner! thanks, L.S.
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