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Here a Rio, There a Rio!

By Steve Hickoff

Here a Rio, There a Rio

April in Texas is surely heaven on earth for the traveling turkey hunter.

By Steve Hickoff

Though the ever-smiling Skipper Duncan bears little resemblance to an imagined St. Peter at the pearly gates, his Lone Star State welcome promised all that turkey country can offer. His Adobe Lodge Hunting Camp is plunked right down in paradise.

I was there to hunt spring gobblers at the invitation of friend Gary Sefton, the Woods Wise turkey guru. And there were plenty to hunt as I hooked up with Realtree's Dodd Clifton and John Hafner during the enjoyable visit to Lone Star turkey country.

"Failing to prepare is preparing to fail," the saying goes. We had the camo, Realtree Hardwoods. We had the Advantage Timber snake boots. Remington's Linda Powell also provided us with 12-gauges for use during the hunt, plus HEVI-SHOT turkey ammo and screw-in chokes, which were field tested at the patterning range directly. I claimed a Remington wood-stock model 11-87 Special Purpose Super Mag when it repeatedly delivered a crunching blow of No.6s on a poor innocent paper target. Most of all, we had a desire to enjoy all that Texas had to offer this time of the year. We were in business.

John Hafner and Dodd Clifton took care of some turkey business on last year's hunt at the Adobe.

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As I learned from Powell during our Texas hunt, Remington's HEVI-SHOT pellets deliver dense patterns (in excess of 90%) at extended range--a feature I'd eventually need during the hunt. The tight pattern density and down-range pellet energy gained from the alloy of tungsten, nickel and iron was obvious during the patterning session. Now we'd see what it would do in the field. Put that gun with a guy outfitted in Realtree camo, and you have a foreshadowed recipe for success.

Hunters start your engines. Each morning Woods Wise's Sefton would hold forth at the kitchen table, issuing his war room plans over scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, hot coffee and good conversation, while the Weather Channel silently presented its forecast. Soon our truck headlights would beam down ranch roads, through gates to such holdings as McMillan, Bryant Oak Mott, and Big Tippit.

The take? In three days, a dozen guests tagged 17 gobblers--unrivaled statistics anywhere.

The biggest Rio Grande-anchored by Kristen Cole--topped 24 lbs., sported trophy spurs (1 and 1/2" stickers), and a double-figure beard. A Texas turkey hunt also reveals diverse flora and fauna, from prickly pear to armadillo, jackrabbits to rattlers (thwarted with LaCrosse's Spur II, Realtree Advantage Timber snake boots), plus two kinds of quail, both bobwhite and scaled. And deer, deer, deer; the likes of which entice hunters there each fall. I flat out loved it.

Todd Whitesel from Krause Publications gets ready for a hot Rio Grande gobbler.

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On day one, hunting with the aforementioned Realtree bunkmates Clifton and Hafner (both guys would eventually take nice Rios), I heard dozens of turkeys gobble their presence, and we even enticed one longbeard five steps short of supper before he did that telltale wing flicker and vamoosed. Adios amigo, Texas style. Fun? Heck yeah. We worked birds for hours.

Day two I hung out with Remington's Powell and Woods Wise senior pro staffer Zig Kertenis who guided us. In the coffee-black dark, I sneaked down into an oak grove while my pals did an end-around beyond me. Soon I found my seat cushion near several dozen roosted turkeys. As the sun rose orange I lost count of the gobbling around me.

"Roosted ain't roasted," they say, as numerous birds worked close to my calling after fly-down--jakes were in range as they fought each other with wing thwaps and aggressive purring, vowing for the daily pecking order, ignoring the hunkered-down, 180 lb. lump of Realtree Hardwoods and Advantage Timber. Cool stuff, hiding out like that. Hens and gobblers moved off the way I didn't want them to go, but what an enjoyable racket. Near silence and fading gobbles, then BOOM . . . 1001, 1002, 1003 . . . BOOM. Success. Powell had taken not one but two gobblers, legal in Texas paradise.

After lunch, Sefton and I hooked up for an afternoon hunt together (also legal there), which proved exciting at the wire. On finding the setup location where he'd called in a Rio longbeard for a guest the day before, Sefton and I yelped now and again with Woods Wise friction and mouth calls, hoping for a gobble. One tom turkey worked close, but just out of range. We yelped, we purred, we rode out the afternoon.

"We'll give those birds another 25 minutes or so," Sefton drawled. We did-nearly. With time on the clock running out, I made a raspy series of yelps with the Woods Wise Thunderbolt mouth diaphragm Gary had given me. Several gobblers roared back-and close.

Movement appeared peripherally through cover, and I eased my loaner 11-87 up. I saw two gobblers striding by at five steps, a testament to Realtree Hardwoods' ability to turn a six-foot-two guy with a firearm into a stump with a stick. Logic says a tight turkey pattern fired at the bird's slinky reptilian head and neck at such a short distance would roar out the size of a tennis ball, but I took the shot anyway. Mistake. Miss. Been there?

The gobblers drifted off, startled by the volley. Fishhooking around cover, they turned and miraculously stepped out, providing a split-second of redemption from the hole I'd dug.

If you've never hunted turkeys in Texas, this group photo might just prompt you to book a trip!

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"There's your shot if you want to take it," Gary whispered. I did. Gobbler down. Game over. From fool to finally tagged in five seconds. I stepped off the shot: 47 yards. Down-range, I guess. Time on the patterning range showed the magnum load could handle the distance. Mercy.Camp guests hunted out the next morning, then we broke for an afternoon and evening of Texas hospitality, as community members came from far and wide to share down-home cooking and conversation. Sefton, an accomplished singer/songwriter as well, shared his unique songs about the wild turkey, along with a host of Duncan's pals who strummed guitars, and played fiddles. Even Skipper himself picked up his banjo for us. We all became immediate friends.

As the hunt wound down, I found myself out alone, enjoying the Texas landscape as I sat at the base of an oak, glad to be there. To my right, I suddenly spied a mama squirrel and her gang of young, roughly half her size. Clearly they were making their way toward where I sat. The lead youngster hopped up on the toe of my snakeboot, gripping the Advantage Timber like it was just so much leafy deadfall. It then crawled up my leg, then chest, finally sitting on my head, spanning the length of Realtree Hardwoods adorned pants, shirt and hat. One by one each squirrel followed, until the gang of five had walked the length of my body to climb the oak I leaned against.

Does this camo work, or what?

About the author: Steve Hickoff is a full-time freelancer who travels the country in search of wild turkeys. Contact him at hickoff@comcast.net.

For more information on Adobe Lodge, please visit: http://www.adobelodge.com/

Photo Gallery From The Hunt

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