Uncut: My 2023 Nebraska Turkey Trip

John had a heck of a trip to Nebraska to visit his sister and chase Merriam turkeys. On this week's uncut episode of the Oklahoma Outdoors podcast, John talks about the many times he got caught by gobblers with his pants down, multiple close calls, and how distracting all the deer sign was. It is almost hard to believe he didn't fill his tag after situations like walking up on birds midday, turkeys gobbling when he didn't have his bow, and even calling a long beard to 10 steps! He really has nothing to blame but himself.

Even after all the mishaps, it was still an incredible trip. He got to do a lot of scouting for both turkeys and deer, and got permission on yet another property for this fall. John also got to see the effects of EHD for himself, finding multiple deadheads while walking around scouting. It is truly incredible how diverse whitetails and turkeys are and all the places they can thrive, even when it seems the cards are stacked against them.

[00:00:00] Hey guys and gals, welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast, brought to you by Arrowhead Land Company. Here you'll be educated, entertained, and equipped to get more out of your outdoor experience. So hold on tight because here we go.

What's up guys? Welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast. If you're wondering why the music just suddenly shut off, if you're wondering why it might sound a little different, if you're wondering why the word uncut is in the title of this episode, it's basically because I'm extremely unprepared. This week I'm actually on vacation with my family.

We're currently at Gulf Shores, Alabama, and but I need to get an episode out to. And it just so happens that I'm on vacation this week, emperor Dan and his court jester Josh, who actually get the episodes [00:01:00] out, on the feeds for you guys. They're going on vacation next week, and so I'm having to hurry to get episodes to them while I'm gone because they're about to be gone.

And so I actually the only reason I even had intro music was because I just so happened to have an old file on my work computer because I forgot to email myself my like, template. And so basically I took that old file, uploaded it, cut it up, and so this is gonna be a Frankenstein of an episode audio wise.

So anyway, but I want to get an episode out to y'all. I'm gonna be talking about my Nebraska trip, which is awesome. I can't wait to share everything with you guys, so if I sound a little different, like I said, I'm using my travel set up setup, so this is not my usual microphone. I'm doing it on my work computer, which is not quite as nice as my, at home desktop.

But yeah, hopefully y'all can forgive me. Like I said, got a really good episode, so I think it's gonna, Okay. So anyway, enough with that not much of an intro this week really. I'm gonna just jump straight into the story because that's what my intro would've been anyway. I [00:02:00] don't have any of my like, commercial stuff in front of me, and so I just wanna give a real quick shout out.

To all my partners who make this thing possible, Arrowhead Land Company, bravado, wireless private water fishing, and deer labs. So thank you to all those companies for supporting this podcast. Thank you guys for supporting those companies, and that is pretty much gonna do it. We're just gonna get into the episode right now.

All right guys. So this story basically starts last week my wife had a leadership conference that she was going to for work. And so it was just gonna be me and Little Halle. And and so I just decided I looked up the regs, Nebraska's Turkey season arch, or sorry, archery Turkey season was open.

My sister and her husband had been building a house up there. The house just got done. They just moved in. And so I just decided, you know what? Take some work off, let's go up there, see the house, help 'em with some last, touch up type things. And do a little Turkey hunting.

Let, my sister, she has a baby that's three months younger than [00:03:00] our baby. And yeah, took the baby went up to see my sister. We left, I think it was Tuesday evening. We stopped a little bit over a little bit under halfway, just break it up for the baby. So it got there Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday afternoon just hung out with my sister. She was actually headed to a Bible study Wednesday evening, which worked out perfect for me because I wanted to go do a little bit of scouting, maybe try to roo some birds. And so she left for church, loaded up the baby in the truck and took off with my binoculars.

Drove around to two different properties that that her family owns and so her in-laws they're farmers in Nebraska. Sat on one hill for a little while, never saw anything. Drove to another property that I did some deer hunting on last fall. Again, didn't hear anything, but that's where I saw a few turkeys last September when I was there, deer hunting.

So that's really all I had to go off of was just, I saw three Miriam Gobbler's last September. So anyway, I drove around a. Didn't see anything. There's one kind of nice [00:04:00] big hill by my sister's brother-in-law's house. So I parked next to some grain silos, sat up there with my binoculars.

There was a couple big cottonwood trees along this creek with kind of brushy stuff behind it. I was like, man, that looks like prime roosting habitat to me. So sat on the hill. Had the window down, didn't see anything, didn't hear anything. So I was going into the next morning pretty much blind. And so got back to the house, hung out with them, woke up the next morning, and gosh, what happened that first morning?

Ba so I. I, I went around, went back to that spot where I had the roo trees and I wasn't so much hunting as I was just scouting. Cause again, I didn't have anything to go off of. Again, y'all know I'm not like a huge Turkey hunter. I've been pretty, ready for this Turkey season. But the whole way up.

There, even though it was Turkey season, the whole way up there, I was just thinking about deer hunting. I'm gonna be honest. I was very excited to do some scouting. Last time when I went up there to hunt, I was really only there two and a half [00:05:00] days. And I was more hunting than scouting.

I'd do a little bit of scouting in the morning and then hunt the evening. So yeah, so I was very excited to do some deer scouting. So I just decided to combine the two. Had my Turkey calls with me, I did not take my bow. Yeah, that, we'll get into more of that in a little bit.

So anyway started off where I'd sat one evening with my bow last year during deer season where I'd seen the turkeys. And so I was looking for tracks, looking for sheds just exploring a little. I walked back to the end of this little peninsula, found a deadhead, little eight point.

So that was walk a little bit further. Actually. I was headed back towards the field, out of the peninsula. Found a shed, so off the bat, got a deadhead and a shed. So I'm like, on cloud nine. Walk a little further, find another shed. I was like sweet cross the creek in a spot where I could actually cross it.

And headed down to where, like basically down towards those roo trees. And so I'm staying on the edge again, looking for Turkey tracks, looking for deer sheds, mostly looking for deer sheds. Deer sign. Walk back, there's another [00:06:00] little peninsula and that'll come into the story later. Also, walk around that peninsula, come back out towards the main field and there's one little strip of trees that jets out into one of the crop fields and I really wanted to check that out.

Again, more for deer hunting than anything. Cuz I, I had seen it last time I was up there, but I actually didn't know that they owned that. I thought it was the neighbors turned out later, it wasn't. And so I really wanted to check that area. And so again, walking along the creek, kinda on the edge of the field, and I see something outta the corner of my eye, look up, and I see three gobbler fly across the creek.

And this creek is gonna pop up multiple times during all these stories. This is not just like a little babbling brook type thing. This is like steep banks, steep creek, and it's still cold up there. I think the night that we got there, it got down to 29 and the wind. How the entire, I'm talking like 40 mile per hour winds.

So when it's 29 degrees and 40 mile per hour winds, it is cold. And I'm not kidding you guys [00:07:00] whether you were in the wind or not changed the temperature by 15 degrees I was just constantly like taking clothes off, putting clothes on. I'd start walking and get a little warm, take it off, and then I'd pop out of the trees and that wind would hit me and I'd get cold.

I really got to learn my layers. Anyway, so I saw these three gobbler fly across this creek, and I'm like, sweet. All right. I at least have some turkeys spotted. They were pretty much exactly where I thought they would be. If I really would've been a serious tur Turkey hunter, that's pretty close to where I would've been set up that morning.

And I probably, could have had some action but I didn't. Of course. So anyway, I keep doing some scouting. I walk that little tree line. I found some really cool rubs. I found some Turkey tracks and not just like a few Turkey tracks like where, I'd just caught those birds that morning.

Like they were obviously in there quite a bit. And it makes sense cuz they had this nice, thick cover that jutted out into the, that field had been in corn last year I'm sure they were eating old kernels of corn and stuff. Go to the, All [00:08:00] the way to the end of that property to the neighbors.

Turn around, shed hunt my way out. I think I found another shed ended up finding two sheds in the deadhead on this little scouting trip. And so anyway, by the time I do that I it was probably like 10 o'clock, something like that, 10 30. And so my sister's watching Halle for me. So I run back to the house, check on them.

My sister was about to put both of 'em down for a nap and I was like, Hey, if it's okay with you, I'm gonna run back out. And she said, yeah, go for it. And so the night before I had talked to my sister and brother-in-law about getting permission on basically their neighbor. If you look off their front porch, there's the county road.

And on the other side of that county road, there's some stuff that looked really good for deer. Turns out it's an older couple. They don't really hunt it or anything. I was like, man, that would be perfect. And so the night before my brother-in-law had messaged him and I'd gotten permission.

So he had texted me that morning that I had permission. So anyway, so that's where I headed. Drove down the edge of the field to the timber, and they, it was actually the same exact creek. It's about a mile away, and there's a [00:09:00] landowner in between these two properties. But it's the same creek system and it's crop fields on both side.

And then there's big kind of thicker timber along the creek, not super wide. But one thing that really attracted me to this property, this neighboring property, is they had two patches. You could tell, used to be fields, but they had overgrown it. It wasn't c r p it was just like native grass, some cedars and stuff had grown up.

Just really awesome looking bedding habitat. And, the big thing, I've talked about it multiple times. The big thing I learned last time I was up there. Was to look for that edge habitat. And so in these two little pockets, you had this grassy kind of brushy type stuff. You had the timber along the creek and you had the crop fields.

You had three different terrain type, not terrain types, but habitat types all combined in this one spot. And I just knew it was gonna be good. Again, had deer on the mine, not turkeys had my Turkey calls with me still, came it up and everything. But once again, left the bow in the.

[00:10:00] And so I'm, I got OnX out. I'm walking through this timber and I'm just, I'm loving my life. I did find a couple old deer stands, which I didn't really know how to feel about. Several of 'em, you could tell were old, like one of 'em, the straps had even broke in cause the tree had, grown up so much.

One of 'em looked a little bit fresher, like it had a newer strap, but it was growing into the tree a little bit. So I didn't know what to think about that. And then I found one that looked like it had just been. Last year new stand, new straps and everything, only a year or two old. And so made a mental note like, need to double check, make sure I'm not gonna be stepping on anybody's toes.

Oh, drop my phone. But again they'd given me permission to hunt it, so probably gonna hunt it. And so I had already walked pretty far basically this property, it's 200 acres. And I decided I would walk half the property from one direction, go back to the truck, drive around and walk the other half of the property from the other direction.

So I'd already made it to my halfway point. Saw tons of deer sign. I found a second or no. Yeah. Second deadhead pretty [00:11:00] nice eight point. Had a little kicker on a g2 probably a little bit younger of a deer. But heavy. Had that kicker and so it just, it fired me up again cuz I was like, man, this is just a sign that there's probably some decent deer in here.

And so anyway, so I'm walking back out, walking back towards the truck and again, the wind's just howling and I think I hear a gobble. And so I stopped, put my stuff down, listened for a second, not hearing anything. So again I had my box call with me. So pulled my box, call out, hit it, a couple yelps and about a 30 seconds later or so, I hear a gobble.

Definitely a gobble. And so I didn't call anymore, I didn't wanna call him into me cause I don't have a way to kill him. Didn't have my bow with me. And I'm not too awful far from the truck. Maybe 400 yards, something like. And so trying to decide if it's worth going to get my bow now, trying to decide if I should just come back like later that evening or the next morning and he fires off again.

And so again, I didn't call or anything [00:12:00] and so I was like, man, I feel like this bird is probably a little bit. Fired up, like there's a chance I could get this bird. And one of the, when I was doing some research on the difference between Miriams and Easterns and everything was that they're a lot more like midday active.

Like they're just constantly moving. They're constantly gobbling. And so I decide, you know what, like I'm going to, I'm here to Turkey hunt, I'm gonna try to get this bird. So run back to the truck. I grab my decoy and I grab my bow, come back to where I was, where I heard the gobble. And I'm actually in one of those little openings I was talking about that, I was wanting to deer scout.

So I had some opening. The grass is pretty tall. And so I'm on the edge of the timber trying to find a good spot to hide. There's no big trees on the outside that could like, hide my body shape or anything. And so I'm just walking back and forth, looking for a spot to set up.

And I hear him gobble again. Again, I didn't call or anything. He's gobbles on his own. So one, I'm like, man, he's obviously still, fired up. But he sounded further away and the wind [00:13:00] was blowing from. To me. And so I figured, that sound is carrying, I was like, he's obviously, a little farther away than I think.

What if I get across this opening and sit up on the other side because I was afraid he'd, come to the edge of the timber and hang up in that grass, not wanna come out to the open. And so anyway, so I decide I'm gonna cross this opening and then set up, and it was only maybe 60 yards, something.

So grab my stuff, walking across this opening, I got my eyes peeled. I'm trying to be quiet. But again, I think he's still probably at least 200 yards away. And so I come up another 50, 55 yards. I'm looking for a place to set up, and again, I see something outta the corner of my eye, look over, and I see this bird sprinting away at full speed.

So I don't know if he was just facing the other direction. I don't know if he was like maybe down in the creek or something like that. But he was way like, he, I was within 60 yards of him basically. When I heard him gobble, if I just would've set up where I was like, I'd planned on again, probably would've had a dead bird.

[00:14:00] So I'm like, oh, for two on day. And it's only like halfway through day one, essentially. And so I'm kicking myself. I think I put on my Instagram story that I, I made a promise to you guys that I would carry my bow with me from then on. And so yeah, I, I went ahead and I actually, I tried to follow him a little bit.

Call, of course, didn't hear anything so loaded up and headed back to the truck head, back to the house. It was I don't know, two o'clock, something like that. By this time, and again, I wanted to hang out with my sister. I just wanna make. Full-time babysitter. And so I'd told her, I'd hang out with her during the afternoon and then I was gonna go do an evening hunt.

So I went back to the house hung out, showered, played with the kids and everything. And then around four o'clock, four 30, something like that, decided to head out for the evening hunt. And so I went back to where I'd seen the three turkeys that morning along the creek next to the field.

And I had brought a ground blind with me because again I'm archery hunting, which is not easy to do for turkeys, they just have really good eyes. Carried a ground blind down there. Chair whole nine [00:15:00] yards. Had the decoy just your stereotypical. Blind archery set up. I had the blind set up in the timber along the creek facing out towards the the open field.

Had my decoy out there. I normally put my decoy about 15 yards and I use that as a yardage marker for my bow. Cuz you know, again, I feel like a lot of times they kind of circle out a little further. And so I put the decoy at 15, planned to shoot, 20 to 30 yards somewhere in there. If they come straight to the decoy suite.

I got a 15 yard shot. So that was my setup for the evening. I waited a good long time before I started calling, cuz again I was in there, it didn't get dark till eight, I think. I think legal light ended at eight. And I got out there at four 30 or something. So basically just sat there till about five, kinda let things calm down and started, hitting the box, call a few Yelps and stuff.

Nothing, not a big deal. Still early, hang out a little while longer. Making sure not to overcall or anything. Wait till about five 50 ish or so. Hit the call again and not [00:16:00] real soon, but probably two minutes later I hear a. And so I'm like, all right, sweet. Got a chance. And I just heard one gobble, so I don't know, didn't know if it was the same birds as that morning.

Didn't really care. All I knew is that I heard a gobble. And so sitting there again, I don't wanna overcall. I'm I, Turkey hunting really tries my patience because turkeys are extremely patient and I am not. And wait a little while longer hit the call. Again, like not right away, two, three minutes later I hear a gobble again.

And so I, I don't know if he's responding to me. I don't know if it's just getting later in a day and he's just gobbling. But that's basically what happened the entire rest of the evening. I'd call every 15 minutes or so, couple times I tried to call every, couple minutes just to see if I could maybe get him a little bit more fired up.

And again, he never really directly. Answered my call. He was gobbling the entire time, but he'd gobble every, I don't know, 10 minutes somewhere in there, a couple times he gobbled every [00:17:00] five minutes. But again it really had nothing to do with my calling. I felt like he was just gobbling every now and again.

So hunted out the evening. In Nebraska you're not allowed to hunt like 30 minutes after dark or anything like you are with deer, you have to stop at sundown. At sundown put the call away and everything. But I still sat there for a few minutes, wondering if he might come in. I was also pretty close to those roo trees.

I thought I might be able to hear 'em, fly up into those roo trees. Didn't hear any of that. He gobbled a little bit more, but it still was way off to my right. A few hun, few hundred yards. So that end of the evening when I got back, I talked to my sister, I was like, Hey, I got this bird.

Like I'm pretty sure he'll be in about the same spot. Are you okay watching the kids if I go hunt early in the morning? And she said, yeah, go for it. I want you to have fun. My sister's awesome by the way. We have dinner and everything. Hang out a little bit that night. Go to bed.

And the next morning, I'll admit this, I actually slept through my alarm. I was very tired. I don't think I mentioned on the drive up there. We stopped in Wichita, Kansas to try to break the drive up for my [00:18:00] daughter, but because she'd been sleeping in the car the whole time when we stopped at our hotel, she woke up, the wind was blowing like.

30 miles an hour or something. Woke her up when I was carrying her in and she was awake. And so I think we stopped at 1:45 AM so I was already tired. And then she didn't go to sleep till about 3:00 AM in the hotel room. So that's, when I got to go to sleep was at 3:00 AM And then of course she woke up at seven 30 hungry.

And so that's when I also woke up and decided to keep driving. Didn't go back to sleep. So I was running. Four hours of sleep or something. So yeah, slept right through my alarm. Ended up waking up about 30 minutes late. So not terrible, but not. So when I pulled out of the driveway I went down and I actually saw a group of turkeys in the field on the neighbors where I'd just gotten permission where I'd, blown the one, the day before I saw at least four strutting, so I knew there was at least four, males out there.

There was some hens out there obvi also, they were way out in the middle of this field. Didn't feel like I could get almond or anything. So I decided to keep going to the bird. I'd heard [00:19:00] the night. So make a mental note of those birds marked on, on, on x, where they were at and kept going.

So get to my my setup from the evening before, I don't know, a little bit, maybe 20 minutes or so after daylight. And as I'm walking in, I'm, walking towards my blind and I hear that bird gobble and he gobbled in the exact same spot. He was gobbling the evening before. And I look at the blind, I look at my nice cozy blind with my chair and everything and and then he gobbles again and he's a good 300 yards to the left.

And as I mentioned before, the crazy creek, I know he is on the other side of the creek. And so I basically decide there's no point in me sitting in that blind and doing the same thing that done the evening before. And so I decided it's time to get aggressive and go after this bird. So I had my decoy with me, my bow with me, and everyth.

And so instead of hanging a right towards the blind, I hung a left and I'm headed out towards this peninsula that I had talked about the day before. So I had, a little bit of a, an idea of what I was heading to walk out there. And there's a [00:20:00] big old cottonwood that had blown over, years and years ago.

All the bark was gone and everything. So I'm looking for a spot set up. Finally, I decide on this cotton wood. One thing I wish I had was a chair, but anyway, I decided to make. So walk out towards the tip of this peninsula. Put my decoy out in kind of an open spot. Get behind the behind the old cottonwood and go to calling.

And this bird immediately answers my call, unlike the evening before where he was just random, randomly gobbling. This time he's answering me, so get everything ready. I got my, I got an arrow knocked, got my release there. I got my call and everything lined. Got my phone and I feel like I'm in a pretty good spot.

Again, I have to call him across the creek. I was still worried about that, but I had my decoy basically directly in between him and me. And I just felt like he was gonna come in. If he did cross the creek, he'd be crossing the creek in front of me. I had this nice big tree that I could hide behind to draw, shoot through and everything.

And so I was feeling pretty good about the. [00:21:00] So start calling and again he's fired up this time. Trying not to overcall. Oh yeah. Overcall taking my time, but this time, when I call, he responds and so I'm feeling pretty good about it. He's getting closer, but he's in some thick stuff.

Can't see him. I can hear him coming a little closer. Finally, he gets to where I can see him. He comes right to the edge of the creek and as I predicted, he held up a little bit. He's really, he's trying to call the girl to him like they do. And he's just strutting loud and proud.

I can see him, I can see that he's a Miriam, that's what I was hoping to get. And but he just won't, will not cross the creek. And so he hits the creek instead of coming across, he turns and he starts walking down the bank of the creek. And so I'm still calling. I'm watching I'm pretty well hidden.

And and I lose sight of him cuz there was a bunch of brush in front of me and then all of a sudden I hear him and he's, he sounds like he's to my right now instead of to my left. And he sounds like he's far away. And so I'm trying to figure out what's [00:22:00] going on. I know he's interested, I know he's fired up and so I'm sitting there, I have my bow sitting on top of the log to my.

So I, work my box call with both hands and sitting there and I don't hear him for a while. I'm like, I know this bird didn't just suddenly lose interest and leave, and then all of a sudden I hear just the softest little. And I looked to my right and this bird pops out of the creek bed on my side about, I don't know, maybe 20 feet away and just walking straight.

Like I'm, my only guess is that he never saw my decoy. There was some brush up there. The little peninsula itself was pretty thick. And so I think instead of heading to the decoy, he just headed to where he heard the calling coming from. And he hit it dead on. So I, I see him pop up over the Creek Bank.

I just freeze holding my call in my hand, bow to my left, and this gobbler walks to about 10 feet. He's beautiful. I can see his beard hanging down. He's in full strait and I'm [00:23:00] just staring straight ahead, trying not to move as he just continues to walk to my right. And he walks outta my peripheral vision and I.

Stone cold. I don't know what to do. I know there's no way I can reach, grab my bow, turn, draw, and get a shot and all that. And so my only hope is that he basically walks past me, sees the decoy and heads towards her. And so I'm just staying as still as possible. I know I'm not gonna try to look to the right where he is.

Eventually, I very slowly turn my head to the left where I can finally see my decoy, looking outta the corner of my eye. I don't see him. I turn my head a little more, I don't see him next to the log or anything. And so finally I'm like he had to have seen me. And so I get, go ahead, turn to my right real quick, and there's just no bird there.

I have no idea where he. I never heard him fly. I never heard him run. I guess he just very casually and easily worked away. I'm guessing. He obviously saw me. I was just a big human shaped [00:24:00] blob sitting on top of this tree. And, but yeah, he just worked away. Never saw him again.

Hit the call a couple times. He obviously did not respond. I got up and walked over, like to the field edge. He wasn't out in the field. He just flat out disappeared. I can't say I was disappointed. I called this bird in. I got him across this giant creek. He worked in perfectly. If I would've had a shotgun, he would've been dead.

I could've grabbed a shotgun and got a hurried shot and probably killed him. But just with the bow, it just did not work out. But super cool experience. One of the coolest experiences I've had in the Turkey woods again, made me excited for hunting turkeys. So yeah, so I was fired up and I decided, The day's not done.

Let's go try to get in another one. So it was, ah, I wanna say it was like eight 30 ish or something by the time all that went down. So grab my decoy. And went ahead and went over, grabbed the pop-up blind. I just figured I wasn't gonna be hunting out of it again. I'd seen the big flock earlier, and so I, I figured I'd probably hunt there in the morning.

And yeah, [00:25:00] gather all my stuff, get back to the truck. Go back to the neighbor's property where I got permission and kinda like I'd planned on, I parked on the other side of the property this time, walked in oh, I forgot to mention when I was walking in that morning. To that Turkey spot, I found my third dead head, a really nice 10 point only probably 300 yards or so from my sister's in-law's house.

I don't know if it had maybe been shot by a road hunter, something like that. It was 200 yards from the road right on the edge. I'm disappointed in myself for not thinking of this earlier, but, I'd posted a couple of the deadheads on Instagram. Said, I'm a little concerned that I'm finding more Deadheads than sheds.

And several of you mentioned E H D I had never thought about it, just not something we deal with in, in southern Oklahoma. But I actually brought up to my sister-in-law or my sister's, Father-in-law, sorry, lots of in-law stuff going on here. And I had asked him like if they had a really dry, year, the year before and he was like, oh yeah.

I said the last two summers had been really [00:26:00] dry so I think y'all were right. And I think it was e h d, that's why I was fighting so many Deadheads. But it was a really nice deer, nice 10 point, not massive but pretty nice. So that's encouraging for, hunting there in the future. Yeah, sorry, one last little add in there on the deer.

So load up, go to the other property park on the other side. Walk in. I took my bow. I will say I strapped, figured out a way to strap it to my backpack. Again, I'm deer scouting. I'm really excited for this property. Go through some timber. I get to that other patch of grown up ground.

Not seeing any Turkey signs. Saw a bunch of deer sign, bunch of rubs, found another deer stand. And then I get to where I was pretty close to where I had heard that Turkey the day before the gobbler. And get my bow ready, pull out my. Hit the box call nothing. Wait a little bit, call again, nothing.

Walk a little further, a little deeper. And this is the same property where I'd seen all those turkeys that morning. And so I'd had the gobbler the day before and I had that group this morning. [00:27:00] So I knew there had to be some turkeys in there somewhere. But they did not show themselves. I don't think they would've been spooked or anything.

Yeah, they just I, again, I think these Miriams, these western turkeys just move around a whole lot more than I'm used to. Work my way through the timber quite a bit. Calling all the way through. Never heard a single gobble. This was my last full day. And so I made the decision, it's probably 11, 12 o'clock, somewhere in there around lunchtime.

Kind of made the decision that I just wanted to hang out with my sister and her family and stuff. And I felt good about the turkeys I had seen the morning before. Again, I had my ground blind and everything, so I decided I'm gonna go set up my ground blind for the next day, get it ready to go.

And then I'm. Go hang out with my sister the rest of the day. The next morning would've been Saturday, I think. Yep. And we were planning to leave Saturday and so gonna hang out with my sister the rest of the day. Friday, get up early again. Saturday morning, hunt Saturday morning for a little bit and then hit the road.

Go set up the blind and everything, [00:28:00] brush it in have my chair in there. Go ahead and leave. A lot of my hunting stuff in there. Didn't leave my bow, but a lot of my, like calls and stuff, I had a bag that I could put it in. Be nice and safe. And so yeah, so I felt really good. Went back my sister made me a nice steak dinner and fried okra and got some good sleep.

Woke up super early. I sat. 18 alarms cuz I had slept in, oh, overslept the morning before woke up at, gosh, I wanna say five 30. I think legal shooting light was 6 45, somewhere in there. And so I basically just drive down my sister's driveway. Oh. Oh, nevermind. Sorry. I had a little popup thing here.

Basically drive AC down my sister's driveway across the road and park because it's a wide open field to the creek and so park there, walk all the way across the field, get set up. I actually looked it up on my phone. I had to walk a half a mile just to, so I wouldn't have my truck too close cause there was nowhere to park.

It really, except up against the creek and I didn't wanna do that. So get. Feeling [00:29:00] super, super confident. Right before sunup threw a few Yelps and stuff out there. Cause I figured the turkeys were probably pretty close. No response. And so I was like, all right, that's a little odd. But again, I'd seen him pretty much at first light the day before.

So I was still feeling really confident. Sun comes up, throw a few more yelps out there. Nothing wait 10 minutes, few more Yelps, nothing. And once again, I don't know where these turkeys went, but they were nowhere to be seen. Very disappointing. I felt so confident in that setup just because I had seen so many there the night before.

I know I didn't spook 'em. I went in at midday and stuff. I just don't know where they went. Again, I think these turkeys just move around so much that they're hard to pin down. If that would've been an Eastern or a group of eastern birds. So they were there one morning, very good chance they would've been there or at least close the next day.

But they were just nowhere to be seen. And so I ended up having to leave a little early just cuz I wasn't hearing anything I wanted to get on the. So [00:30:00] I leave all my stuff there, walk the half mile back to my truck, get to my truck. Realized I had put my truck keys in my bag, which were still in the blind.

So walk a half mile back to the blind, get the key half mile back to the truck, and then drive the truck over there. So even though I just did a quick. Super quick morning hunt. I ended up still walking two miles I think grand total in the two and a half days I was there. I think I walked over eight miles just between scouting, hunting, all that stuff.

Found three deadheads, two sheds. Had couple really close calls with turkeys but ended up not filling my tag. But. Completely okay with it because I had a blast just walking around exploring. Had a couple close calls. Anytime you have a big gobbler at 10 steps, it's just hard to complain about that.

Got everything loaded up, went back to the house got baby girl said my goodbyes and headed home. So yeah, that was my Nebraska trip. Very encouraged for the future. The E H D stuff, a bummer. I [00:31:00] don't think that, Took out every single buck on the property or anything like that?

Oh. In fact when I got back to the house, I had left a trail camera there from the previous September, so it'd been soaking from September till April, whatever, when I went and got it. And this is, this camera was just right behind my sister's house. Went through the pictures and saw several bucks.

One of them was super nice. Of course, it was like during the rut, probably just passing through. But a really nice 10 point. I'm talking shooter. Any day of the week. There was another decent 10 pointer on there. There was a nice nine pointer that, were fairly mature and then tons and tons of younger bucks.

And and again, I think of the three properties I was on, I would've classified that one as maybe the worst. But lots of deer. So that was very encouraging. And then I talked to my my sister's father-in-law a little bit about, some of their neighbors and surrounding properties.

So I got permission on the one new property. There's another property that I got permission on last time I was there that he said, I [00:32:00] could probably hunt again. And then I have their two properties. And so I think I totaled it up at around a thousand acres of Huntable property for my next strip out there.

It's weird it's better than I would say back, at home if you got a thousand acres, a lot of that's gonna be cattle pasture here. A lot of that thousand acres is crop field, which is good. Very hard to hunt. If you're talking like cover and tree stand type stuff, of that thousand, you're probably got a hundred, 150 acres of good cover.

But with all those crop fields, it's hard to turn that down. So yeah, learned a ton. Got a lot of really good info for the future. And very excited, very happy. My sister moved there. So yeah, that was my trip. Great time with family. Great time exploring lots of road time with baby girl.

She did fantastic on the road. Hard to complain about that. She is such a good, easy baby. Zero, zero complaints with her. So yeah, that was my Nebraska trip for spring of 2022. Hoping to get out there again this fall. I think it's gonna time out to where I can hopefully I get a few [00:33:00] more days than last time.

Last time I basically just got to hunt two evenings. Hoping to spread that out a little bit more. I wanna say the opener is on a Sunday, they have a September 1st opener, and I think I looked it up to where it's a Sunday, so that could work. Maybe I can take off work Friday, drive up there, have a day to scout, but at the very worst, leave Saturday morning and still be able to hunt opening day.

So that's the hope and that is this week's podcast. A little bit shorter of an episode, but again, I'm on vacation so I don't feel too bad about it. I hope you guys are having a great week. Get out there, explore God's creation. Enjoy your spring. Enjoy the good weather. And that's gonna do it for this week.

So until next time, I will see you guys right back here on the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast.[00:34:00]

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