Spring Turkey - After Action Report

Our good friend Mike wanted to give an update on their turkey hunting adventure to Gurra Ranch some time ago, however, my computer suffered a hard drive crash and that put me behind with photos, emails, and postings.  Below are excerpts from Mike’s report...

“John, his son Kyle, my daughter Jessica and I had a fantastic time at Ranch Gurra (RG) as anticipated - and as John and I would expect as always because this is just such a totally awesome place.  Shot some Pdogs on the way down and after getting to RG Tuesday evening and setting camp in the dark (because we just can't seem to have it any other way) we had some chow, a drink or two and after the kids went to bed we stayed up until the skies opened up around 1130hrs.” 

“Morning one at RG we all got some much needed sleep and were awakened by at least three gobblers not far from camp.  Since we hadn't set the blinds yet, we made coffee and broke out the calls.  John would call using his box call and they would answer.  I would blurt out a call with mouth reed and they would answer.  We were pretty damn smitten with ourselves.  The turkey situation was looking good and we figured the locals thought some new girls were in town and were pretty smitten as well.”

“John set his blind near the location that Ron shot his gobbler and I set up on the 100 yd range.  In the late afternoon, Jess and I headed out to the skybox feeder to the same location that Alpar drilled his hog at the week before.  The evening went by as most evenings camp feeder hunting do - lots of conversation and good company, camp barbeque, a few nearby grunts and snorts and of course, the Brother's Labrot and Graham and Mr. Tito stopped by.

 

“NEVER GET OUT OF THE BLIND”

“Morning two brought the gobblers out in force again as we all sat in our blinds calling and competing for their attention.   John had one intercepted until he got spooked and went screaming by the boys and their decoys headed southwest towards the canyon.  At that time I was calling and receiving from two gobblers - one was the gobbler John was trying to blast, and one that was up towards windy point.  The one that went running by John (unknown to me at the time) went silent for awhile but the other one to our West was still returning calls, just not getting any closer.  After about 20 minutes, I sent out a call and a gobbler (the one John had a bead on) was right behind us, I think by Ron's feeder and he was loud.  I would call, and he would get closer.  Then it seemed like he just stopped - but he kept answering.  This went on for 30 minutes or so and I began to reason with myself that he wouldn't climb up the steep hill from Ron's feeder to the flat where I was to see my decoys.  A fateful decision was made to get out of the blind, and sneak over to Ron's tree stand so I could stalk him.  Bad move.  He was closer than I thought.  We got out of the blind, walked five paces to the South and I saw him - and he saw me.  The last thing I saw was his ass headed east - fast. Aw hell, he was a BIG bird too.  My heart sank, my head dropped, I uttered a few choice words that a truck driver would be proud of and went back to the blind hoping to get the windy point bird to start up again.”

WHOOOOF, HUUUFFF

".....we counted four hogs feeding voraciously around the camp feeder.  They could have cared less that they were being targeted.....or that we were there.....they were way too busy vacuuming up all the corn and stinky stuff we baited for them.  I called out the order of battle - John and I would each pick a hog at opposite ends of the feeder corral and Kyle would pick a hog within his dad's laser collimator broadcast - but between John and me.  The call would be:  "Standby - three - two - one - shoot on zero".  As soon as all of us had our targets and I confirmed that the boys were ready, the safeties came off and I started the call:  "Standby…..three…....two........one"  .....BOOM.  A perfectly executed three-round report.  No pigs on the ground.  That was not good.  We waited the 15 and all of us walked up to the feeder corral.  No pigs.  Nothing but silence and the remains of what they didn't eat.  You could cut the dejection with a knife.    Morning three was business as usual, Jess and I - on a hunch - decided to go back to camp by way of the camp feeder to re-inspect the feeder corral more closely for what food was left over in case we needed to re-bait,  blood or any other signs of carnage.  Of course, Jess spotted the blood first.  Sure enough - she saw blood – a lot of blood in fact right at the spot where my pig was last seen before the shot.  We decided not to track the pig on our own so we went back to camp and told the boys what we found.  John got his AR to back us up and we went to go find the pig.   We tracked the steady stream of blood about 15-20 yards to the northwest and sure enough there she was.  She had expired under a tree, hit in the shoulder (gristle plate) and had bled out quickly, probably on the run.  The entrance wound looked like she had been hit by a 50cal.  That 168 grain AMAX hand load sure did its job in grand fashion.  



Mike, thanks for the great report.  Adventures like this always make the drive from Colorado a bit more enjoyable going back!  Nice piece, nice pig!

To New Friends

Up at the ranch again in the off season for hog eradication maneuvers, this time I was fortunate to meet and hunt with a couple of really upstanding guys from Colorado, yes they made the drive all the way down for a few days of hunting!  These dudes are really cool, and they pack some serious firepower. Being the off season, it allows us to zero, shoot, practice, and just have some plain old fun.  Here we are at the range with the “new” guys Mike and John.

Mike managed to take a small one, but it made the trip worth while and everone that is taken out of the heard is progress in anybody's book.  Cheers Mate!

More Hunting on Rancho Gurra

After one whole year without seeing one single deer on iAnders' land, I was beginning to think only scorpions and a few lizards were all that lived on Rancho Gurra. After we killed a Feral Pig a month back, the hunting has definitely improved. On the first morning of the hunt, I managed to spook some wild turkeys (hens and a tom), took a few shots but didn't manage to bring any back to base camp. After I got back to camp and put away the Benelli, within a few minutes I saw some movement to the South; thinking maybe it was a cow, I instinctively went for the Ruger M77 .270. Well, as the story goes, it wasn't a cow but in fact a pretty good sized Texas White Tail.

My pal iAnders got his the morning we were to break camp; a nice buck with eight points.

While I had the most difficult shot, the "frontal" shot, iAnders was faced with the most undesirable shot, the "anal" shot, however he was patient enough to wait for the buck to turn sideways and that's when he dropped him. The meat is being processed in Rocksprings, having steaks and sausage made...uh mm, uh mm! We'll try and make one more trip in January for the late season, but we'll just have to see.

Hunting at Rancho Gurra, Texas

Here is my pal "iAnders" with the Feral Pig he took down with his Bushmaster 5.56 right at sunset on his spraling ranch.
For a year now, my compadre`Anders and I have been traveling to his "paradise" away from home for a bit of hunting, R&R, and land improvements. On his massive land expanse, there are White Tailed Deer, Wild Turkeys, Feral Pigs, and other varmints to hunt. While all of the other 5 trips turned up nothing but a great time in the out-of-doors, this trip finally paid off. (I was recently given some "manure" about how Anders never gets exclusive billing on my blog and how he has to share the limelight; well, this post is going to be all Anders, or better yet.... "iAnders" from now on)

This particular trip we also "prepped" the land for the General Hunting Season (begins Nov. 7) by setting up several game cameras, repaired and set up several deer feeders, finalized the hunting positions and began setting up some overhead cover in case of rain. We also managed to do some ritualistic firearms training, zeroing the weapons, checking the trajectories, and selecting the best ammo.


iAnders again showing me the not so proper way of getting "kissed" by the scope when firing the Winchester.
















We will be heading back out to Rancho Guerra this Veteran's day for 4 days of hunting, hopefully we'll bag a few more pigs and maybe some turkeys or even maybe a trophy deer!