Kansas Turkey Adventures

[kansasdad]

After realizing that today would not be a double tag day, I left the treeline and headed the 35 yards to where he lay. Taking a "as he lay" photo for the HuntTalk thread, and for the KDWPT electronic check-in, I rolled him over to discover the 8 inch beard, two year old dull spurs and some of the darkest tail fans I've encountered in a south central Kansas turkey. Attaching my printer paper tag so that I could take a closeup photo of this tag for the "tag-less" check-in (how does that make any sense???) I completed the process. This was a first for me as up until this year the vendors dispensed the green waterproof carcass tags which are to be affixed to your big game animal.

Hanging out on HuntTalk and watching some of the awesome photography displayed, I tried for something more than standing over my bird and snapping away efforts that I might have tried in my early hunting days.

 

[kansasdad]

Where I lay in wait: the ground circle on the left

Where they slept overnight, not knowing that one brother was coming home with me: up in the trees



Based on my previous night's observations, I think my tom was the first to roost, and he came from the far right perch.

 

[kansasdad]

One week remains to save $7.50 on the spring combo tag (March 31).

I will get out this weekend for a scout/walkabout. Public land at every Kansas impoundment will have lots of exposed lake bottom. In previous drought years this has significantly altered traditional roosting and travel locations.

 

[kansasdad]

Chilly and windy (it’s Kansas!) opener for youth and disabled today.

Last weekend I took a hike about my favorite public lands turkey hunting area. The tenant farmer was disking the
ag fields, turning under the burnt corn and milo stubble. I hope the ruckus he caused was the reason I saw no birds.



The terrain has been changed by the hand of man, with fire and a bush hog. Thick CRP strips were burned and the grass/field edges cleared of Russian Olive and other shrubs/buck brush creating much more open (and less “sneaky”) habitat.



I did find scratching area in the riverine areas, and found a couple of log jams that would allow an adventurous hunter to cross the river to public lands that generally require a watercraft to legally access.

 

[kansasdad]

A 60 gobble day

Leaving for the public lands on schedule, I arrived at the public lands and started my silent mantra as I drove past the first parking area, "nobody, nobody, nobody". And there was no cars at any of them. I was early and looking forward to hearing my first gobbles of the year.

The moon was at its fullest possible, and with no clouds to block the light, I didn't even need a headlamp to get to my spot. I put out a hen decoy just at the edge of where the farmer had disced last week. Fun fact, my software must be a city kid because it doesn't think "disced" is a word? It also doesn't like "disked".

Birds had started singing their wake up songs as I was driving the stake into the soil, and I went back to set up my hidey-hole, making a with a couple of shooting lanes through the woods edge. The first gobble of the day came in response to a train horn sounding off, with this one sounding more like a jake than a tom. As the sky continued to lighten to the east, more birds sounded off, with almost all of the birds being downstream from where I had set up. I hoped that I was hearing more than jakes on the roost, with the deepest, most tom like gobble being the furthest away.



Two antlerless bucks made their way towards me, eventually moving into my cone of scent. Noses up, staring back into the woods, they passed by about 80 yards out.



Shortly after I caught movement along the fields edge and saw my first turkey of the day.



I had called sporadically in the gobble fest to let the boys know that a lonesome hen as on the fields edge, and wondered if any of the gobbling had been in response to my slate calls. Just before this bird appeared, we had been having quite the conversation, with him evidently liking what he was hearing. Binoculars up, I saw that it was a gorgeous jake, who would be safe today, unless he jumped onto my broadhead.

As this beautiful bird made his way towards me, I was horrified to watch my camera turn itself off, with the "battery exhausted" screen message. This jake slide into archery range and did a little dance without ever flashing his fan at us. The sun had just topped the trees, so the foreground (and me) was still in shadow, but the jake had the sun directly on this feathers. The coppers, greens, purples and jet black iridescence's were amazing. And here I sat with "exhausted batteries".

The jake wandered a few feet away from the decoy, and planted himself in the jumbled earth. Gobble!, swivel his head nearly 360 degrees, gobble, look back at the hen to see if she was impressed, gobble, swivel and check the big field, gobble, and look directly into the woods where I was frozen, gobble, gobble, etc. Never moving his feet, this jake gobbled over 20 times over the next five minutes, and finally decided he would mosey on up the field.

Twenty minutes later I saw two birds on the opposite field edge. Cranking out some yelps, I saw these two male turkeys slam on the brakes and look over at my sweet sweet decoy. I called again, and they broke into a fast walk. One of these birds looked to be quite a bit larger than the other, so I was hopeful that I would find a long swinging beard through the binoculars. Unfortunately it was two more jakes. These birds were coming in fast, and just as they got to the edge of archery range, slowed way down. They were looking upfield, to where the single jake had gone, and I saw their mood change when they saw him heading towards where they were.



They marched upfield to where the single jake was, and started to chase him back and forth, clearly showing their dominance over him.



It never came to blows as the single jake was quick and evasive, but after they had chased him off, they continued off of my field for parts unknown. The chased jake swung by the decoy to see if he could entice her to venture off with him, but her cold shoulder finally caused him to head back towards the lake.

The rest of my time out was uneventful except for finding the lone tick of the day crawling on my pants. Note to self: kansasdad, get your camo sprayed down with permethrin!!

Shotgun season starts Wednesday, but I usually like to challenge myself to get it done with a bow. I hope that every day out will be as amazing as today was.

 

[kansasdad]

Easter Sunrise Service for one Sunday morning.

I was down river from where I heard the gobbling Friday. But can you really call it "dark" when no headlamp was needed to get to the destination safely?

This morning the gobbling was from alongside the river only, and I was downstream of most of birds sounding off. It seemed the jakes were further upstream, with toms closer to me. I could also hear the hens yelping amongst themselves.

In a normal year, I would be able to reliably expect these birds to fly down and gather on the ag field. This year with the lake level so low, I think they flew down into the nearly dry creek bed, with a thick strip of woods separating them from me and my lovely sounding hen.

I stuck it out until 8, and decided that I would work my way through the woods like the turkey ninja I imagine myself to be, hoping to find the birds that were still sporadically gobbling. A crow call got them to give up their position, and I felt like I could advance through the open woods to get closer. Finding a tree to sit next too, with one tree just in front to keep me somewhat shadowed, I scratched on my slate and was immediately answered by multiple birds sounding off.

Watching through the leafless under-story I could catch glimpses of movement 80ish yards out, and the tops of at least three fans. I called, and a thunderous chorus came back at me. These birds had picked out a strutting zone in the woods, and were doing what comes naturally to a flock of turkeys on a strut hotspot. The boys putting on a show, with the girls watching.

I called after watching them do their thing for five minutes, and again had a fine chorale of gobbles answer. I called, and one hen got in on the act replying with some fine cutting. I tried to exactly mimic her sounds which really got her fired up, and back and forth we went for a short while.

I could see red headed turkeys heading directly towards me, and I told myself to take a full deep breath, and to slow down my breathing as they approached. To get into archery range these birds were going to have to get through a swatch of thicker brush, and then go around or over a big log laying alongside the side creek channel. What happened was they reached the log, decided to not go to their right or over as I had hoped, but instead turned to their left. I finally looked to the open lake flat to see why they were heading that way, only to realize that the hens were leading their boys into the open, and away from me.

I hope that with the opening of shotgun season this Wednesday, that this flock will shut their traps and stay alive until I can get back after them this next weekend. I wouldn't mind a little bit of breezy conditions to allow me to sneak in closer than ever.

 

[kansasdad]

The next two weekends saw me rising early, or arriving mid-afternoon in hopes of finding the Easter Sunday flock. The first weekend there were a few distant gobbles and three shotgun blasts heard. Every week there are fewer legal birds to target.

Last weekend I had to layer up for the near freezing overnight temperatures. Mrs kansasdad and I are nervous for the sandplums possibly getting frozen out.

Friday saw me in place with plenty of darkness cover, aided by severely overcast skies and breezy conditions. The cold front (and fewer birds on the public lands) meant no gobbles heard. And only deer and Great Blue Herons to enjoy watching.

One bright spot on the weekend was finding some hostas at a local Farm and Garden store that floated Mrs Kansas dad’s boat.……buy one get one free!

 

[kansasdad]

The Kansas Wildlife Commission has announced that they are eliminating the fall season for turkeys. At least one of the commissioners focus is on how few hunters use the tag opportunity. Another reason given is a concern about decreasing bird numbers over Kansas.

The Commission also announced that the traditional season dates will apply for spring 2024 season, but statewide there be only one tag per hunter (no second tag for NW and NCentral Kansas).

And rumored to be coming soon….limitations on non-resident tags. Might still be OTC, with maximum tags allowed, or it might involve a draw.

 

[Chase0109]

The Kansas Wildlife Commission has announced that they are eliminating the fall season for turkeys. At least one of the commissioners focus is on how few hunters use the tag opportunity. Another reason given is a concern about decreasing bird numbers over Kansas.

The Commission also announced that the traditional season dates will apply for spring 2024 season, but statewide there be only one tag per hunter (no second tag for NW and NCentral Kansas).

And rumored to be coming soon….limitations on non-resident tags. Might still be OTC, with maximum tags allowed, or it might involve a draw.

This is great news! I appreciate reading about your adventures, and your keeping us up to date on the latest news. I was actually planning to email KDWP with some suggestions after seeing the pressure this spring. I am happy to hear the fall season will be eliminated. I'd be fine with a 1 bird fall season if they made it bearded birds only.

I think the 1 bird limit statewide is a good move. The 2 bird limit in zone 1/2 put a ton of pressure on the few WMA's in those areas. I talked to a game warden in NC Kansas while visiting a WMA up there. He reported with the mandatory check in they have had 44 hunter days in the first 11 days (average of 4 hunters per day) of archery season on just that 1 WMA! He said most all he checked were crossbow hunters.

A couple of other changes I would love to see is removing crossbows as a legal weapon from archery season. Allow them to be used in shotgun season instead. The amount of pressure crossbow hunters are putting on turkeys during the early archery season is too much IMO. I really hope they put a cap on NR tags like Nebraska did this year. I'd go a step further and set tag quotas for NR in each zone (excluding zone 4 residents only). I'd also love to see a 7 day season for NR where you have to pick a week like Minnesota, Iowa, or WI. The amount of pressure on the limited WIHA/WMA land in Kansas is extreme. Lastly, I'd like to see Kansas extend the furbearer season through the end of turkey season. I would love to run a bunch of dog-proof coon traps while I am turkey hunting in Kansas just to help cut down on coon nest predation right before upland birds nesting.

I suggest these changes as a NR. I know I am part of the issue as I have hunted KS for turkey as a NR since 2015. I harvested a Tom in KS 2 weeks ago. I did it on a public access WIHA. The morning I took my bird there were 4 other trucks in addition to mine hunting the same WIHA. Same # of trucks the night before. I was planning on this being my last year hunting public in Kansas just due to the pressure. It has steadily increased since 2019. There are places I used to love to hunt but won't anymore due to the 11 days of archery pressure prior to the gun opener. But if KDWP is willing to make some changes I may be able to keep going. Kansas has a lot to offer and I hope they can make some restrictions to increase turkey numbers and create better experiences for all hunters.

Chase

 

[kansasdad]

Thanks @Chase0109 , I completely agree a fall season with a bearded bird would make me happy. I am one of a small number of hunters evidently that actually target fall birds.

I can imagine that taking toms and super jakes out in the fall wouldn’t affect spring nesting success. Habitat, predators and disease are much more critical in keeping turkey numbers up.

Regarding predator management, I see that KPWPT have sent out surveys to furbearer licensees to determine what factors should be considered to allow extending the trapping seasons for nest raiders (raccoons, opossum, skunk). There was also opinion questions asking whether firearms should be considered for raccoon control.

 

[okie archer]

The Kansas Wildlife Commission has announced that they are eliminating the fall season for turkeys. At least one of the commissioners focus is on how few hunters use the tag opportunity. Another reason given is a concern about decreasing bird numbers over Kansas.

The Commission also announced that the traditional season dates will apply for spring 2024 season, but statewide there be only one tag per hunter (no second tag for NW and NCentral Kansas).

And rumored to be coming soon….limitations on non-resident tags. Might still be OTC, with maximum tags allowed, or it might involve a draw.

Thanks for this post. As a NR I started hunting Kansas about 20 years ago. When will a decision be made about the nr tag limitations?

 

[kansasdad]

Thanks for this post. As a NR I started hunting Kansas about 20 years ago. When will a decision be made about the nr tag limitations?

I am guessing that there is work behind the scenes to determine a manner of tag reductions, hitting NR first. If I were to hazard a guess, I think they would go to a OTC with a finite limit for out of staters.

Here is a link to a recent article about the decisions....

Here's why Kansas officials are canceling fall wild turkey hunting season

In an effort to help boost the wild turkey population, the Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission took steps Thursday to allow less hunting of that game bird.

news.yahoo.com

The next Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission meeting will take place on June 22, so there may be more concrete news then.

 

[kansasdad]

Saturday morning the alarm went off a few moments after I had awakened. Today is gonna be the day! I think I tell myself that every time I wake up for a hunt.

Arriving at the public hunting area, I found vehicles on the side of the road or in parking areas as I was heading towards "my area", so I knew I wasn't the first one to arrive this morning. Where I had been hunting, I still am yet to see another hunter parked or in the area, so I'm happy that no toes (mine or their's) are getting stepped on.

It was cold enough to see my breath in the headlight as I pulled on the base layers and hoisted my pack on and headed in. The field edge hasn't yet firmed up from the disc applied earlier this season, so walking felt a little more akin to wading as I made my way down to the lake's edge. Pausing every so often to hear the first songbirds awakening to the pre-dawn lightening skies, I pushed along the woods edge to get into position.

I was once again heading towards the opening in the woods that I had seen the flock on a strut zone on Easter Sunday morning, hoping that the flock would gather here once again. Clearing away the thorns of at the base of a larger locust tree, I placed my cushioned seat against the tree and checked the time. It was already legal shooting time, and I still was waiting for my first auditory hint that turkeys were nearby.

Out on the dry lake bed, the deer were up and feeding. Antler growth has commenced, with what appear to be decent sized bases forming on a couple of the bucks. Down on the shore line the Great Blue herons are croaking at each other, and when I glanced skyward, I saw the large forms of dozens of pelicans heading my direction. Flying directly overhead, they swung over the treeline and glided in for a landing. Half of them choosing water, half of them landing on the nearby dry lake bed.

A flotilla of pelicans paddling on the water is a sight to behold. They can really push water and move right along when they get going.

I checked to see if there is an official name for a large group of pelicans, and didn't find any source material for it, so I'm thinking that here today on HuntTalk, I'm gonna propose that henceforth, all large groups of pelicans be known as a "flotilla" of pelicans. I also learned that a hunting method employed by pelicans is to swim in formation to drive intended meals into the shallows where their quarry can be more easily captured and swallowed.

After the beauty of the pelican flotilla (SWIDT?) swept around the corner I pulled out my iPhone to cue up the recent podcast of @Big Fin on the Reverend Hunter Podcast

(https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/the-reverend-hunting-podcast.319132/).

Looking back up I saw that 5 deer on super stealth mode were right in front of me. The closest one was only 10 yards away. This buck was nibbling away on the green stuff (Kansas has green stuff????) without a care in the world. I turned my phone camera on an snapped a couple of candids. Reaching into my chest pack for my Nikon, he caught some sound and movement and decided to catch up to the rest of the deer that had already fed off into the woods.



A murder of crows (SWIDT?) sounded off on the adjacent ag field. One weak sauce gobble might have drifted along with the wind in response. Or did I imagine it?? A little while later a parliament of owls (SWIDT?) hooted up a storm, and asked who cooks for you all. Perhaps another squeaky gobble elicited. No gobbles in response to my most plaintive slate or mouth calls.

The day was warming, and I was getting drowsy. Standing up to water the bushes, I decided that today at the strut zone was going to be a bust, and I needed to try to make something happen. The two possible gobbles had come from north and east of the strut zone, so I headed that direction. Carefully working my way towards the ag field, I saw three turkeys working there way towards the middle of the field. Binoculars showed these to be older jakes, and I was going to have a go at one of them if I could swing them back to me.

Crawling thru some dense budding shrubs, I got to the edge of the field with these birds undisturbed, over 250 yards away and generally heading away from me. Scratching out some soft yelps, they all froze and turned to face me. Feeding on remnants of last years corn, they started swinging back to my side of the field, and I went about surveying my ambush spot. Using the shotgun barrel I knocked down some small twigs to clear a couple of shooting lanes towards the fields, and I also turned around to see what might happen if the birds came towards me on the hedgerow side.

Behind me there were dense undergrowth, and two downed trees with limbs splayed out randomly. 30-35 yards behind me were the very old trunks of Osage Orange trees planted as erosion prevention and to mark property boundaries. I could imagine two small windows to shoot through should the red headed boys decide to stroll through the woods towards the sweet seductive sounds I had made a short time before.

As I kept looking up the field edge, expecting to see a turkey shortly, I also kept my peripheral vision checking the trees behind me. The first turkey to come through in the trees was bent over pecking away at the ground as he went through both shooting windows. All I could see was the top of his back. I was on full alert, scanning with eyes only on the field's edge, and into the woods. Sounds of turkey feet on wettish leaves alerted me that the other two birds hadn't snuck by already.

My shotgun was pointing towards the field, and I had already worked out in my head that to swing the gun towards the shooting lanes behind me I would have to put the butt under my armpit, swivel and then advance the stock forward into the hole in the shrubs. I could hear the birds walking, and caught flashes of red heads, and heard the slightly frustrated "where are you?" clucks, just 10 yards away, but it was so thick with underbrush that there was no way for a shot, or to insure that any shot would be lethal, or not take out two for one.

They were looking right at me it seemed, but being the turkey ninja that I think I am, they were only seeing a big stump sitting in the middle of a thicket. Finally deciding that the underbrush was thick enough that an alternate route was needed to get closer to the ever seductive hen they had heard earlier, these two birds started to detour towards the woods and then they could continue further south.

As they were moving away, I was able to swivel body and gun towards the small gap in the woods. I found that this move and the hole required me to mount my gun at an angle so that the top of the rail was tipped at a 45 degree angle. The butt of the gun was not in my shoulder pocket but instead was against my upper bicep. I remember thinking...."this is gonna leave a mark".

 

[kansasdad]

....continuing

As the first bird moved down the forest path, he was in and out of the shooting window, with barely his horizontal back visible. I tried to sit up taller, only to find that this made my shooting window even smaller. He never presented a shot and was on down the path.

The last bird was moving down the path towards the shooting opening. I snugged my finger onto the trigger, getting ready to time his arrival and the trigger tripping simultaneously. Just as he reached my spot, he dipped his head down out of sight behind a log to peck at the forest floor. Standing still he raised his head up, almost in the center of my good to go lane, and I fired. My poor shoulder support allowed for quite a bit of muzzle rise, but I could still see the underside of a wing as he fell over backwards.

Sitting under the tree, I made myself stop for a second to soak in the moment. I could feel my bicep was gonna regret this moment, I could hear the bluejay cawing against the shotgun blast, and some turkey feathers catching wind for the last time, and maybe I could smell some gunpowder smell as I enjoyed the rush of adrenaline that hits me after a shot.

I made a circuitous route towards my bird, as the underbrush and pick-up-sticks tree branches mess was tough to walk directly towards him. I took a couple of "as they lay" photos, and went to work filling out my paper tag as well as electronically checking in my south central Kansas bird.







I went to the spot he was standing on when he took the shot, and tried to see what he might have seen had he looked over at me. I tried to find the hole in the tangle that allowed the shot, but couldn't really find it until I went to get my backpack and seat cushion.

Backtracking the shot, I found that several tree trunks and horizontal limbs had caught some flyers from the tightly constricted cone of copper plated #5's.

 

[kansasdad]

 

[kansasdad]

I dug this out of a locust trunk, which was framing the shooting hole.


Other shot on the peripheral of the pattern clipping the top of a branch




Looking back to where I was sitting. Quite the tangle

 

[kansasdad]

After action report……



Legs/thighs braised per Hank Shaw for carnitas.
Breast portions vacuum sealed for sous vide (Montreal chicken seasoning) or teriyaki or mushroom/Marsala servings. I did a 12 hour simple brine (salt/sugar/honey) on the breast meat.

Mrs kansasdad found this in the sheets Monday morning. My scalp itches all day on the news.


The bruise is coming along just fine!

 

[kansasdad]

Office birthday lunch on Thursday (mine this weekend) and normally the boss (me again) pays for takeout from some nearby restaurant. I told the birthday committee (shades of The Office party committee) that instead of ordering, I would like to have nachos/taco salad, with assurances from me that I would bring some game and some "domestic" options in the protein department.

I had vacuum sealed a breast coated with Montreal Chicken seasoning from my spring 23 turkey, and then brought the sous vide/pot to the office to cook on the countertop. I also had a portion of the leg/thigh carnitas (Hank Shaw) and the commercial option of ground beef to round out the protein options.

 

[kansasdad]

Our middle daughter and her husband who live in Minneapolis pulled off a birthday surprise, they Facetimed "from the road", when in fact there were at the front door. It took Mrs kansasdad a hot minute to figure out that Katie and Brett were on the porch. Our oldest (kansasson) and his wife were also coming from Kansas City, and our youngest who is at KU/KUMed for Speech, Language and Pathology with her husband is "home" in Wichita this weekend so we are having a wonderful weekend full of family.

kansasson was looking forward to getting a turkey during this trip, and our friends/landowners gave me the greenlight to get a bird "if we could find one". Out the door at O'dark thirty, we arrived at our hunting spot with a fairly strong breeze, a massively bright full moon, and no auditory makings of a great turkey hunt.

Setting up right next to where I got my fall '22 turkey, I tried to sink back into the underbrush and make like a tree stump. Deer popped out onto the hayfield, downwind enough that they eventually sussed it out that humans were in the woods, with strong blowing they took off downwind. And they came back towards us 10 minutes later, to blow again and take off downwind. We must have been where they were intending on going, as they tried to head our way one more time before disappearing.

Pheasants, quail, peacock mourning dove and various songbirds all contributed to the morning chorus, with several sorties of Canada Geese flying directly overhead gave kansasson some good shoulder mount practice with follow through well accomplished. We had several raccoons waddling into easy shotgun range, seemingly never aware of our presence.



Legal shooting time was 5:59 am this morning, and by 8:15 we were both getting antsy from the lack of turkey activity. Picking up and moving generally along the dry watershed creek, we were going to see if any birds could be seen across the road in the wheat fields. Nothing doing here, I was looking at OnX to see how long of a drive it might be to head over to the public lands where I had success last week.

We came up out of the creek bottom and found a couple of spots against big tree trunks for us to lean against. I asked kansasson if he was ready to head home. He replied that he thought he could imagine that if we sat where we were sitting, should both of us fell asleep, we would wake up to turkeys being right next to us.

Thinking it most likely that any turkeys in the general vicinity were upwind, I leaned on the slate and mouth calls, trying to excite a gobble. I was sitting further away from the hayfield, and slightly lower, so when kansasson told me that he was seeing turkeys in the distance, I found that I couldn't see these downwind birds. Shifting my body and peering through the grass I caught flashes of red.

"Are they still coming"?
"Headed almost straight at us"
"Do you think you could get to the next tree forward?"

He mulls it over, watching the birds closing with pace.

He slings his shotgun over his shoulder and crawls towards the next tree/clump of shrub and tallish grass, and slightly raises up to assess their position and demeanor.





When the birds drop into a slight depression in the field, he scoots forward to where a double trunked tree will give even better cover. From behind, I can tell that his breathing rate is accelerating, as he hugs the tree and waits. Trying to see around a screen of trees, he catches site of the quartet of legals birds, slightly turns and gives a thumbs-up to the birthday boy who can still not see any of these birds headed our way.

Up till now, the shotgun has been down by his knee, but I can see he is starting to raise the gun towards his shoulder. From 10 yards behind, I sit not knowing that all 4 birds are in sight, and in range. Rather than raise the gun any further, he leans forward to drop his shoulders, and I hear the quiet "snick" of the safety being released. Camera up and ready to take an in action photo, I'm slightly startled by the shot. Sitting as tall as I can, I see a flopping turkey and three somewhat stunned birds asking that age old question.....what just happened?

 

[kansasdad]

I have ventured north in hopes of finding a second bird to tag. I’m totally a newb to this public hunting area for turkeys, have been to the general area once on a special permits goose hunt (draw required). We saw a pile of turkeys here but that was years ago.


The best news besides all of the deer and turkeys seen on the drive up is the plum thickets are not barren! Early spring cold fronts play havoc with the blooms, and this area has escaped a complete crop failure.