I had to share these pics with you right off the bat. I was hiking with my family at the Nature Center (Springfield, MO) when we had all sorts of neat encounters with the deer there. My kids absolutely loved it and my release finger just kept twitching;-)
My hunt this last Friday (Oct 21st) was a great one! I was hunting down in southwest Mo, on a property that is fairly new to me. My strategy this year was to hunt the edges to where I could see a lot of ground and sort of be scouting while I’m hunting. I’ve learned the hard way that going into a new property and hunting a small area in the middle of the timber that looks really good can lead to many deerless hunts and nothing learned of deer movement in the process. It’s better to hunt a more open area that may not be as conducive to bow range, but at least you can get on the deer soon as you begin to see some patterns emerge.
This video pretty much says it all for the hunt – Enjoy!!
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A good friend of mine down in southwest MO just sent me this pic of an amazing buck. Like me, Brad has been transplanted from the land of big deer (Iowa for him, north MO for me) to the land of not so much – southwest MO. This deer was killed near his old stomping grounds up in Iowa – just wanted to share this deer with you all – what a beast!
I’m hoping to slow down a bit here in the next few weeks and get more opportunities to get out in a tree! You can bet I’ll have my camera along to share the hunt with you!
It’s hard to believe that Sept. 15th is only a short week away. It’s sad to say, but I’ve only had time to shoot a few times. My groups are decent, but more practice is needed to build my confidence back up.
My first time out a week or so ago reminded me of something that I have to remember each year and I wanted to share this quick tip with you. It’s not uncommon to shoot a nice group early on, the only problem is , it may be 4 inches high and 4 inches to the left. After a few rounds of this it may be very tempting to starting moving pins. Don’t do it! At least not yet.
You may need to, but experience has taught me that this is typically a problem caused by you losing the feel for your anchor point. Re-discover your anchor point and you might re-discover your marksmanship with your bow!
Good luck to you all this year and I’d love to see any trailcam pics that you’re getting! Stay tuned, we’ll be doing our best to get you some pics and/or video soon!
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I’m not sure if you’ll remember the story from last year’s muzzleloader season, or you may be new to the site, but I’ve got some history on this buck! I had a cousin up in North MO that had a pic of this buck that you see above, but he never got a crack at him until muzzleloader season.
He put what he thought was a good hit on the buck as he dropped right in his tracks. When a deer drops like a sack of potatoes, we don’t usually think that we need to be ready for a follow up shot, but this story will make you think twice about that common notion. Long story short, the buck jumped up and ran off and left no real blood trail to speak of. After several days of looking for the buck, my cousin had to concede that he wasn’t going to find him, and we were all sick for him.
That is until this week when he sent me a pic of the same deer up on his feet as large as life and still sporting VERY impressive head gear!! If you’ll look close you’ll see the baseball size scar that is just below the spine, but other than that, the deer looks great! Couldn’t have been happier for him and you can bet that I’ll keep you posted on this deer this year!
I’ve been super busy this year, and my posts are fewer and farther between, but keep checking in as we’ve got some great deer in mind for this year and we are going to try to share them with you through pics and hopefully some video!!
I have footage of this hunt that I’ll be putting together before too long, I haven’t had time to this point. Stay tuned and I’ll try and get this put together.
Any successful hunt is great, but when the hunt involves getting someone their first bird it is all the more sweet. Brad and I teamed up again guiding our pastor. Pastor Brandin did a great job and the hunt came together great. This bird came in across a field following several hens and ended up right in our decoys. He gave us a great show strutting in and Brandin did a great job being patient and putting the shot right where he needed to.
Great hunt guys, thanks for a great hunt and memory!
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What an awesome hunt! This footage pretty well says it all. Brad had an unusual amount of patience, I thought I was going to have to throw my camera at it!! Believe it or not, I have well over 10minutes of footage of this bird right there at 15 yrds!
Nice shot Brad – very fun hunt!
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I’m two for two this year, meaning that my season has went way too fast! That’s not to say that it dislike having two successful hunts, it’s just that this is something I look forward to all year and to have it over in two days of hunting is maybe a bit too fast. My solace is in the fact that I do have some friends who still have birds to kill and I really have just as much fun going along with them as I do shooting the bird myself. Hopefully I’ll be able to get you some more good footage now as I can focus on videoing and not trying to operate both the camera and the gun!
This hunt was a quick one. I had saw 4 toms and some hens out in a pasture I have permission to hunt. It was late Monday afternoon and I was hoping they wouldn’t go too far. I swung back by the property late Monday evening and was happy to see a few of the birds close to the timber getting ready to go up to roost.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to decide where I needed to set up the next morning. I was there bright and early and I set up about 50 yards from where I had saw them the evening before. I sat up against an old rock fence that has been there no telling how long and set the decoys out about twenty yards in front of me. I had next to nothing for cover so I decided pretty quickly that videoing this hunt was going to be next to impossible. It wasn’t long before I heard a thundering gobble not 80 yards away, right up against the edge of the pasture!
I gave very few tree yelps and clucks, all of which were promptly responded to with that precious sound that all us turkey hunters live to hear. He gobbled his head off for roughly ten minutes and then all was quiet. I knew what that meant and I got my gun up and was ready. It wasn’t but a few minutes before he sailed out and lit not 50yrds from me and started for the decoys. Three hens sailed out and landed directly with the decoys and he was in. He was about 7yards to the right of my decoys and about 23yrds from me when he started to go into strut. I would’ve enjoyed the show a bit but I was pretty much in the open so decided I better not take a chance. He stuck his neck out (literally) and I touched the trigger. It was over and it was only 6:30am!
It was a fun hunt even though the hunt was short. I got to hear a lot of gobbling which was a bit surprising as it was a misty nasty morning. Evidently this bird had strutted a few pounds off as he weighed in at a mere 18.5lbs, but his 1″ spurs and 11″ beard weren’t bad at all.
It’s been a great year so far and I’m looking forward to joining some friends and making the most of the spring turkey season here in Missouri! Best of luck to you as well – would love to hear your stories along with pics!
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Brad put the sneak on a great bird this last Wednesday (20th) here in southwest MO. It was the first day brad was able to get out for himself and he didn’t mess around. He had some birds talking to him early, but that hunt was interrupted by a lazy hunter who decided to drive his pickup truck onto the same hunting ground much too late in the morning.
This bird was talking all morning long so Brad decided to let the other hunter keep scratching away by his first set, and set out to fill his tag in a different direction. The bird was strutting and gobbling but not too interested in working so Brad did some sneaking and was rewarded with a great shot on a great bird.
Congrats Brad!
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This video pretty much speaks for itself. Bryan, Ryan, and Tim did a great job in getting this hunt to come together. It’s never an easy task to get good footage while turkey hunting and I think they did a great job. Congrats guys!
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