Full Osceola story, caution very long read

Stories of your favorite gobbler hunts.
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935
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Full Osceola story, caution very long read

Post by 935 »

My first trip to Osceola land did not go well. My plans got changed several times from fully guided to camping and hunting public land, back to guided. When I started working on my slam I told myself that if I got the other 3 I’d treat myself and go the fully guided route. Then A.C. my turkey hunting buddy wanted to join me on my Florida adventure. We hatched a plan to spend a full week camping and hunting WMAs. He had to back out and I didn’t want to camp alone so I was back to hiring a guide. By this time the outfitter I wanted to hunt with was booked.
Just when I was about to throw in the towel a friend told me he had a friend that hunted with a guide in the Ocala area and had a wonderful time. I called, he had an opening so the plans were made. This was for the spring of 2019. I got up way before daylight and me and “The Bullet” headed south, I call my F-150 The Bullet. When the sun came up we were in South Carolina. Later that afternoon we pulled into the bank parking lot that was the meeting place. I called the number I was given and no one answered. That was what my junior high school english teacher called foreshadowing. A few more calls and almost an hour later the outfitter guy showed up and led me to “camp.” Camp consisted of the old man’s backyard, it had 2 modified sheds for the hunters to sleep in, a shelter to eat under and a fire ring to sit around. They took my money then introduced me to my guide, we’d be hunting together for the next 3 days. The guide told me we would be hunting 1 particular bird. My reply was that that wasn’t a good idea. When asked why I said “because most times when you do that you don’t kill anything.” The outfitters son and the guide showed me pictures and pumped me full of BS about how they knew right where the tom would be and how nice a longbeard he was. I saw the pictures in my dreams that night when I slept, the little bit I slept.
Riding in my guides pickup the next morning he looked at me and said“ I’m not much of a turkey caller so you can do the calling, just don’t call too much.” See, I’m on a guided hunt so all I had brought was 2 box calls I had made myself, just to show them off. Not good. We sat in a blind over looking a grassy field, they called a food plot, and a road all morning and never saw a male turkey. We did hear a gobble, 1 gobble about mid morning. It was much the same for the other 2 days. The big gobbler did show, he was almost 300 yards away and had no plans of coming closer. Other than that sighting a handful of hens was all we saw. It was like watching paint dry. Just plain miserable. Both the outfitter and the guide shot down every one of my suggestions. I thought about it a lot for the next year and have decided they were just out to take my money. They were overbooked and didn’t have a good place for me to hunt. Others in camp during that time did kill toms, just not in the area I hunted. One hunter killed 2 the very first morning, he had paid for 2 hunts, it was painfully obvious that he was in a better spot than me. That guys buddy killed 1 in the same spot the next day. The gentleman rooming with me missed a tom and then killed his on the last day. All were repeat customers of the guide service. It was a long, long ride home. This hard-luck hunter spent the next few months crying in his beer and then I booked a hunt with the outfitter I had originally wanted to hunt with.
Rick Hebel is the man. He started sending me trail-cam pictures on Thanksgiving Day and continued until the day I left to come hunt. Rick also sent Google Earth maps of the hunting area so I could get familiar with the hunting spot. 1 of the pics had 5 or 6 gobblers not far from the blind I’d be sitting in. We talked on the phone several times and became friends. At 3:15 am on 3-20-20 I climbed in The Bullet and turned south. The corona virus pandemic was in full swing but I had me a plan. Pay at the pump and pee in a bottle. There were 2 sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil, some coffee and bottles of water riding on the passenger seat. I also had 2 bags of CRAP (craisins, raisins, almonds and peanuts). After stopping for a short nap I arrived at the camp house around 4 in the afternoon. Rick and I shook hands then he grabbed my bags and showed me my room. After I was mostly settled in we headed to the hunt area, Rick wanted to show me the way to the blind in the daylight. Back at the camp house we had T-bone steaks, baked potatoes, salad and bread. My belly was full and I was tired but I didn’t sleep much that night. Part excitement, part worry about a repeat performance of the last trip to Florida kept me awake. I was lying there reminding myself that Rick was different, the area was different and the year was different. When Rick’s alarm sounded. Didn’t take long to don my camo pants and shirt and I was ready. At the parking spot Rick asked 1 last time if I was sure I could find the blind in the dark. I assured him that making it to the blind wasn’t a problem. What I didn’t tell him was that I wasn’t sure about all those beef cattle in the pasture I had to walk through, in the dark.
As it turned out the cattle weren’t in that part of the pasture that morning and the hunter made it to the blind without incident. The wind was calm and there was some fog. The 2 hen and 1 Jake decoys were right there in the blind just like Rick had said, as was the turkey lounger seat. In the dark I got disoriented after putting out the decoys and had trouble finding the blind although it was just 20 yards from the decoys. Just like someone lost in the wilderness, I panicked. It was a Patrick McManus “modified stationary panic” but a panic nonetheless. After taking a few deep breaths and reminding myself that I had plenty of time before daylight, I calmed down. The blind was 8 feet further left than I was looking, I mumbled negative things about myself and sat down in the turkey lounger. In no time the first of many gobbles rang out. The tom was right in the edge of the food plot exactly where my guide had said he would be. Before long there were a total of 6 birds gobbling all around me. Sometimes the gobbles all strung together sounded like 1 long gobble that lasted for over a minute. That’s what I call chain reaction gobbling.
At first light a Jake and a hen came through the opening from the food plot and the Jake preceded to whoop up on the Jake decoy. The hen went on off to my right but the Jake kept at it, he was peeking the decoy’s head and jumping up trying to kick and spur the fake. Before long 2 more jakes came from the food plot and as soon as they saw what was going on, started clucking and purring and ran the help show the interloper who was boss. They finally succeeded in breaking the fiberglass stake the decoy was sitting on, now with the decoy on the ground they took turns trying to breed it. Then all of a sudden the 3 musketeers froze in their tracks with their heads up and started to putt. They continued to putt and walked back into the food plot. I knew something was coming just not what it might be. Another hunter? A Game Warden? Coyote? Or maybe, just maybe, the boss gobbler. I caught movement to my right and slowly turned my head, there were 2 male turkeys angling out across the pasture. Judging from the size of the birds and the way their heads changed colors from red, to white, to blue I was pretty sure they were longbeards, but I couldn’t see their beards. When they were a little past straight in front they just disappeared. For the next 15 or so minutes I saw nothing and heard nothing. Earlier a tom had answered my calls on an Eddie Wynne glass call and a hen had gotten fired up at my yelps and cuts on a Primos piggyback diaphragm, but now all was silent. The hunter was about to get discouraged.
About then a big ole turkey sailed to a landing out front in the area where the 2 had disappeared 20 or 30 minutes before. My Steiner compact binoculars revealed 3 big male wild turkeys about 300 yards away almost to the tree line. The birds ignored my cuts and yelps on the mouth call. It was time to break out the big gun. I unholstered my homemade box call and sent some aggressive yelps and cuts downrange. They were interested so I made some more loud yelps, threw in some cuts and added a few softer yelps on the end. The turkeys again were gone. Looking again through the binos I saw 2 birds making a beeline towards me, the other was headed to my right and away. Thinking these were both longbeards I wiggled around behind a live oak and readied my 935. Before long I could see 2 beards both about 9 inches long, one birds beard was just a little thicker than the other’s. That was the tom I’d been waiting for, for a long time. He confirmed his dominate status by strutting when they reached the decoys, the jake was still laying there on the ground. As soon as there was enough separation that I wouldn’t kill both with 1 shot, I pulled the trigger and my slam was complete. 3.5” LongBeard XR #5s are very effective at 18 steps. I thanked the Good Lord for creating these wonderful birds and allowing me to hunt them.
The first thing I noticed was his spurs. They were long and curved. Hooks I think they call them. “I bet I’ve killed my first limb hanger.” Sure enough, the live oak had a limb parallel to the ground and my Osceola would easily hang there by his spurs. I texted Rick a picture and he came with the pickup. Carl, Ricks other hunter had killed a nice tom almost 2 hours earlier and they both congratulated me. Carl was 81 years old and still turkey hunting. I had taken some pictures and Rick took some more of me and my bird. I told them I was the happiest man in Florida. The sun was heating up and I was glad to have Ricks pickup truck there to ride in, but I was happy enough that I could have walked all the way back to North Carolina on cloud 9.
Thank you Lord for creating these wonderful birds and allowing us to chase after them.
Swampstalk
Posts: 388
Joined: November 16th, 2018, 3:48 pm
Location: Palmetto Bay, Florida

Re: Full Osceola story, caution very long read

Post by Swampstalk »

Outstanding! Congratulations on a fun hunt and your SLAM! These South Florida birds and the hunting of them can be a real challenge. Like used car salesmen, there are goobers in any endeavor we wished to undertake. We'll be heading out this weekend for another adventure here in deep Osceola country one more time.

Again, congratulations. Persistence pays off!
Don
BrowningGuy88
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Joined: February 13th, 2013, 9:01 am

Re: Full Osceola story, caution very long read

Post by BrowningGuy88 »

That’s awesome!

Hate to hear about your first go around...
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935
Posts: 281
Joined: February 4th, 2020, 5:55 am
Location: NE NC
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Re: Full Osceola story, caution very long read

Post by 935 »

Thanks fellers. It took me 2 times in SD also. I think they call that hard-headed.
Thank you Lord for creating these wonderful birds and allowing us to chase after them.
jsh909
Gobbler Nation
Gobbler Nation
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Joined: May 11th, 2019, 7:12 am
Location: Ohio

Re: Full Osceola story, caution very long read

Post by jsh909 »

Great story and congratulations again on your slam. That is a great achievement
Elmerfudd
Posts: 12
Joined: February 18th, 2020, 1:04 am
Location: West Virginia

Re: Full Osceola story, caution very long read

Post by Elmerfudd »

Great adventure!!! Of all the birds Ive killed, I have had the most fun with Osceolas. Seemed like even the "easy" ones had some adventure attached. Hogs in the dark, sitting on a fire ant nest in the dark, Mercy killing on a long beard that tangled in a cattle fence while running to my jake deke, peacocks coming in to my calls.....you name it. So different from hunting the north east. Sadly lost the property I had to hunt a couple years ago when the family sold out. I was able to kill 8 of them and I dont know how many hogs before the fun ended. Nothing like sitting in the swamp listening to the land wake up.
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