Its been an awesome week here in Nebraska i shot my first ever rio yesterday and first merriam today they are both really big birds and I'm super happy with the way it ended up!! I'm still at the lodge and I've got a lot to do before an 8 hour drive home so ill post a full story and pics ASAP!!!
Well I don't have the pictures uploaded yet but I have some free time so I thought I would bring you guys the story. My friend and I were scheduled to arrive at the outfitter on Thursday after dark and just hunt on Friday and Saturday but we arrived around 3 hours before dark on Thursday and there weren't any other hunters in camp so the outfitter told us we could go ahead and hunt that night so we hurried up and changed and he went to one pasture and killed two almost immediately and I went to a different pasture to see if i could put a stalk on one. It was a 1,200 acre set aside field and the grass was around calf high and I could see at least 2 gobblers in full strut with too many hens to count but they were strutting around the only two trees in the whole field so i told myself if i can just keep those tree in between us I can get within range and stick one. To keep the story manageable I'll cut out the boring parts 45 minuets later I had crawled within 15 yards of one of the gobblers and I came to full draw behind a cottonwood tree popped around it and shot him and he didn't even flop he was toast. That was the rio he was 21 lbs. he had a 8.5 inch beard and 3/4 inch spurs. The second bird isn't quite as eventful but still very exciting we saw him and 5 hens from about a mile away with the spotting scope and there was a big ditch between him and us so i threw the blind on my back and started walking and set the blind up in the ditch and put out the decoys and called and we were under the roost tree and didn't even know because it was almost dark and in 15 minuets we had 200 birds in the ditch with us coming from every direction and I picked out the biggest whitest one and when he strutted by I stuck him and he ran about 10 steps and i nocked another arrow because he stopped (he was going to die i just shot again just to be safe because with turkeys you just never know) and when he stopped a put an arrow right in his spine and he fell dead as a post. The merriam was 20.5 lbs. he had a 7.75 inch beard and 1 inch spurs. It was a pretty eventful hunt and I had a blast if anyone has the opportunity to go out to hunt in Nebraska I wouldn't pass it up it is like nothing I've ever done and I plan to do it again as many times as i can!
