A Hunting We Will Go…..Turkey That Is!

Warren and I have dabbled a little in Turkey hunting and we got a little more serious when we took Hunter to the ODFW Turkey Clinic in 2009.  This year was a whole new ballgame though…

We signed Hunter up for the turkey clinic and they went but there was a little more spring in their step this year.

Warren attended a Safari Club International banquet in March with the Nosler group.  We have been to hunting related banquets and auctions but this one was different…

John R. Nosler purchased several items at this auction.  One of the successful bids was for a guided turkey hunt near White City, Oregon on private land that had only been hunted a handful of times in over ten years.  The package also included a turkey vest and a shot gun.  After the banquet John gave this hunt and accessories to Warren so he could go and take Hunter with him.

WOW! 

Warren called the guide to arrange the hunt for opening day of Turkey Season.  They would be staying  in a wall tent outside of Shady Cove, which is just outside of White City.  Warren inquired about paying a non-hunter fee so I could go along and take pictures.  This gentleman didn’t want to charge an extra fee and sounded so excited to be taking Warren & Hunter hunting.  Little did we know at the time that we would become fast friends with Rusty Kuyper and his family. 

And on April 14th we were on the road in the afternoon headed south.  When we were about 10 miles north of La Pine we went through a terrible hail\rain storm.  Mother Nature laid down 3 inches of hail on the road in a matter of minutes with a huge thunder and lightening storm.  Then we had a wonderful snow storm and packed snow going over the pass.  What a pleasant start to our trip!

We arrived at the house around 7, packed all of our stuff into his mini truck and headed up to the campsite.  We had a good nights NAP  and went hinting the next morning – thankfully without the rain.

Here is a picture of Warren & Hunter in the tent after breakfast.

This is Hunter following Rusty back to camp after the morning hunt.

The mini truck

The outhouse\shower combo

Camp

This is Rusty and the wall tent where we stayed

Views from camp – beautiful

Enough of the scenery even though it was very nice – on to the hunting…

Warren & Hunter in the bush

The decoys are waiting

My honey in his turkey gettin’ gear

Genuine turkey tracks

This is one turkey that won’t be making tracks anymore.  Warren got his bird on the evening of opening day.  Here he is checking out the beard which later measured out to 9-1/4”.

Here is Warren with Rusty and Tom the turkey at the special photo op spot Rusty set up.

The time came to say goodbye so I took one last picture of the boys in front of the tent.  The hunting was very tough after the storm.  Hunter didn’t kill his bird this round so we knew that we would be back in a few weeks.

I took a couple pictures on the way home to show the snowpack still hangin’ out.

Until the next trip…