West Texas Spring Rios

[Todd Schrock]

I made my annual West Texas spring turkey hunt with my cousin on opening weekend. For the third consecutive year, we found W. Tx lush and green after a 2016 wet winter and wet first quarter of this year. This is a luxury that is rare in the usually dry Mertzon, Tx in Orion County.

Opening morning, Saturday, we had clear spring conditions and the turkeys responded to calling and were aggressive towards decoys. This was expected because of the ranch conditions and because it was opening day. I was able to call a Tom into about 15 yards and the RST #5's from my PH 30" 12 ga. smoked him! He had 1" spurs with a 9" beard.
The afternoon hunt was a bit slow. No mature Toms could be serenaded in to show themselves but the jakes were plenty active chasing hens.

The next morning we were greeted with rain and a cold front that had pushed through. A gusty 48 degrees with water everywhere was not ideal for gobbler killing! The birds were pretty much silent all day and did not need to travel as much for water since it was everywhere. Day two ended with goose egg.

Day Three, the conditions were getting back to the norm and the birds were also. After a slow quiet day, the Toms were singing and being aggressive but the with the numbers of hens being available, it was tough pulling a mature bird away from them.
In the afternoon, the temperature had heated up 90 and so did the action. Calling resulted in a group of nine hens followed by three mature Toms. The one with 1" spurs and a 10" beard seemed to be the boss bird so the RST's rolled him at 25 yards!

Spring weather in Texas is always squirrely but it makes one step-up their game to outsmart the mature Toms.
Another successful spring turkey hunt in the books!