Mustang Ranch Camp
2009 Spring Turkey Hunting
|
Hunt 1 April 17-20
Sometimes, in stage-managing hunts, an outfitter will have to adjust his plans a bit. Such was the case with Ben McCulloch and his turkey hunters.
The scheduled start for Ben's Mustang Ranch Camp was noon on Friday. But in watching the weather forecast, Ben decided an earlier arrival might be a better plan. So instead of the hunters spending the night at a motel in San Angelo, Ben brought the group of four right on to camp from the airport on Thursday night. They had a chance to look around a bit to get familar with where they would be hunting at daybreak. Sure enough, sometime after midnight, a giant storm moved through the area leaving not quite two inches of rain in Ben's gauge. Good, good news. And with the hunters already on hand, Ben's plan came together perfectly.
In camp were four friends who have hunted together for maybe five years now. Three are from New York state; one from Massachusettes. All are very experienced in the spring battles, but none had ever hunted a Rio. Ben should have warned them about Texas weather. Along about 2 a.m., the storm announced it's pending arrival with a giant clap of thunder which rattled every house and barn on the place. The poor Yankees allowed as how they'd never heard anything like that back home. Thankfully, the event didn't affect their hunt - in fact, it might have sharpened their senses.
From New York, the hunters were Daren Fields and Caleb Crannel from Broadalbin plus Ray Brownell, from Galway. Steve Forrest lives in West Newbery, MA. All four can now claim a Rio. In fact, everyone except Caleb (who unfornately missed one), took two gobblers. Ben noticed that Caleb was keen to accompany each of his buddies during part of the time, and perhaps he just spent too much time helping the rest with his effective calling. So if this hunt wasn't a 100% success on two birds, it was as close as you can come.
Caleb's gobbler was the heaviest of the bunch at 18 1/2 lbs. The rest of them were in the 16 lb. range which you would expect now that we are well-into the breeding season and the gobbler's crops are virtually empty. You can't help but notice this on every bird being processed in the skinning shed. Daren's second tom had the longest beard at 9 1/2", with Steve's second bird just a bit shorter at 9 1/8". One-inch spurs were found on Caleb's and Daren's first turkeys. Steve completed his slam of turkeys with his pair of Rios to the envy of the rest who are still working on this milestone.
The hunters found the birds active and reported they were coming readily to their calling. But in comparing Rio hunting to the Eastern variety back home, they declared them to be "wild". For sure, the birds around here can see a hunter much easier than those Eastern turkeys living in the big woods east of the Mississippi. Bumping birds is to be avoided at all costs.
Faithful readers of these reports will recall that three weeks ago when the season started, Ben was finding few birds on his ranch and moved his hunters to the Home Camp. Didn't have to this time - there were now plenty of birds all across the Mustang Ranch. Evidently, their spring migration up from the nearby lake where they winter was running late this year. In addition to good numbers of hens and gobblers, lots of jakes were seen - good news for the 2010 season.
|
|
