As written by Bo Parker.

The past few weeks of turkey hunting have been rather interesting. Scott and I were covered up in birds on Friday during the second weekend of the MO season. We had never hunted the farm before and had only walked it once during a shed hunt. I told Scott that if I was a turkey (I’ve been accused of being one by my parents), I’d roost right where those two creeks come together. He agreed and we set the blind up in a field a short distance away. After setting the blind up, I had to use Mother Nature’s outdoor facilities. While doing so, a gobbler sounded off right where we thought they’d be. It had the makings of a great morning. It wasn’t long until we had about 7 or 8 birds gobbling like crazy. They answered us every time we called and 3 of them flew down into our field. Unfortunately, so did half a dozen hens! We never had anything come within 50 yards, but we were rewarded with quite a show. Our day ended when a fox caught one of the turkeys up in the horse pasture.

On Sunday of the same week, I was able to sneak out with my lovely bride, Sarah. We set up in almost the exact same spot and the birds were there again. They gobbled like crazy. Unfortunately, they were once again roosted with hens. 4 or 5 of the gobblers flew down into a different field, but one came towards us. He flew to a tree on the edge of the field and stayed on the roost strutting and gobbling for an hour and a half after the others flew down. It was a neat show but was pretty frustrating.



Finally, a bearded lady came into the field and he flew down to chase her around. He never did come close enough for a shot. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad that Sarah got to see some action on her first turkey hunt. 3:30 AM was just a little too early for her though; she caught a few Zzz’s in the blind.



The next weekend, my friend Ben and I went out to the same farm on Friday morning. I had set up a blind for us a few days before and it was really close to the roost. We slipped in early and quietly and set up the decoys and got ready in the blind. When the birds woke up, they were even closer than I’d anticipated. We had several within 50 yards of us. A couple of the birds actually flew over us into the field. However, two of them flew down in front of us and approached our set.

They got to within 10 yards but didn’t like the looks of our setup for some reason. They paused again at 25 yards and I released an arrow. Unfortunately, the pause wasn’t long enough. The gobbler I shot took a step when I released and I hit him a bit further back than I wanted. We never did recover the bird even though we tracked him for a while. I was pretty sick about it, but it is a lesson learned. I’ll know how to handle the situation better next time.

The following day found us setup in the blind once again, but we moved further from the roost and out of site of it. We were not disappointed when the birds woke up. There were 5 or 6 gobblers and a few jakes sounding off every time we called. Things were looking pretty good until fly down time when they shut up. We couldn’t figure out why they were being so quiet, until I finally saw the head of a coyote crest the hill to the East. He made a move on our setup and got to within 50 yards before he finally caught our scent. It was the only day all season that I didn’t see a gobbler. The winds blew about 30 mph for most of the day and I believe that the turkeys hunkered down in the timber because of it.

The following day was Mother’s day and also the last day of the Missouri season. I spent it at home with my wife and children. All in all, the Missouri turkey season was a huge success. We were able to capture some great footage, spend some quality time outdoors, and make some memories that will last a lifetime. I have no regrets. I’m sure that several more tags would have been filled had we chased the turkeys with shotguns instead of bows… But we’re bowhunters, and that just ain’t how we roll!

For the second year, I met a very good friend of mine (Zach) up at his family's property in NW Missouri for a weekend of chasing birds, helping his Uncle with the demolition of a bridge, and just some rest and relaxation.

The primary goal of the weekend was to remove 30 year old wooden planks from a field access bridge that the land owner had actually broken through with a combine this past fall.  Within a couple hours of hard labor, the wooden planks were removed and the bridge is ready for new planking that will be placed early next week.  Zach's uncle was definitely appreciative of our hard work and couldn't believe how fast Zach and I were able to get the job done.

The second goal was to put Zach on a Missouri gobbler, unfortunately we had to face extremely windy and cold conditions - not an ideal situation for turkey hunters.  The first morning was quiet....not a single gobble from the roost.  After a couple of hours in the blind, we decided to try a spot and stalk with the windy conditions.  As I slowly crested a small hill, I was surprised to see a white head not more than 10 yards away looking the other direction.  Zach and I hunkered down in the CRP and threw out some soft calling.  We were setup no more than 20 yards from this bird (just on the other side of the small ridge), but could not get a response.  After 10 or 15 minutes, Zach slowly started to belly crawl threw the CRP and after 15 yards he was was greeted to a nested gobbler busting out of the CRP no more than five feet from his face.  Everything happened so fast, there was no opportunity for an ethical shot.  But to get five feet from a wild turkey is something that does not happen every day!

The rest of the day was a bust trying to spot and stalk and the birds were simply laying down in the underbrush and were unresponsive to calling.  However, that night after a delicious campfire meal, we were able to roost seven different birds along a sheltered creek bottom.



































The next morning we got setup within 100 yards of the area where the birds had roosted the night before and got setup in a deadfall along a creek.


We heard many gobbles that morning, but none close to our setup.  Not sure what happened during the night, but only two of the birds were still there at sunrise and neither decided to fly down into our field.  Even though we didn't put a tag on a bird this weekend, we still had a great time enjoying the outdoors.  Hopefully we'll be able to continue the tradition for many years to come.

Very early mornings, long hours in a blind, quiet mornings off of the roost, and henned up gobblers.  This pretty much describes what the last week or two have been like for us.  It's definitely been a frustraiting run, but hopefully our luck will change with one weekend left in season.

I was able to put together a short version of the footage from Friday morning's Missouri turkey harvest last night.  Later in May, we plan on compiling all of our footage from our turkey hunts from this spring and put together a full length video of our turkey hunting experience from this spring. 

It seems that with more practice/experience with iMovie (Mac's video editing software), the films are becoming much easier and quicker to produce.  Depending on the footage, we may be able to start having two or three minute videos each week showing our hunts - which would be a great add to our blog.  Also, some time this week, the little brown truck should be dropping off a new Canon HV40 camcorder that is capable of filming in full 1080 HD.  I cannot imagine what our new videos will look like under full HD conditions, but hopefully we will be able to find out this weekend!

We hope you enjoy the video.  Please let us know what you like and what you don't....  We are always open to suggestions on how to make our films better for the viewers.  It can be tough seeing some of the small things when you have been looking at this footage for 5 - 10 hours...  Anyways, Bo and I are really happy with how the video turned out and we hope all of you are as well.

MWB put long beard on the ground this weekend!!

Friday morning finally started the Missouri spring turkey season for Bo and I as we pulled out of the driveway at 4:30 AM and headed to a property that neither of us had ever hunted before.  However, we felt that by the use of aerials, topo maps and some wishful luck, that we had a pretty good idea of where the birds would congregate.  Luckily, the farmer had not yet had a chance to disc up this particular 40 acre bean field, which created a perfect stage for some struttin', drummin', and lady romancin'.  The weather certainly did not want to cooperate as it would go from an annoying drizzle to a monsoon where you couldn't see the end of the field.  Due to the rain, the birds were pretty quiet on the roost, but we did manage to get a few gobbles out of the roosted toms in the bottom ground.

We were completely surrounded by birds all morning.  Shortly after sunrise, seven jakes and a couple hens pitched down into the field.  After an hour or so, three of them decided to check out our decoy set.  Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for the jake), I made an absolutely poor attempt at a 20 yard shot at the more dominant of the jakes and missed him BAD.  I'm not even going to try to think of any excuses why I missed so bad, I'm just accepting the fact I missed...  I was pretty down about missing the chance at my first bearded bird with a bow, but was hopeful that I would get another chance.  After watching birds in our field for four hours, the field finally cleared.

But as we were stretching our legs outside of the blind and trying to get a game plan for the remaining couple hours, a lone long beard entered the field and immediately starting making a b-line to our setup.  We quickly got everything situated again and were about to get the show of our lives.  This bird got held up at about 100 yards and sat there for over an hour in full strut, gobbling 75 times at Bo's calling with the sweet sounding VECtor calls!





































He finally broke strut to cross through a small section of standing beans and fully committed to our setup.  Again, he went into full strut and started dancin' for the ladies.  He got to within 20 yards, but I couldn't get drawn back without him catching movement.  While in full strut at 4 YARDS, he finally turned to face one of the hen decoys, giving me an opportunity to draw and give him an old fashioned texas heart shot.  He didn't go far and I finally got my first long beard with a bow.
























Bo's footage of this harvest is awesome!  We hope to have a short video of the hunt posted sometime this week, as I have a little bit of editing to do for his one hour plus show.  He ended up having a cut up 10" beard, 1" hooks, and would probably weight between 20-25 lbs.  Definitely a first bow bird I am proud of!

I was finally able to put together our first full video for Bo's recent turkey hunt on our Kansas lease.  It's amazing how an hour of footage turns into a five minute film.  Editing definitely isn't as easy as some people make it out to be.   But, I think the video turned out pretty well for our first shot and I hope everyone enjoys the clip.  Thanks for the camera work too Ben.   I'm sure as the season progresses, our filming and editting abilities should get much better.  Make sure to turn up the volume!   Enjoy!

If your computer doesn't like embedded YouTube videos, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L-yBW67IlA

I got home and checked the mail only to find that the mailman had delivered a special gift for me to help us through this years spring turkey season, which will be starting in just four weeks.  I ordered a custom, handmade VECtor slate to help me bring those big, struttin' toms in a little closer this spring and hopefully close enough to stick one of them with the bow and arrow.  Vince Crawford (owner of VECtor Custom Calls - www.vectorcalls.com) is a local entrepreneur in NW Missouri that creates some of the best handmade wood calls available.  His attention to detail and customer service is simply awesome!  This is the first turkey call that I've purchased from Vince and I know Bo owns at least one or two VECtor turkey calls, but I've also bought four or five of his custom deer grunters.  With the help of his deer grunters, Bo and I were able to harvest three bucks during this past bow season that totalled nearly 450 inches of antler.  We hope that his turkey calls will bring us just as much luck during this years turkey season.  Thanks again Vince for making some of the best calls on the market!!  Hopefully Bo and I will be included in the 2010 VECtor Turkey Harvest Poster!