We went to the ranch where we have permission to hunt. I dropped LarryBob off at a small creek he wanted to hunt & I went over to the landowners to shoot the breeze. He's a retired C&NW railroader & we have mutual friends from back in the day. So we yukked it up for most of an hour ( I speak good ol boy). I told him LarryBob was hunting the creek & he laughed. "I ain't seen a turkey since the 1st of December!"
Seems a neighbor 3 milles away bought some steers and was feeding them grain. The turks got wind of that and moved in
en masse. So we shot the breeze some more & I excused myself to go find LarryBob. Which I did - half frozen. I laughed. We drove over to the specified place and there were at least 300 turkeys!
Up to the house we went to ask permission but no answer. There was a running pickup by the shop with an old dog inside. Nobody in the shop. I walked over to the hired help's trailer & no answer there, either. Rats.
Before we left, I did get a pic of a few right by the house. It was tough to walk away from turks that close, but it wasn't worth burning bridges. All the credibility we had built up ( another rancher lets us hunt, too) would be gone in a flash if we had shot. So I took the pic and away we went.
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On the way back to the highway, in a wheat field, we saw 50 - 75 rooster pheasants. Darn unusual! My take was that they had been in a 'pay to hunt' place and it became too expensive to feed them so they got booted out to fend for themselves. Pheasant season is over. I figure they will mostly wind up as bobcat & eagle food.
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So nothing to remove the feathers from tonight, but it was a fun day. SW