- Joined
- Jan 20, 2014
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- South Africa, Namibia,....AK, WY, WA, ID, FL, SD, TX, HI
This all started over a year ago (2014) when Bullthrower let me tag along on a varmit hunt to the Rockin G Ranch outside of Turkey Texas. During that hunt it was obvious that the Rockin G has an enormous number of Rio Grande turkeys and I knew that I had to go back and work on the North America turkey slam. We don't have turkeys in Alaska so it's always cool to get to do something different in a cool place like the Rockin G.
I called @gizmo last summer and told him that I really wanted to come back and smack one of his Rio's. We set dates and I sent him a deposit.
4/28/16 Thursday 12:00 noon I flew out of Anchorage.
Flying all night with transfers through Portland, Seattle, Dallas-FortWorth and arrived in Amarillo Friday morning 4/29 at 9:30am with absolutely no problems. I hardly slept at all except maybe 20 min on the SEA-DFW leg. But everything was on time and worked exactly the way air travel is supposed too. And as I was waiting for my luggage, Gizmo came in to meet me at baggage claim. We loaded up my gear and headed for the Ranch. Stopped at the Cracker Barrel for some breakfast and at Walmat for groceries and we were out of town for the 90 min drive to the Ranch.
When I got into the truck at the airport I noticed a very "suspicious" box of ammo in the cubby on the dash. I of course took a pic and some good ribbing ensued
as I was positive that NO ONE would ever see another box of Hornaday DG ammo around anything associated with Gizmo ever again after the failures he had last year in SA.
But after Gizmo assured me that he was ONLY shooting pigs and varmits with them so he could reload the brass with A-Frames all was right with the world.
And we arrived at the Ranch about 1:15 pm.
We unloaded the truck, put way the groceries, and loaded up hunting and fishing gear the bakkie right away. Here is a pic of the RockinG Bakkie.
It was still to early in the day for Turkeys, but a quick scout of the field that G suggested we should try first for Turkey and then G suggested that we go try some fishing in a little honey hole in the creek that runs through the property. We took his ultralight spinning rods and by 4:00pm, a couple dozen bluegill, bass, and a couple of cold refreshments I was ready for a nap.
So back to the lodge and for an hour siesta...
Friday evening 4/29 a little after 6:00pm, we have the turkey decoys set up, we are hunkered down in the brush line along the edge at the far end of the field and Gizmo is working his best "here turkey turkey turkey" mojo. A group of turkeys come out at the other end of the field and are messing around a deer feeder. They are far enough away that we can't tell if they are hens, toms or even how many there are for sure. G assures me not to worry, as the evening wears on they will move through the field our direction to head to roost. We talk about how many to shoot and G tells me " if you can get two, go ahead".
I am watching this group at the far end to see if they start moving our way, G says "hey, here come some". Sure enough, directly across the field from us comes a different group of mixed Toms, Jakes, and a couple hens. They saw the decoys and started working our direction in kind of a zig zag pattern. Two of the Toms kind of warily leading the way. Just as they came into shotgun range (about 45 yards) , just beyond the decoys, they turned and were headed towards the end of the field and looked to me like they were not going to get any closer. I asked G what he thought. And he said "if you got a shot take it". I slowly set up my shotgun on a tree branch and got into position to take the closest tom when another one lined up about 5 yards directly behind him. All I could remember at that second was G telling me"If you can get two, go ahead". And I squeezed the trigger. The next thing I hear is G saying "holy crap man, you got two"!!!!
And the plan came together on the first evening of the first day of hunting. And really we were only in the blind for a little over an hour. Gotta love it when a plan comes together.
Back to the lodge and G quickly cleans the birds, and gets them hanging in the cooler. Then it's celebratory margaritas, with excellent 4 course fish tacos for dinner. Gizmo is an EXCELLENT cook by the way!! After dinner we off for some nighttime scouting of the property from the bakkie and finally Africa Hunting Videos and shooting pool until 04:30am
super good time!!
More to come... This was only day one
I called @gizmo last summer and told him that I really wanted to come back and smack one of his Rio's. We set dates and I sent him a deposit.
4/28/16 Thursday 12:00 noon I flew out of Anchorage.
Flying all night with transfers through Portland, Seattle, Dallas-FortWorth and arrived in Amarillo Friday morning 4/29 at 9:30am with absolutely no problems. I hardly slept at all except maybe 20 min on the SEA-DFW leg. But everything was on time and worked exactly the way air travel is supposed too. And as I was waiting for my luggage, Gizmo came in to meet me at baggage claim. We loaded up my gear and headed for the Ranch. Stopped at the Cracker Barrel for some breakfast and at Walmat for groceries and we were out of town for the 90 min drive to the Ranch.
When I got into the truck at the airport I noticed a very "suspicious" box of ammo in the cubby on the dash. I of course took a pic and some good ribbing ensued
as I was positive that NO ONE would ever see another box of Hornaday DG ammo around anything associated with Gizmo ever again after the failures he had last year in SA. But after Gizmo assured me that he was ONLY shooting pigs and varmits with them so he could reload the brass with A-Frames all was right with the world.
And we arrived at the Ranch about 1:15 pm. We unloaded the truck, put way the groceries, and loaded up hunting and fishing gear the bakkie right away. Here is a pic of the RockinG Bakkie.
It was still to early in the day for Turkeys, but a quick scout of the field that G suggested we should try first for Turkey and then G suggested that we go try some fishing in a little honey hole in the creek that runs through the property. We took his ultralight spinning rods and by 4:00pm, a couple dozen bluegill, bass, and a couple of cold refreshments I was ready for a nap.
So back to the lodge and for an hour siesta...Friday evening 4/29 a little after 6:00pm, we have the turkey decoys set up, we are hunkered down in the brush line along the edge at the far end of the field and Gizmo is working his best "here turkey turkey turkey" mojo. A group of turkeys come out at the other end of the field and are messing around a deer feeder. They are far enough away that we can't tell if they are hens, toms or even how many there are for sure. G assures me not to worry, as the evening wears on they will move through the field our direction to head to roost. We talk about how many to shoot and G tells me " if you can get two, go ahead".
I am watching this group at the far end to see if they start moving our way, G says "hey, here come some". Sure enough, directly across the field from us comes a different group of mixed Toms, Jakes, and a couple hens. They saw the decoys and started working our direction in kind of a zig zag pattern. Two of the Toms kind of warily leading the way. Just as they came into shotgun range (about 45 yards) , just beyond the decoys, they turned and were headed towards the end of the field and looked to me like they were not going to get any closer. I asked G what he thought. And he said "if you got a shot take it". I slowly set up my shotgun on a tree branch and got into position to take the closest tom when another one lined up about 5 yards directly behind him. All I could remember at that second was G telling me"If you can get two, go ahead". And I squeezed the trigger. The next thing I hear is G saying "holy crap man, you got two"!!!!
And the plan came together on the first evening of the first day of hunting. And really we were only in the blind for a little over an hour. Gotta love it when a plan comes together.
Back to the lodge and G quickly cleans the birds, and gets them hanging in the cooler. Then it's celebratory margaritas, with excellent 4 course fish tacos for dinner. Gizmo is an EXCELLENT cook by the way!! After dinner we off for some nighttime scouting of the property from the bakkie and finally Africa Hunting Videos and shooting pool until 04:30am
super good time!!More to come... This was only day one
but just moving slow from all the excitement yesterday. A pot of coffee and Gizmo makes a big breakfast and by mid afternoon we are out looking for his Rams and Goats. After about an hour of scouting we find them bedded down in the shade of misquite trees. Gizmo has some excellent Rams. I looked really hard at a Texas Dall and almost lost it when I saw a HUGE painted desert that he has. At the end of the day, I saved my money for my upcoming trip to SA this fall.... Maybe my wife will read this and realize how much self control I really have 
