Hunting- Oh, Rio!

By Whitney Woodrick

“How about we stop in Oklahoma and hunt on the way home?” my dad asked as we left our Colorado elk and bear hunt. The snow, ice, and swirling winds caused us to drive home with my elk and bear tags in my hunting bag, not tagged to any animals, so I was excited that I still might have a chance to bring some sort of harvest home to Panama City, FL. My dad liked the fact that we didn’t have any license or tag fees since I’m only 13 years old.

Our first call was made to the Lazy S Ranch (www.HuntLazyS.com) in Frederick, Oklahoma. The owner, Kirk Schreiner, met us when we arrived at midnight after a ten-hour drive, showed us the ranch house, and told us where he had last seen turkeys – right outside the front door!

My dad and I were outside before day break the next morning, and we could hear the turkeys talking to each other in the trees across a large, green wheat field. We slid in between two rows of round hay bales and used our Alpen optics to keep an eye out for the birds. My dad had to fend off the ranch cat that kept purring and rubbing on him while he was glassing the field. That was funny! The birds refused to make the hunt easy as they flew down and went south instead of north. We walked all around the fields, dry creeks, and mesquite bushes. Many times it sounded like the numerous coyotes in the nearby bushes and trees were making fun of us.

Shooting my dad’s Remington .243, I missed a 200-yard shot at a bobcat that entered the field only minutes after we walked by. Then it was time to go with the Schreiner family to church.

We came back to the ranch that afternoon and two guests had arrived, Brian and Chris from Fired Up Outdoors (6:30 am Sundays on the Sportsman’s Channel). They know the ranch well and told us where to position ourselves for a late afternoon turkey ambush. We followed their instructions and hid in some waist high broomgrass along a barbed wire fence facing east over a two-inch tall rye grass food plot. It was hot, and I was tired, so I took a “little” nap. My dad says it was an hour-long nap, but I say it was ten minutes. I awoke to my dad saying, “Move really slowly and stay quiet, we’ve got turkeys to the north.” I heard the eight toms chirping and talking about their day spent eating wheat seeds and insects. They walked just past us on the other side of the fence in the tall grass, probably within 10 yards of us. I was shaking like a leaf! Good thing the wind was blowing hard out of the south – so I blended in well with all the blowing leaves.

The turkeys walked away from us into the middle of the food plot, and I was able to get my gun rested on one of the strands of barbed wire. I was easily able to identify which turkey was going to be my target – the one with the highest head and the loudest chirp. They turned and started walking back towards us, and we had to rise up so that I could get a clear shot and so that my dad could get a decent camera angle. I waited for Mr. Tom to present me with a broadside shot, which never came, as they started to act as if they knew something wasn’t normal in the tall grass. My dad said, “Better shoot him now,” and I squeezed the trigger after releasing a deep, shaky breath. Before I knew it, the beautiful Rio turkey was on the ground 40 yards in front of me!

We took pictures of me with my first turkey – a Rio from Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma sunset was a picturesque backdrop to the close of our two-week western hunting adventure. My dad took these photos with his cell phone. Pretty cool, don’t you think? Oh, Rio!

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