• Latest News
• Archive

Updates

Limited Draw Spring Turkey Hunt in Colorado

April 27, 2010.

I'm a big game hunter first and foremost, but I do enjoy turkey hunting every now and then, especially since it's in the spring when things are otherwise pretty slow for me.

For several years, HTW pro-staffer Paul Vanderspek and I had been building preference points towards a limited draw turkey hunt in our home state of Colorado. We had built up a rather ridiculous pile of 10 preference points -- more than enough to draw any turkey tag in the state.

This spring we finally decided to burn all those points, and put in for a Unit 103 spring turkey tag. Our research suggested that this was the best turkey tag in the state, offering an 80% success rate.

Unit 103 is in eastern Colorado, right on the Kansas border, and contains a big chunk of Republican River riverbottom country that offers great habitat for turkeys and deer. Most land in eastern Colorado is privately owned, making access challenging. This is what makes Unit 103 particularly compelling -- smack in the middle of the unit is the 13,000 acre South Republican / Bonny Reservoir State Wildlife Area that offers great public access for hunting.

To ensure an uncrowded hunt, the Colorado Division of Wildlife only offers 75 tags for the spring hunt in Unit 103. Even knowing that the number of hunters was limited, Spek and I decided to skip the April 10 season opener. We headed up a few days after the opener, arriving at the SWA on April 15.

We set up our camp on the SWA, where camping is free. You can also camp at Bonny Lake State Park (located in the middle of the SWA) for about $14 a day if you need an electrical hookup.

We finished setting up camp around 2pm, and were sitting around catching up with each other and BSing when we heard the first gobble of the trip, only about 200 yards from our camp. That got us motivated, and we quickly threw on camo and our boots and broke out the shotguns.

We had never hunted here before, so decided to drive down the main road through the SWA to get a feel for the place. We didn't get far before we came up on a car accident.

A local guy had slammed in to the guard rail of a bridge over a wash, smashing his head in to the windshield and breaking some bones in his right hand. A young couple with a kid, on their way to go fishing, had found him first, and were trying to get someone on the phone to give him a hand.

Without really thinking about it, we went in to good-neighbor mode, making sure he was OK and offering to give him a ride back to his house. We started hooking up a strap to his car -- which was totaled in the accident -- to pull it off the guardrail so it wouldn't block the bridge and potentially cause someone else to have an accident. As we talked to him, it started to become clear that he wasn't just dazed from the wreck -- he was very drunk. He also had a loaded shotgun in the passenger seat (round chambered and safety off), suggesting that he was probably out poaching turkeys or pheasants.

In retrospect, I wish we had immediately called the cops so they could have charged him for the various violations occurring. As it turned out, our good-neighbor state of mind lasted long enough for one of his friends to randomly drive by, offering to take him home.

Anyway, we turned the drunk over to his buddy and got back to learning the lay of the land.

We picked out a couple spots to explore on foot, and quickly figured out that the SWA was loaded with turkeys. There were turkeys in the cut corn fields maintained by the Division of Wildlife as foodplots for wildlife. There were turkeys in the fields of grass maintained by the DOW. There were turkeys in the river bottom, there were turkeys in the brush, and there were turkeys near the windmills. Not bad for public land.

For the first 24 hours of the hunt, we were constantly on turkeys, but couldn't get close enough to kill one.

As with all the other high plains turkey hunting I've done, calling was very ineffective. I'm not sure if it's because they're call-shy, or if there are simply so many turkeys that they just don't get excited about yet another hen call. Decoys were also marginally effective, probably more hassle than they're worth.

Spot-and-stalk offered some close calls, but the real key to turkey hunting on the high plains always seems to be patterning the birds' approach and departure routes from their roosts, then trying to catch them there at first or last light.

I had found a good roost on thursday night, and on friday night, Spek set up on the south side of it and I set up on the east side of it.

Spek had made the better call on where to set up. He had about 5 gobblers strutting and drumming around him for an hour straight, not to mention a swarm of hens. The birds were very, very close to giving him a shot, but he didn't want to take any marginal shots so close to the roost. He held his fire with birds 45 yards in front of him, hoping we could return in the morning and try to double-up on gobblers.

On saturday mon ring, Spek's last day to hunt due to family commitments, we set up together at the corner of a field where we were confident the birds would fly down.

The first bird off the roost flew down on the other side of the clump of trees where they were roosted, and we were devastated that we had guessed wrong.

But the next bird flew down right in front of us, and within 30 seconds we had a dozen hens and 3 strutting toms in front of us.

Two of the toms broke to the right of Spek, too far to the right for him to swing and get on them. The third tom was right in front of us both, and when they started acting like they were going to leave the field quickly, Spek hammered him with his Remington 870.

Chaos ensued among the other birds -- too much chaos for me to find another Tom in range while birds started running in all directions.

We stayed in hiding for a minute, not wanting to spook the birds completely away from this roosting site. When all the birds were out of sight, we got up to check Spek's bird.

He was a nice mature tom with an 8-inch beard, 3/4-inch spurs, and a big body. We felt good about how much ground we had covered and how quickly we had learned the area, patterned the birds, and come up with a solid plan.

We took some photos and got Spek on his way home.

I had the rest of saturday and then sunday morning to hunt before returning home.

I had a tough time finding birds during the heat of the day, eventually figuring out that they had left the agricultural areas and the river bottom and were holed up in thick brushy areas.

One group in particular looked like they were staging in the late afternoon to return to the roost where Spek had taken his bird.

I circled back to the roost and set up in what I was sure was the perfect spot to ambush the birds.

Then I waited, and waited, and waited.

I could see pretty far in the direction I expected the birds to come from, but they were nowhere to be seen. The later it got, the more I started to doubt my plan.

That's when I saw 2 strutting toms and a hen on the other side of the roosting trees. I had been screwed by the turkeys!

Adapting quickly, I made a swift, bold, belly crawl to get on the birds I had just seen. They were pretty far from the roost, so I'd have to wait for them to move closer before I could get a shot.

So I waited, and waited, and waited.

Finally ... I heard birds flying up to roost BEHIND me, from the exact spot where I had originally set up. The main flock had come from the direction I originally expected. If I had stuck with my original plan, I would have nailed them.

To add insult to injury, the other birds I had moved to set up on left the area to roost somewhere else.

I waited until it was pretty dark, then snuck back to camp.

Sunday morning, with the clock rapidly running out on my hunt, I returned to set up on the birds I had put to bed last night.

Right at first light, they flew down ... 100 long yards away from me.

And that was that.

I packed up and headed home to take my kids to a birthday party for one of their 2-year-old buddies.

Unit 103 is great. I'll be back for sure once we build up enough preference points, and I might be back again this year before the season ends.

Other notes:

• Weather was mild, ticks were just starting to come out.
• Lots of gobbling from the roost, some gobbling during the day.
• Calling was very ineffective.
• As with any high plains hunt, wear light-colored camo, not that dark stuff from back East.
• A 10-gauge would be handy for the longer shots offered in spot-and-stalk situations, but would sure be a drag to lug around when you're covering lots of ground.
• Ticks were just getting started. Spek had one, I had none.
• Calling and decoying were very ineffective. Hunting the roosts offered several close calls.

 

More Updates from Hunt The West ...

Don't want to miss the latest updates?
Sign-up for a free subscription and we'll bring the news to you ...