One hunt at a time: Nebraska turkeys deal season-ending loss to overconfident hunter

The author used a dual-chamber Rhodes box call to summon a gobbler from the ridge in the background, about a mile away.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Bryan Hendricks)
The author used a dual-chamber Rhodes box call to summon a gobbler from the ridge in the background, about a mile away. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Bryan Hendricks)

ARNOLD, Neb. -- As a turkey hunter, I can relate to the great Arkansas Razorbacks football teams of the 1980s that beat Texas one week and then lost to a church league team the next week.

Joe Volpe of Little Rock and I finished our spring turkey season in Nebraska, America's current turkey hunting hot spot. We got the full experience, starting with a two-day hunt on public land followed by two days hunting on private land. Hopefully, we would come home with a couple of fans from the exquisitely beautiful Merriam's wild turkey to add to our wall collections.

I was a lot more than hopeful. I was absolutely certain that Volpe and I would spend five glorious days covered with turkeys. How could it not happen? Nebraska touts itself as having America's best turkey hunting, as does the National Wild Turkey Federation. The season limit is three, and my Facebook news feed runneth over with photos showing friends posing with two or more gobblers.

Having killed my second gobbler in Arkansas days before, I felt unstoppable. Arkansas is probably the hardest state in which to kill one turkey, let alone two, and I did it twice in three seasons. Hunting in Arkansas is like playing the Texas Longhorns in the 1980s. The rare team that beat them had an open road to a championship. The Razorbacks had a maddening habit of beating them and then losing to Baylor or TCU, but that was not going to happen to me. Not only that, but Volpe and I also killed a gobbler each in Oklahoma.

I must admit that my edge dulled just a tad while driving to Nebraska while talking on the phone with the manager of the public area we intended to hunt. Nebraska doesn't have many true Merriam's turkeys, he said, except in the northwest corner near Pine Ridge. Most of their turkeys are hybrids, a mixture of Merriam's, Rio Grande and even Eastern. From the same flock you can shoot one that looks like a Rio and another that looks like a Merriam's, he said.

"Oh, well, to heck with them," I said to Volpe after ending the call. "We'll just pick out a couple with the whitest tips and call them Merriam's. Nobody'll know but us."

The area manager and I spoke at great length about habitat on the area, where the best roost sites are and what part of the area offers the best chance to get away from other hunters.

"It gets a lot of pressure, but there are a lot of birds there," he said. "If you put in the work, you have a great chance of getting a bird or two."

Volpe and I arrived about a half an hour before dawn on May 13, and we struck a gobbler almost immediately. It was already on the ground and very close, but the way it acted suggested it was probably with a hen or two. The gobbler evaded us, and we didn't see it again. However, we heard several other gobblers at the far end of a field where Volpe wanted to hunt to begin with.

The area is a management showcase consisting of fields of corn and mixed rye and wheat. The rest of the area is scrub prairie with drains lined with cottonwood and cedar. I walked 9 miles the first day and found several spots to hunt in the morning and afternoon. On the second day, Volpe went to the field where we heard multiple gobblers the day before. I went to a high point where I believed I could ambush the gobbler that eluded us.

He didn't show, so I walked another 4 miles. On the way back to the truck, I crossed a road that was trackless on my first pass. On the return trip I found very fresh tracks of a gobbler and hen. By then, it was time to leave and head north to Custer County, in the center of the state.

We arrived at our outfitter's lodge in plenty of time to hunt, but things started falling apart when our guide discovered there were only two of us. He expected three, which led to an urgent sounding phone conversation between him and the outfitter. Volpe speculated that one less hunter seemed to create a compensation issue for the guide. The guide demanded that we pay the balance of our fee before we so much as unloaded our gear, and then he became withdrawn and uncommunicative.

It got worse. Volpe and I expected to hunt as soon as we stowed our gear in our rooms. The guide said he had to go into town to buy a used pickup truck.

"I don't know how long that's gonna take," he said. "Make yourselves at home. The TV's over there, and there's cold beer in the fridge."

Sitting on opposite sides of the table, Volpe and I exchanged looks that could have frozen water. Volpe tried unsuccessfully to call the outfitter, whose face we did not see for the entire visit.

Eventually the guide returned, having purchased the truck. He showed us two ranches to hunt, but the only information he volunteered was the locations of the property lines.

At the second property we saw two gobblers strutting in a different field. It was only a 15-minute drive to the lodge, so Volpe and I returned and sneaked up to a ridge overlooking the pastures where the gobblers strutted. One had already descended the other side with his hens, but a second gobbler was only 75 yards away. We tried to lure it closer with an outstretched turkey fan decoy, but that seemed to alarm the gobbler, which sneaked away through a cedar thicket.

Before dawn the next morning, Volpe and I set up at the edge of another cedar thicket abutting a field. A big flock of turkeys left the roost and made a beeline for our calls. The hens sounded furious, cackling and yelping at us aggressively. Multiple toms gobbled. They got louder and louder as they approached. They were only about 40 yards behind us when, inexplicably, they turned right and exited the thicket at the end of the field into a drain that led to a different field. We did not see a single turkey until several filtered out of the drain several hundred yards away.

Volpe and I split up for the mid-morning hunt. I returned to the pasture where we saw the gobblers the previous day. Volpe went to a water hole in a thicket. As always, I played a variety of callers, including several box models that project well in open country. One is a dual-chamber Bill Rhodes box made of walnut. One is an Eddie Horton laminated birch call, and a third is a Horton black walnut call with a bois d'arc lid. A fourth box, made by H.S. Strut, is for gobbling.

Around 1 p.m., I struck a gobble on a high ridgetop about a mile away on property we couldn't hunt. I called to that tom for over an hour. He went back and forth, back and forth, gobbling sporadically.

After a long silence, the tom gobbled in the valley below, on our property. He had covered a lot of ground quickly and was following a cottonwood drain up the hillside to my spot. He came in running and stopped barely over a crest. He parked it there and gobbled for about 10 minutes. Just five more steps, and he would be in the bag.

Instead, the tom dashed down the hill, gobbling like mad. And then, "BOOM!" Volpe shot him, about 400 yards away.

Neither of us could hear the other calling. I was very impressed. It's very difficult to call a hot gobbler away from another hunter. Volpe said the gobbler came right to him, but then a real hen nearly called the gobbler away from Volpe. A snap shot anchored a beautiful 2-year-old bird with brilliant white tips.

About an hour later, creeping around a cedar ridgetop, I struck another gobbler that sounded as if he were at the place where Volpe and I started the morning. He sounded like he was circling the field to go to my high pasture, so I dashed back around and returned to my hide. That bird did not appear, nor did it make another sound. However, an old gobbler gave Volpe a good look before vanishing for good.

It rained all night, making the road to the ranch impassable. Unable to proceed, Volpe frantically texted the outfitter and the guide for advice on an alternate property. Neither responded. We turned around, loaded our gear and headed for home.

For me, the lessons were multiple. Research a guide or outfitter thoroughly before committing any money. A reputable outfitter will be invested in your success, and he will provide valuable intel on gobblers and their patterns on specific properties.

On the other hand, Volpe and I parachuted into areas that we had never seen before and had opportunities despite phenomenal adversity. The experience reminded me that you can never take an opponent for granted, no matter who you beat the week before. A wild turkey is hard to hunt no matter where it lives.

Joe Volpe of Little Rock overcame overwhelming odds to bag this beautiful gobbler May 16 near Arnold, Neb.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Bryan Hendricks)
Joe Volpe of Little Rock overcame overwhelming odds to bag this beautiful gobbler May 16 near Arnold, Neb. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Bryan Hendricks)

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