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The Bad Weather Rio Grande

By T. W. Norman

It was Friday afternoon; I was sitting behind my desk counting the hours until the weekend would finally be here. Saturday would mark the first weekend in April. I had been looking forward to this weekend for the past month. I had just about gone stir crazy waiting to get back into the woods to chase some more critters. This Saturday I was looking forward to getting out early in the morning, and trying to lay down some pre-season video footage of some spring Turkey action. In Missouri our turkey season does not open until the third Monday of the month. Three years prior I decided to start going out and do some scouting, and I have been fortunate enough to catch some awesome early season footage at the same time. This year would be no exception that was until I got a phone call from one of my good hunting buddies. I picked up my cell phone, and before I could get the “hello” off my tongue I was interrupted with a question that about sent me dancing down the hall like a giddy little schoolgirl. “Hey T. do you want to go to western Oklahoma and hunt Rio Grande Turkeys?” I answered the way that any true avid outdoorsman would in this same situation, “absolutely Scott, but I need to ask my wife first.”

I got the O.K. to go from my lovely boss, and we took off on our 5-hour drive to hunt the enchanting Rio Grande turkey. We drove through the night, and arrived at our destination at 5:30 in the morning, after a quick overview of the hunting property we got set up, and waited for the first light of day to try and locate our first bird.

Now I am a Missouri boy, up to this point in my life I had never hunted anywhere but the “Show Me State.” To say I was a little out of my element would have been a drastic understatement. There were no wooded draws; no open fields nestled up to a ridgeline at the base of a creek. There were no big oak, walnut, maple, or sycamore trees for the turkeys to roost in; there was nothing but rolling hills, red dirt, and a few small clumps of short trees. Not to mention that the weather was not helping either. The 35-degree temperatures, along with the light mist definitely did not add a glimmer of hope to the situation. But we did not drive 5 hours through the night to be defeated by bad landscaping, and rotten weather. We did a little “cutting and running” for about an hour before we got our first bird to fire off at us. At this point we had finally come across some land that looked somewhat formidable for turkey hunting. We got set up, and played the game to the best of our ability. It did not take long to see two birds pop over the hill 150 yards away. They were obviously on a mission, and they were ready for action they came in on a sprint across the open plains to see what they could find. A two year old gobble was leading the way with a Jake right on his tail. Thirty-five yards, a chip shot in most cases, notice I said in most cases, the shot rang out, and the birds ran off. I had missed. I honestly was in shock, I am not one to brag on my shooting abilities, but I don’t make a habit of missing. I looked back to Scott to see his back heading the opposite direction of where I was set up. He obviously was not too impressed with what had just happened either. After licking my wounds, and catching a whole lot of flack from my “buddy” we went back to the truck for a short nap, to recoup, get warm, and then give it another shot.

Round two, Scott and I decided to split up. “We have a better opportunity to cover more ground if we go to separate areas,” he said. That was fine with me. I headed back to the same spot where the morning’s encounter had left me a little down trodden. I was walking down an old wooden fencerow, where I stopped and reached for my slate call. I made a few delicate scratches on its surface, and 200 yards away down on an old dried up creek bed I heard “GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE.” I immediately hit the ground like a marine under fire. I got on my belly and crawled 25 yards to the fence where I could get a better look over the western Oklahoma terrain. I got my first glimpse of that big ole bird walking between small over grown bushes. I slowly slipped my diaphragm call into my mouth and began doing a little sweet-talking. I was instantly interrupted by a double gobble. I came right back with an excited cutting sequence which was answered by another double gobble. In all my years of hunting I have never seen a turkey re-act so fast and aggressive.

The bird big, black, and in full strut circled three times and thundered off another high volume gobble. I don’t think that I can express in words how aggressive these birds are. I have been hunting Eastern Turkey’s for 8 years, and I thought I knew everything that a turkey would not do when being hunted. I have had turkey’s hot and fired up hang up just out of shooting range because they wont cross a fallen tree, cross a small creek, come down a hill, cross a valley, or come through a ditch. This has happened more times that I care to admit while chasing Missouri longbeards around. But this turkey, this bronze fanned Rio defied all the odds of what I considered to be traditional turkey hunting.

The coaxing from my HS diaphragm call was more than he could handle, he was so excited while circling letting his wing tips drag the Oklahoma red dirt he stopped, and began the breed the ground. I have never seen a turkey do this, it only lasted about ten seconds then filled to the brim what pumping testosterone in he came on a B-line right to my calling. On a dead sprint he ran down a three foot deep ditch up the other side, jumped over a fallen down tree, continued down the hill, and up the other side to my location. The bird never slowed down, never missed a step, then as fast as he had came he stopped dead in his tracks thirty yards away. Flexing those feathers, spitting repeatedly followed by one more ground shaking gobble that echoed deep in the hollows of my chest. I was crouched behind a small sage bush with my gun barrel resting on the barbed wire fence. Everything had happened so fast, I had barely been able to prepare for the shot before this bird had covered the 200-yard gap, and was now strutting just down the barrel of my loaded Mossberg Ultra Mag. I had already blown my first opportunity of taking a western Rio, it would not happen again. I settled my front sight right on the bright red head of the excited bird and slowly squeezed the trigger. The shot rolled, and echoed over the hills of western Oklahoma like the sound of a gentle rolling thunder that often preludes a monstrous storm. This time I did not miss, and the evidence was laying twenty-five yards away. My trophy, a western Oklahoma Rio Grande Turkey was laying on the ground waiting to be tagged and hauled back to South West Missouri.

As I lied on my back I just began thanking the Lord for the opportunity I had to take such a wonderful animal. The bible says that the Lord will grant us the desires of our hearts. This is so true; the reason is as we seek the Lord, and draw near to him the more that his desires will become our desires. If we are seeking the Lord’s will for our lives we truly will have our desires met. But the fact of the matter is although I want what God want for my life I still have a passion to hunt, and to have the privilege of harvesting the game that I spend hours and hours hunting. And on this day that desire was given to me. A Beautiful 23.5 lbs gobbler that sported a 9 ½ inch beard and 1 ¾ inch spurs. Thirty-five degrees spitting rain, and the wind cutting like a knife, these truly were the best conditions to harvest a “Bad Weather Rio Grande.”