I was invited to Buffalo Mountain Ranch, that is located just outside Abilene, Texas, to hunt Rio Grande wild turkey. I arrived on Saturday morning and met up with, Rick Worley, one of the ranch guides. He took me around and showed me some good spots where turkeys had been seen feeding and roosting. I was telling him that I wanted to shoot a Rio Grande turkey with a bow and Rick told me they were very hard to hunt with a bow. It was late season and these turkeys were getting educated. I told him that I was going to hunt out of my Game Tracker carbon cabin which would, I thought, give me some advantage. He said that when these turkeys see something different they tend to shy away. 

He also told me not to use decoys because they were decoy shy. And he also said, if you call, call softly and not very much. So we set up a couple of my carbon cabin blinds in what we thought would be a good morning spot and a good evening spot. 

About 4:30 that afternoon we set out for the evening blind. It was along a bluff where some turkeys were roosting in some tall oak trees. We had not sat there for very long when this two year old tom came walking around this cedar bush. He looked right at the cabin and took off as hard as he could run. About 30 minutes later, 3 huge jakes came in looked around nervously, looked at the cabin and took off. Next two or three hens came in, stuck around for a while and that was about it for the evening hunt. I said to Rick "You weren't kidding when you said that these birds were skittish." He said that they had a saying "A deer will see a man and think that he is a stump and a turkey will see a stump and think that it is a man." 

The next morning we headed out early to our morning spot. We literally had turkeys everywhere. They were flying down out of the oaks and gobbling. I had hens and jakes 5 yards from my blind. And dummy me, I was waiting for a longbeard. Well, no longbeards appeared that morning. We went out that evening and it was about the same thing, a few hens and a few jakes.

So we changed our strategy. We closed up all of the windows in the tent except for one to film out of and one to shoot out of. We had birds come in all around us. But there was none that I really wanted to shoot. It was getting late when this 2-year-old bird came walking around the side of the blind that wasn't open. We hurried to open a couple of windows to film and shoot out of.The bird walked out and I drew and shot at the bottom of his feet. I couldn't understand what happened. It was late and we were going to give it up for the morning so I walked out to get my arrow and I realized why I missed. Where I had shot at the bird, it was 39 yards, and 

I actually shot at him with my 20-yard pin. I am sitting there with my Bushnell Rangefinder in my pocket and not practicing what I preach. I did not bother to range any thing around me.

So, when the bird walked out I had no idea how far he was. I am not that bad at guessing yardage, but sitting down in the blind, when you look out the window, you don't see any ground for 15 yards. So guessing from where I was sitting to the bird only looked like 20 to 25 yards to me. 

We went out that evening and the weather had changed. It was a 
lot cooler, windy and cloudy (it had been 96 almost every day) it was sprinkling rain off and on. We were seeing a few hens. I thought it was just going to be a matter of time until we saw some gobblers. It started thundering and lightening and the turkeys started gobbling their heads off across the creek on the bluff behind us. The weather was getting worse, but I was thinking, those turkeys were so close so I kept sitting patiently. The wind was getting stronger but we sat tight . Gobbling came from everywhere but nothing appeared.

Finally, I thought that the wind was getting so strong I couldn't shoot an arrow in it if a bird did walk out. So we packed up and headed back to the lodge. When we got back to the ranch the weather had gotten furious. It was pouring rain and the wind was blowing it horizontally. 

Back at the lodge, one of the ranch hands said "We were getting worried about you." He said that there were tornado warnings everywhere with baseball size hail. On top of that, while Doug the ranch hand and Rick the guide were out they actually filmed a funnel cloud coming right out of the sky, right on top of the ranch. 

When I got to see the video the next day, there was a big funnel cloud however, it never actually touched down but they sent the video over the internet to 2 of the local tv stations in Abilene. They aired it that night on the news. 

I was thinking these turkeys would be like our eastern birds, in that once they get wet, they don't want to do anything the next day. But, boy was I wrong! We got in that blind early the next morning. It was nice and cool and there were turkeys everywhere. All of a sudden, this one hen, started acting a little skittish, looked around the bush and there was the boss gobbler that I had been looking for. He was huge. He was actually the biggest turkey that I have every seen in real life. 

He had a thick beard, about 10 - 11 inches long and he put on a show that lasted over a half an hour. 

He was about 70 yards out and if you have ever hunted or seen Texas you know there are shrub bushes everywhere. He was walking back and forth among the shrub bushes strutting and gobbling constantly. The hen actually bedded down and just sat there and watched him. 

I was also waiting patiently hoping that he would come closer. I had a bush ranged at 40 yards and thought to myself that if he got to that bush, I was going to take the shot. 

Well, he got closer and closer to my 40 yard mark. He got right behind the bush I had marked with my 
Bushnell Rangefinder, strutting and walking back and forth just tantalizing me. 

All of a sudden, he walked out from behind the bush in full strut. I drew my bow and unbelievably, he heard me draw. He went out of strut and looked right at me through the window of my blind and started clucking and walking away. I did not take into consideration, that every step he was taking was 18 inches. By the time I had shot, he was at 46 yards. My arrow actually hit right beside him and with my Muzzy broadhead and Grasshopper that I use for turkey hunting, it kicked the arrow over and slapped him on the back. The old saying that a turkey has to take a couple of steps to get in the air is dead wrong. This turkey went straight up. What happened was, I had just gotten my new Mathews LX bow a week before I went on this trip to Texas. Muzzy had redlined me one of the new Zero-Effects and I got it the night before I had to leave for Texas. I put it on my bow. I went out the pouring rain and sighted it in. I was shooting half dollar groups at 40 yards but I also forgot to put the moleskin on the arrow rest that Muzzy provided. As a matter of fact. I have never used it on my Zero-Effects before. The amount of noise is so minute it never mattered. I have taken bear, coyote, whitetail, turkey and never had them hear me draw. 

But like I said, these turkeys aren't stupid. Well, I had pretty well given up on taking a turkey with a bow because it was getting close to me having to leave. 

So, I took my Knight Tk 2000 muzzleloader and Larry the ranch manager showed me a spot where he had been seeing birds everyday. So we set up and in less than 30 minutes we had 2 two year old gobblers come in with a couple of hens. The only problem was, when I had the shot opportunity we couldn't get it on video and when we had it on video I couldn't take the shot. 

I was extremely determined to get a good video because we were filming for Bob Walker's television show "Sportsmen's Outdoor Strategies, " Bob is the owner and developer of Walker's Game Ear. 

We decided to stay one more day to get a good video and went out the next morning but did not have any birds come close enough to shoot. That evening we went out, set everything up perfectly, the camera could film from almost every angle and I could shoot from almost every angle.

There was a dusting area 20 yards from where we were set up that the hens were using periodically and the gobblers were following the hens. We got there early that afternoon on our last day. I was sitting there in the warm sunshine and just 
like we had planned it, two birds came in right in front of our blind and what was I doing? Sleeping. My dad, sitting about 5 yards from me, tried everything to get my attention. He finally took the tree-trimming pliers, tossed them at me and hit my foot. It startled me and I startled the birds. 

I can honestly say that I screwed up more shot opportunities on this hunt than I ever have before. I was so determined to get a turkey with a bow when, I could have shot one on any day with my muzzleloader. When I decided to shoot one with my muzzleloader I couldn't stay awake. 

But, I had a lot of fun. Texas is a wonderful place to hunt.

If you want a quality hunt I would strongly suggest Buffalo Mountain Ranch. Every day that I was there I saw plenty of wildlife, bunches of turkeys, whitetail, quail and the one thing that they are known for is buffalo. I saw huge bulls, cows and calves everyday. Buffalo Mountain Ranch does a variety of different hunts. Check out their web site www.buffalo-mountain-hunts.com.

I want to thank Mr. Jay Ledbetter the owner of Buffalo Mountain Ranch for inviting me to hunt at his 4200 acre ranch . I also want to thank Rick and Larry for showing me some good spots to hunt 
and Larry and Doug for cooking those mouth watering buffalo steaks for me. 

I can't wait to hunt at Buffalo Mountain Ranch again. For more information call 303-617-8912.

This photo shows how big the buffalo are at the ranch.
L-R Randy, Larry Pitcox-(Ranch manager) and Randy, SR.
 

Randy Oitker, age 15, is an avid bowhunter and outdoor sports writer. Randy is also a professional archer who hails from Plainville, IL. Randy can be seen giving tech tips to young hunters each week on the Outdoor Channel on Sportsmen's Outdoor Strategies and his little sister Tiffany does a lead in a commercial on this show.  It can be seen at 7:30am.on Wed., 11:30am on Friday and 7:00pm on Saturday Central time.  Randy Oitker is sponsored by:  Mathews Solocam bows, Muzzy Products, Scent-Lok Odor-Elimanating Suits, Realtree Camo, Bushnell Sport Optics, Sims Vibration Laboratories, Carter Releases, Tracer Products, Rinehart 3-d targets, Shrewd Archery Products, Feather Visions Lenses, Outdoor Edge-Knives, LaCrosse Footwear, Carbon Express Arrows, SKB Bowcases, Eze- Crest Arrow Wraps, Walker's Game Ear, Cannon Country Game Calls, BCY bowstrings, Arrowspeed Radarchron, Bug Tamer Suits, Coleman Outdoor Products, Cobra Electronics, Magellan GPS Systems, Toxonics BowSights, Knight Rifles, Bolle Eyewear, Walls Outdoor Wear, Badlands Backpacks, Rock-it-Outdoors Duravanes, and Morrel Range Bags, and local sponsors from Quincy,IL: Gem City Ford, McDonalds and Outdoor Power.

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