Grand
Slam: the Florida Bowhunt for the Osceola
Grand
Slam: to Texas and Oklahoma for the Rio
Grand
Slam: South Dakota for the Merriam's
Grand
Slam: to Kansas for the Eastern
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Doug Crabtree's Home Page
The Eastern
(Apr 19) One Grand
Slam To Go, Please
 Doug
Crabtree just called me right from his blind. Immediately after his successful
Merriam's hunt Doug got on the phone to find a place to hunt Eastern's
in Kansas. Arrangements were made to meet Bob Wright, a sales rep for Outland,
in Kansas City, KS. Doug and his pop drove all night but were an hour late
at the meeting place and Wright had left. Doug called him on the cell phone
and Wright gave him directions to a public hunting area.
It was 5:50am and there were
no stores open to buy a license so they drove toward Fort Scott, Kansas
to a Wal Mart that was opening at 7:00am. Just North of town they passed
a 2 gobblers and 2 hens in a field of dried grass.
They bought their licenses
and hurried back to the field. The same turkeys were there. Doug knocked
on 4 doors before he found the landowner, who gladly granted him permission
to hunt the field.
The wind was blowing what
they call "sideways" in Ohio and it took 8 stakes to hold the Double Bull
blind down in the field of scrub trees adjacent to the dried grass field
where where they had seen the birds. They placed the decoys, a jake and
hen to the right, a lone hen to the left and got back in the blind.
Doug did clucks and old hen
assembly yelps and got quiet for 5 minutes.
He started cutting.
A gobble!
Immediately, they saw two
Eastern gobblers running toward them along the fence at the edge of the
dried grass field. Both birds ducked under the fence, ripped through some
green briars and stopped between the blind and the jake and hen decoys.
It was too close, only a couple of yards away, there was no way to get
a shot angle.
Dad moved the other decoy
and a gobbler went to it, right in the next shooting window. Doug heart
shot him at 5 yards, and he went down on the spot.
The bird is a hogg, a 10
1/2 inch beard, 1 3/4 inch spurs, and 24 pounds.
In terms of Doug's actual
hunting days, Doug Crabtree took the Grand Slam in 7 hunting days: 3 days
in Florida, 1 in Texas, 2 in South Dakota, and 10 minutes in Kansas. The
entire Slam was completed in only 30 consecutive days.
Yeeehawww!!!
Doug Sr. has his Osceola,
Rio and Merriam's and I asked to talk to him. He told me, "I couldn't be
happier, just to be here and watch him do it."
I said, "It's gonna happen
for you too buddy, stay focused and put it right where it counts. Don't
think of anything else. The worlds first father and son Grand Slam is gonna
happen. Stay centered and don't think of anything else."
Then I heard Doug Crabtree's
voice and he says we have to quit talking because he hears a gobbler...
Doug Sr.'s Turn
"In The Pit"
(Apr
19-20) - There was no further wild turkey activity in the afternoon
of the 19th. When Doug thanked the land owner that evening the gentleman
was surprised and said he very rarely saw wild turkeys in this area.
Thursday
morning: Back at the dried grass field, 3 gobblers came to
17 yards. Doug Sr. shot and the arrow went over it's back.
They
left there three hours later and went to another area they had permission
for. They looked and looked without any success. At 6:00pm they stopped
and called. A gobbler sounded off 150 yards away and came running. But
the bird was was on them before they could get ready.
If
Doug Sr. can harvest an Eastern wild turkey this will be a Double Grand
Slam by a father and son, as far as we know it will be the first time that
has ever been accomplished.
"This
has been a great 2 weeks of hunting," Doug Crabtree told me, "We've made
a lot good friends on this trip."
To
resume in Ohio.
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