This the second part of editor Brian Lovett's Missouri turkey hunt. To read the first part, click here.

by Brian Lovett, editor

After the human-friendly, turkey-hating bulls ran off my gobbler the first day, my Missouri trip got back to normal. That is, hunting got tough.

The second day, Knight & Hale pro-staffer Steve Stoltz and I chased several gobblers to no avail. That evening, we failed to roost anything, and with the wind due to kick up during Day 3, things didn't look good.

The next morning, we heard several gobblers sound off, but none were close. We finally settled on a vocal bird across a large hollow and attempted to work him from a distant pasture. That didn't work, so we slipped in closer to the turkey and set up. The longbeard cut off Stoltz's first series of yelps but gobbled sporadically after that and eventually seemed to drift away.

Having nothing else located, and with the wind increasing, we decided to stick with the turkey. Stoltz eased down a small hollow, where we set up again and called. Again, the bird responded — not 100 yards away — but then faded and seemed to drift off. After waiting for a half-hour, we slipped to the top of the knob where he'd been and found a decent setup.

Stoltz yelped, and the bird hammered back from 60 steps. We shifted to the right and prepared for a wham-bam hunt. However, as he'd done previously, the gobbler didn't rush in. Instead, he responded to calling now and then but basically stood his ground. Now and then, we glimpsed his fan just over the brushy rise but never had a shot.

Finally, after a tense 15 or 20 minutes, the gobbler eventually drifted left and offered just enough of his head for a shot. As I fired, an unseen hen the gobbler had been following jumped and flew to the left.

As I retrieved the bird, the scenario made sense. The old gobbler — he sported 13/8-inch hooks — had been content to gobble occasionally and follow a hen around the small flat. His tepid response to Stoltz's calling would have prompted some other hunters to leave and find a hotter turkey. However, with the clock ticking and the odds of striking a bird dwindling, Stoltz made the right call by sticking with the stubborn turkey.

Our reward? A great finish to a classic hunt.

This is the first part of a series chronicling editor Brian Lovett's turkey hunt in Missouri. Click here to read the second part.

by Brian Lovett, editor

You need turkey hunting excuses? I got 'em. But sometimes, the reason for an unsuccessful hunt goes far beyond the standard stuff.

This past week, I joined Knight & Hale pro-staffer Steve Stoltz for a hunt in northern Missouri. The first morning, Stoltz and a camera crew headed to the northern part of a 3,000-acre ranch, and I settled in nearby to hunt some birds we'd heard go to roost. A bad setup prevented me from killing two pepper-hot gobblers early that morning, and by 9 a.m., everything was quiet.

Finally, at about 11 a.m., I struck a gobbler to the south. But as I prepared to cut the distance, I heard a "snap" behind me. Looking back, I spied a huge bull the rancher had warned us was in the pasture.

The bull didn't seem to notice me, so I prepared to get up, grab my decoy and slip away silently. That's when I heard another snap — this time from the other bull in the pasture, which was five feet behind me.

"They're friendly to people," the rancher's wife had reportedly said. However, I wasn't so sure.

Friendly? Perhaps, but I wasn't sticking around to find out. I got up, kept a tree between me and the closest bull, grabbed my decoy and headed south. The bulls just stood and watched.

"Whew," I thought. "Now I can go kill this turkey."

I climbed the ridge and yelped, and the gobbler almost blew my hat off. He was 70 steps away, just over the ridgetop. Immediately, I sat down and got ready.

That's when I heard footsteps behind me. The bulls were in hot pursuit. They'd crossed the creek and were 50 steps from me, closing fast. However, the turkey was also closing fast. Which would reach me first?

You've probably guessed. By the time the gobbler appeared over the rise, the bulls were standing immediately behind me, sniffing and snorting. And when they saw the turkey, they broke toward it at lightning speed. The bird stood its ground at first but quickly rubber-necked away as the lead bull charged it and snorted.

"Unreal," I thought. "The bulls spooked my turkey."

Still, I kept calling, and unbelievably, the bird answered from farther out in the pasture. And after a minute or two, he seemed to be closing ground. He was coming — again.

I quickly closed the distance and prepared to shoot the gobbler the second he popped over the rise. As I sat, he gobbled from just over the ridge. The hunt would be finished in seconds.

I waited. And waited some more. And then waited some more. No turkey appeared.

"What the heck happened?" I thought.

A loud, triumphant snort from the pasture gave me my answer. The bulls had again run off the interloping turkey.

And that, friends — if you'll pardon the obvious — is no bull.

This is the first part of a three-part series on Brian Lovett's recent Texas hunt. Click here to read the second part.

by Brian Lovett, editor

Maybe it's the heat, or perhaps it's the vistas of mesquite and live oaks.
Whatever the reason, Texas remains a world apart from other turkey hunting
destinations.

I was reminded of that April 6 through 10, when several other writers and I
joined the folks from Under Armour and Bad Boy Buggies to chase gobblers
with SOE Hunts at the Canyon Ranch near Rocksprings, Texas.



The thermometer read 27 the first morning of our hunt, but the April sun and
loads of hot-gobbling Rios quickly dulled the chill. Ken Beesley of Bad Boy
Buggies and I got between two groups of gobblers and eventually worked in a
bird from the east. I hoped Ken could shoot it, but the gobbler circled
around his setup to me, and I finished the deal at 20 steps.

But we weren't done. That afternoon, Ken and I set up on a distant gobbler
and, after a couple of moves and lots of patience, called him into 30 steps,
where Ken shot him. When we raced to the turkey, I immediately noticed
something different.



"Wow, look at those hooks," I said, holding the gobbler's legs up for Ken to
view.

The longbeard's spurs measured just shy of 2 inches. On Ken's first hunt in
Texas, he'd collected the gobbler of a lifetime.

I'll report more about the Texas hunt in subsequent blogs.