First Osceola

Took my first Osceola turkey this morning around Orlando.  It was my first time out hunting these birds but they didn't seem that different than easterns I've had the chance to hunt.  So we got into the cow pasture and set up along the creek as the sun came up and I could tell my cooperator that I was hunting with had done some scouting and work around this set up and had a pretty good idea that something was going to happen this morning.  Well the first hour or so was quite and we did catch some movement back out in the pasture and saw some hens with and without jakes but never saw a bird to put a move on. 

Eventually we moved around and started seeing some new birds and by 8:45 we were easing back to the truck when we catch movement out in the pasture and Tom gets the binos up to see the hen moving out into the heart of the field.  But as he watches over that hen he notices something further out back towards the hard road.  Two mature gobblers were strutting and feeding around the cows up closer to the gate.  So we put a plan in place and used the fence row to hid our movements as we eased up to close the gap.  Unfortunately, when we got up there the truck was only like 20 yards from our set up....  Well since the birds were already pretty close inside 100 yards and the cows didn't seem to spook them as they were agitated because of us we decided it was now or never.  Then one of the birds gobbled (first gobble of the day) we figured we might be able to trick them into closing the distance.  Tom did some great calling and here they come on a b-line towards us.  I eased up and got a good place to shoot through the bobwire and cabbage palms and waited until they cleared the last few oaks but they turned back to the left still gobbling and competing for that hen they thought they were on.  They crossed back through another opening and luckily they were free of the cows and I was able to take the back bird.  He went right down and the next thing I know was that the other bird hadn't moved at all and had stuck his head even higher to give a look and we were able to re-arrange really quickly so Tom could get a shot off as well.  Well he was successful with his shot as well and we had two great birds on the ground in the matter of 10 seconds.  We got them back to the truck really quickly as it was only like 30 yards away.  Amazing hunt!

It's been a while but living's good

It's been a little while since I've posted but I guess I should update on my fishing and hunting trips.

I fished with Greg a few weeks ago at the Fort and we ended up doing pretty well even though it was a kinda slow tide and subsequent bite.  We started off by drifting a trout flat and caught quite a few trout up top along the pot holes on top water.  Nothing huge but good solid fish on top.  We had a couple of close encounters with some big sharks and had one almost suck down a fly and we saw something very large chase a top water (probably a cobia) but we weren't able to get a good bait out there in front of it to find out.

After drifting for a while we decided to go into the cut and chase some reds and unfortunately we found the kayakers but did find some reds.  First fish came at the first stop along some oyster bars but nothing else.  Then we moved to the back and first cast in the middle of the mullet in the broken water yielded a lower slot fish so we set up and fan casted the pot holes and found a couple of upper slot reds just like the one below. 

That was pretty much it for the day as the tide peaked out and it was time to run back to the house to clean up one of the fish we kept to split for dinner. 


I also went out with Dr. Schuster to Cockroach Bay two weeks ago and it was slow slow slow.  We only caught three fish and I did get the inshore slam the trout was a large as the snook and the red. We never even made it to Schuster's Hole as the weather man lied to us and the waves and wind kicked up so we were pretty much forced to fish the inside areas.  I did find a couple of new spots to look at on some new tides so I will have to check those areas out again as we get into some higher water times.