Grow the Hunt

Kansas Hunt III

By Rich Miller

I was tagged out very early on my last morning and didn’t have any tags left but I did have a fishing license and permission to fish a lake that we had been wanting to fish for a long time. My uncle called shortly after I got back to the barn and said he had connected on a bird also and was tagged out. Once he got back to the barn and we got the birds taken care of we were headed to the lake. As far as the weather we couldn’t have asked for a better day to go fishing. 

Mick had to go and work for a while and said he would meet us at the lake when he got finished up. Once we got there it was a little slow at first and I assume it was because it was so cool the night before. It might have been cool then but the sun was out and it didn’t take long for the bass to start biting. I was using a YUM Dinger and for a while it seemed like I was catching a bass on every cast. Jimmy was using some kind of floating worm but I told him he needed to put one of the Dingers on because I was searing him out.

After catching a bunch of fish on the point where we started I moved to the back where a creek came in and caught a few small fish. That’s when I switched to a Mighty Bug and about the third cast I tied into a good one. After a short fight I got him to the bank and he was a toad. He weighted in a little over 7 ½ pounds and was fat as could be. The guy that owned the lake told us to release all bass we caught but if we caught any crappie we needed to keep every one of them. 

We moved around the lake to another point that went out into the open part of the lake. I stood there and caught several bass and then I started missing some fish. They would hit it and when I would swing it was nothing on the other end. After this happened several times I noticed a crappie come to the top and miss my YUM Dinger. I immediately grabbed my crappie pole and threw it out there. I think the first 13 casts I put 13 crappie in my bucket.

I yelled at Jimmy and told him to come over that I had found the crappie. He came over there with me and we commenced to wear them out. Occasionally, we would catch a bass on our crappie jig. Jimmy had one come up and hit his jig and, after chasing him up and down the bank for about ten minutes, he finally landed a 8 ¼ pound bass on a crappie jig on light tackle. Mickey finally got off of work and joined us and when we left we took 73 crappie out with us and I am scared to say how many bass we caught. 

The last day in Kansas was as good of a day as I have had in God’s great outdoors in a long time. To kill a turkey at the break of day – and have a chance to catch all the fish we did – was as good as it gets. The bad thing was when we left the big lake on that last day, the crappie were still biting when we left… but we had a bunch of fish to clean already.

Moultrie's "Total Game Management" Podcast Now Available!

Podcast Powered By Podbean

 We're proud to announce that the all-new "Total Game Management" podcast from Moultrie is live today! You can access the podcast either through iTunes (just search for "Moultrie"), on our podcast website or you can use the player above.

My guest this week is our very own Rich Miller, and we discuss his turkey hunting adventures in the Southeast and Midwest.

This is definitely a work in progress, and we will be playing with the format until we get it right. So take a listen and send us your comments – we may even read your comment on the show!

Moultrie Game Spy M-80 Mini-Cam praised by Bass Pro Shops

Check out what some people are saying about Moultrie's new Game Spy M-80 Mini-Cam!

"The new Moultrie M-80 is going to be a hit for this coming hunting season. Moultrie not only made a long battery life camera but they also made it in a smaller package. The camera is about the same size as your hand!!!"  [read more]

If you have a Moultrie Mini-Cam, let us know your thoughts and upload your pictures to our Photo Gallery. We can't wait to see what everyone is capturing on their Mini-Cams with the Illumi-Night Sensor and 16:9 widescreen format!

Mid-Morning Mayhem

By Brandon Wikman

Turkey hunters have been bred to wake with the stars, taught to savor a cup of robust coffee, and then venture afield with the moon still high in the sky. The age-old tactics of sneaking into the woods in pitch black has slowly disintegrated and evolved into a new revelation of strategies– turkey hunting during the mid-morning mayhem.

If I had a dollar for every time I came home after watching my gobbler disappear into a flock of hens during my early morning hunt, I’d be able to retire at the age of 23 – quite the feat if you were to ask me. I’ve missed out on so many opportunities trying to bag a bird at first light due to being attacked by a massacre of smooth talking hens. They seem to always gravitate towards my adversary and strip away my target and walk him away feather-in-feather. This will often leave me sick to my stomach and eager for more as the hurdles of hunting the wily species of turkey penetrate my perception.

As rain clouds of doubt clear, mid-morning seems to turn a new leaf and offer a buffet of salivating dishes often served on a silver platter. Typically, turkeys will do their thing after they fly down and parade around the field and back into the woods within a few hours. By 9-10 o’clock, birds will begin splitting and dispersing into their own grounds. This offers a prime time chance when mister long beard will fire back up and light the woods with gobbles.

As many turkey hunters can attest, your odds of success begin lifting like a hot-air balloon come mid-morning. The window of opportunity cracks the widest when you can find your bird hanging solo searching for a playmate. A simple stroke of a yelp call on your box call could very well treat you to a fascinating charm of gobbles.

I would have to say that I wouldn’t suggest that you completely trash early morning hunts. I mean, at the end of the day, every moment in the woods hunting increases your odds in some way, shape or form. All I am saying is don’t throw away the idea of not hunting at all if you don’t wake with the roosters – because sometimes hunting during mid-morning can be the spike you’ve been waiting for.

I will be venturing out later this week in pursuit of an eastern in Wisconsin. You can count on me sleeping in a few more hours and hunting hard the rest of the day. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest you do!