2026 CW Cosmic Chronicles

[CurtisWalker]

Well as always my turkey season began during Iowa’s youth season. I got the invite to head down and hunt with Rob and his son, Dakota. Rob had a game plan and we went and sat in a blind over looking a beautiful green plot. Before long turkeys started gobbling and we had one fairly close. As we waited for them to fly down, I experienced one of the coolest things I’ve experienced in the turkey woods. Hens started clucking everywhere on the ridge next to us. Not too long after we heard the tom fly down closer to us. He gobbled..a lot… and we thought game on, until some hens flew over to him and he went quiet. We ended up seeing 3 more hens that milled around in the plot with the decoys before venturing in the direction the tom and other hens went. We decided we’d move and try another farm where turkeys had been consistently midday in an alfalfa field but on our way out of the farm we saw 3 strutters up on a ridge that we could make a play on. We slipped around them and came up about 70 yards from where we last saw them. We got set up and I backed off and called hoping to pull them across in front of Dakota. When I called they fired right back. I backed off a little more and waited. After a little while I called again and got spooked by a hen cutting me off about 5 yards away from me in the direction we walked in from. She went up the hill to where we saw the toms and we never saw the birds again. Turns out one tom did come looking but hung up at 40 yards. We moved to the other farm and as we were pulling in we were met by a flock of turkeys. We tried to make a play on them but as we were about to set the blind up they crested the hill and busted us. We had one last farm to try and as we were pulling in we could see two more toms by themselves. We made a set up about 100 yards from them and I sat back about 20 yards to call. Dakota had the perfect stump to use as a hide and gun rest. I yelped a couple times and nothing. Called louder and boom here they come on a string. Dakota made a great shot making sure they separated to only kill one bird. This turkey had the biggest head I’ve ever seen on a turkey. I couldn’t even wrap my hand around it.

Opening morning of first season Matt asked if I wanted to go out with him. I had nothing better to do because work can wait. We went in to a ridge I hunted a lot in college and have had some good luck the last few years at. Matt can tell you, I’m built for the dark. I’ll run through the timber like a Sasquatch without a light. Matt on the other hand is a blind man if he doesn’t have a light so when the batteries died in his red light it was my turn to lead the way. We powered through some nasty stuff that has really grown up the last 5 years then marched up a big hill to get to the flat we wanted to get to. Well in my stupidity I dressed way too warm and without supper or breakfast before I believe I was a little low on blood sugar when we reached the top. With the light headedness and the feeling of passing out taking over I decided to take a little break before finishing the trek to the tree about a hundred yards away. We get set up and wait. We hear a ton of gobbles but nothing remotely close which tends to happen in this spot. Matt calls a few times and nothing. After awhile I could hear a hen yelping so I called and she cut the distance by a lot but I never could see her. As she disappeared a tom seemed to be getting closer. So we each yelp and I’m looking and I catch some movement in a different direction from where we had heard the tom gobbling. It’s a blue head, headed our direction and fast. I tell Matt as he’s on the complete opposite side of the tree as the turkey and give him a play by play and what side of the tree he needs to watch. The tom closes to 25-30 yards in a hurry and hangs up strutting. I was enjoying the show. Matt on the other hand was going cross-eyed trying to look around the tree. Matt’s patience wore thin and he swung and another Iowa turkey was in the bag.

 

[CurtisWalker]

Next up Chase from Tree Line Tannery and I headed to Kansas on Wednesday after I got off work. On our way down we were met by two hail storms. (Thanks, Dad, for letting us use your truck). We arrived to the house we stay at in Nebraska but is close to the Kansas border so it worked out perfectly. Now we have never hunted Kansas before so we were going in blind with low morale because this is usually our Nebraska trip but we didn’t get tags this year due to them selling out so fast. We get to bed around 10pm and up at 5 to get to the first walk in access we want to try by 6. When we arrived we parked on top of a ridge so we’d be able to hear any gobbles if they were any where close and it didn’t take long and we heard a few maybe 750 yards away. Away we went staying out of sight before diving into a draw to work our way towards them. We set up about 100-150 yards away from 3 toms. Once it got closer to fly down time, I yelped at them and they hammered. Game on! So we thought, these birds wouldn’t leave the tree. In fact we never heard them fly down. All we heard was 3 shots, whooping and hollering. On the other side of the draw. To say this didn’t take all the wind out of our sails would be an understatement. We packed up our stuff and headed to the truck. I had another buddy hunting the same unit as us and he had said he ran into a bunch of hunters the day before so our hopes of finding another spot this time of day was low. We tried though. Went to our second choice and there were already two trucks there. We continued on to the next spot. It looked phenomenal when we got there big cottonwood trees that I’d roost in if I was a turkey. We walked the property calling sporadically but we couldn’t get a gobble to save our lives let alone find any turkey sign. To spot 4 we go. On our way to the spot Chase spotted two toms that looked like they had come out of the walk in property. We called the landowner to the property they were in but he politely said no as did the other 100 people in Kansas had done when we tried to lockdown access before driving out. He did thank us for being good stewards though so that made us feel good. We planned on coming back to the walk in that evening and decided to keep on the road. We ran into a big gopher snake that ended up taking shelter in the engine bay of the truck after Chase tried to grab it. We drove another hour to the next piece of public and on the way we found some cattle out. To try to change our luck and put karma in our favor Chase tried to call the farmer to let him know about the cows. Unfortunately no answer but about another mile down the road we see a tom strutting with two hens in the middle of a wide open field other than a 75 yard long strip of cedars that they were next to. To our surprise it was public and we came up with a plan. We always alternate who shoots first on our out of state trips and I was up. We parked on the far side of the cedars and as soon as we park and get out here pops out our gopher snake who made the journey in the engine bay.


We use the line of cedars block the view of the turkeys to get close. I peak around the other side and can see the tom at the far end of the “windbreak” I begin working my way towards him with a fan and he could careless about it before he disappeared from my site. I wait awhile and decide he had probably pushed his hens to the other side so I got up and started walking to where I last saw him. Next thing I know he pops back out. I thought for sure I was busted but to my surprise he just kept strutting so I kneel back down and then start crawling again before he disappears again. I crawl some more before waiting to see if he is gonna pop back out. Nothing. So I stand up and start walking again I can see the cedar trees are starting to thin out a little bit so I begin to wonder if maybe the turkeys are in the trees capitalizing on the shade since it was 90 degrees. I make it a little farther and he pops out at 50ish yards, once again feeling as though I’m busted I just stand there until he makes his next move. He struts into the trees and I lay down. I crawl closer to where I last saw him and lay down. He pops back out at 30 yards strutting so I slowly pull my gun up and settle in before making a perfect shot.



We report my bird and continue down the road and make it about 1/2 a mile before we find another tom. This bird was on a peninsula so we weren’t sure how we were even going to get a chance at him but we drove buy him a few times at like 10 yards and he just didn’t seem to care. Now the water around the peninsula was pretty dried up and had cattails so it’s not like he was stuck. But he obviously liked his spot so we get down the road and park and Chase makes his way towards him. I stay in the truck because I have a pretty awesome vantage point of the whole ordeal. Chase gets to about 30 yards of the turkey but couldn’t shoot because there ended up being too much brush. When he tried to move to get a clear shot the turkey busted over the peninsula so Chase just stood up and took a couple steps. Well turns out the turkey didn’t bust out like most turkeys do and was just standing there. The rest was history. We may have killed the two dumbest turkeys in Kansas, which is impressive because they were on the highest pressured piece of the unit according to the things we had read. Was a little unconventional too but hey it worked and we didn’t have to deal with any more hunters even after seeing two trucks of turkey hunters pass us on that road before we saw the turkeys.

 

[deerhunter93]

Great start to the season!! Congrats on multiple successful hunts!

 

[Ishi]

Good stuff CW! Keep it coming

 

[CurtisWalker]

Went out with a landowners son during third season, we got in late but somehow managed to get in clean even with a tom roosted 150 yards away in the open. I didn’t even call much that morning because there were so many turkeys that it was just chaos a single tom flew down into the field next to us with 5 hens and eventually made it into the field we were in. 2 toms showed up on the opposite side of us shortly after. They were curious about the decoys for a bit until 5 jakes entered the field where the single tom and hens entered and they began chasing that tom off. Well the pair of toms of course had to head that direction to check out the commotion. Shortly after two more toms entered the field in the same area as the others and strutted their stuff. The single tom started making his way to the decoys so we got ready and when he got to about 40 yards here comes the jake train and chased him again the first pair of toms must of hated the jake decoy in this chaos because here they come. That is until the jakes stop them at 35 yards and they chase the jakes away. They kinda made their way back after that nonsense but wouldn’t break 60 until they decided to move off. Then the kid decided fishing sounded more fun so we headed back to his house for some breakfast and he headed out fishing. It was just one of those mornings where it was awesome to watch but there were way too many turkeys that it was gonna be mission impossible to get one