Three Timbers Outdoors

Location: Colome, South Dakota
Turkey: Mature gobbler
Cameraman: Rick Thomas

(story told by Rick Thomas)

The Missouri turkey season is coming to a close and I still wanted to hunt, so what should I do? I got it!  Go to South Dakota and chase after some Merriams. Mark Bay and myself headed north on Sunday May 10th after we finished up with family stuff and filling our bellies. We drove all night and arrived about 8:00 am to our new friends outside of Colome, S.D.

By the way, this is Mark’s first ever turkey hunt.  I thought that was pretty cool. I told Mark he was shooting first since he had never been before. Dale told us a spot to go check out while he finished his morning chores. We had only gone about a hundred yards when  I spotted 2 strutters and off on the stalk we were. To bad I didn’t look closer at them because when we got within range they were jakes and we don’t shoot jakes most of the time.

We went back to Dale’s and he took us to a few places we could hunt. That evening we roosted 2 nice gobblers and we were pumped about the morning hunt. Oh yeah, if we would have taken our gun and camera, Mark would have killed his first bird that evening.

Well, the next morning was beautiful but we just could not put it together.  Mark could have killed several times but I was never set up right for filming. He did awesome by not shooting until I said. After we chased them all morning we went back for some lunch. We also took a little siesta then got right back out there. We set up under a cedar tree with the DSD decoys out in front of us. At about 6:00pm, I woke up from another nap and started calling and Marks big old longbeard started sounding off. We worked him for about 15 minutes and he finally showed his head. This old boy came working up through the timber into a little grassy area and when he got to about 30 yards I gave Mark the green light. Praise Jesus his first turkey and a Merriam at that.