Live Hunts - South Texas Hog & Turkey Bowhunt - April 6

Live Hunts - South Texas Hog & Turkey Bowhunt - April 6 - Day 1

Friday - April 6, Day 1
South Texas Hog & Turkey Bowhunt

This is a bowhunt for Wild Hogs & Rio Grande Turkey on the Trulove Ranch in Uvalde County, Texas. The ranch is bowhunting only, some 3,000 acres, is open-range (no boundary high fences) and is absolutely loaded with Wild Hogs, Whitetail Deer, and Turkeys. This will be my third year bowhunting the Trulove. Last year I was fortunate to take a nice hog and a longbeard with my bow. I'm hoping to do the same again this year.

My uncle, James Durham, and his son Dallas Durham have driven down from Lubbock, Texas, once again, to join me on this trip. Dallas very much enjoyed accompanying me on one of our recent Live Hunts at the Helm Ranch and has been eagerly looking forward to joining me on this one as well.

We will be hunting Turkeys from daylight until late afternoon, and then will switch over to hog mode shortly before dark sets in and keep at it as long as we can stand it into the night. I'll be using my ICE Blind again this trip, and we'll likely set up on a good trail within a couple hundred yards of a feeder for turkey, and I'm not sure yet exactly what kind of set-up we will do for hogs. Enjoy!

Our turkey blind set-up for the 1st morning

A.M. Hunt

A look towards my decoy

We did not wake up this morning to encouraging turkey weather. It was slightly drizzly, very foggy, and very cloudy. I have hunted turkeys all over this ranch last year and seen many and heard much gobbling, but this morning I didn't hear a single gobble on the roost. I guess the weather had them tight-lipped. The bad weather persisted into the first several hours of the morning, and we quit trying to make them gobble on roost at about 9 a.m. So, we headed to our blind which is set-up a little ways from a feeder, in an area they really like to strut and show off for the hens. Finally at about 11 a.m. we heard our first gobble of the morning, although very far away. Steadily for a couple hours we heard periodic gobbles, but they were just gobbling on their own, and wouldn't respond at all to my calls. Finally after one bird was gobbling for a little while, we decided to get out of the blind and try to go to him. We went about 300 yards that direction and came out to this large field and he was standing right out in the open - on the neighbors property! Of course he was a huge tom with a ground-dragging beard.

Had to get a shot of the abundant Bluebonnets

Back to the blind we went. About mid-afternoon we heard a few clucks and I briefly saw two turkeys about 60 yards away walking through the brush, but they were walking parallel to us and weren't interested in my calls. By about 3:45 our hind ends had had enough sitting and we headed back to camp to rest before going out for hogs at about 7 p.m.

The hunting manager, J.J. Reynolds, told us upon our arrival at the ranch that the hogs were coming very inconsistently to the corn feeders because of the abundant food that the abundant rain has created. He said in 8 years at this ranch he has never seen it this green and lush. He's been mixing Hog Wild with the corn and that has been helping a little to bring them to the feeders more consistently. To make matters worse, he had a group of 10 hunters that left the day after we got there, and they were smoking all day in their hunting clothes and at their stands, and these hogs are heavily hunted by bow and will not tolerate that. J.J. puts a huge effort into concealing the tripods well and only putting hunters in them if the wind is right, but that group being in and around some of the best hunting areas had the hogs hitting some of the feeders even less the last few days. So, we'll see what we can see.

Our evening hog spot

I told J.J. if possible I would like to hunt a spot where he thought I might see some hogs before dark, as I wasn't real excited about shooting after dark, because of the need to use a light and the hogs being pretty wary of them. He said he had a spot where, if the hogs would come in, he thought they would come just before dark. He already had a tripod set up there, and we set up one right behind it for Dallas to sit in. We sat the spot from 6:45 until 8:45 with no sign of hogs. All we saw were a few Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks.

We'll hit the turkeys hard again tomorrow morning and see what we can do. Check back!

Go to Day 2

Trip Notes
Our Hog and Turkey bowhunt takes place on the Trulove Ranch in Uvalde County, Texas, about 80 miles west of San Antonio. The ranch, approximately 3,000 acres, is in that fringe area where Hill Country meets Brush Country. The ranch is loaded with Hogs, Whitetail Deer, and Turkey, all three are in abundance. All hunting on the ranch is bow only and has been for more than 5 years.

The Trulove Ranch has a comfortable camp. They have a cooking/eating area, hunters are responsible to bring their own bedding and food. J.J. Reynolds will assist hunters in whatever way he can while on the ranch, with stand locations and such. J.J. is a hardcore bowhunter himself and knows bowhunting, so his help is very valuable in getting to know the ranch. If you'd be interested in setting up a hunt on the Trulove Ranch, you can visit their web site at:

http://www.huntinfo.com/finfur/

Equipment
I shoot a Martin Jaguar bow set at 70 lbs, Easton 3-60 ACC arrows, and Wasp 125 gr. SST Hammer broadheads. On this hunt I was wearing Predator Spring Green camo, as it blends in very well with the foliage in this area.

I'm using a Double Bull ICE Blind that I bought from Michael Middleton at www.texasbowhunter.com and although it's still pretty new, I'm inclined to like it very much. I plan to be using it a lot this year.

e-mail Joshua Flournoy

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