Florida

I'm having the time of my life on this trip!!!

I made it to ohio in 5 and a half hours...not too bad considering my gps said it would take 6 hours and fifteen minutes, and I ran into a bad storm in West Virginia. It was a pretty good ride. The good thing was, the rain held off in NJ and PA and the mountians and scenery were beautiful. On the bad side, I hate going through those tunnels through the mountains, they make me feel claustrophobic. And the fact that I felt like my ex should be in the truck with me. Fortunately he was not.

Mike, his dad Terry and I flew into Florida early that Tuesday, got settled in at the lodge at Woodland Guides Outdoors, and got everything ready to hunt the next morning. We got up at five every morning and I have to say I was pretty darn tired by the end of the week...though it was partly my own fault since we stayed up late every night.

We were pretty excited to get in the woods since just the week before three people hunting the property we were going to be hunting had all shot turkeys on the first day.

The first morning in the blind with Mike using a bow, me a shotgun, we saw several turkeys out of range, and some cows and water buffalo. Terry and our guide Dave also saw some turkeys but no shots.

The day we moved the blind and again almost got a Tom to come in close enough for a shot. By the third morning we had it figured out where he was going to come out so set up two different blinds, one for Mike and I and one for Terry and Dave. Mike and I had barely got settled in our blind when we heard a shot. Sure enough, a few seconds later we got a text message with a picture of Terry with his turkey!!!

That night we sat in a blind on another piece of property to turkey hunt. We had hog hunted the past few nights, but had no shots.

I actually can't remember if we saw a hen that night or night, I feel like I have a bad memory since it wasn't even a week ago!!!

I do remember clearly what happened the next morning!!!

Mike and I got situated in our blind, him with his Ross bow and me with a shotgun and running the camera. It was still pretty dark so I ended up falling asleep for an hour or so until the sun started coming up.

Then, Mike decided to take a nap and I started playing around on facebook. I was pretty engrossed in my phone for awhile!!! Then for some reason I glanced up and saw movement in the palmettos in front of the blind. Sure enough there was a hen headed our way. By the time I reached over and woke Mike up I had caught sight of a Tom making his way up behind the hen.

Bow ready and camera running we watched as the turkeys made their way closer and closer to the blind. At about 40 yards they stopped in the middle of the path that ran past our blind...and then turned and walked in the other direction.

That was a little disappointing. We had one day left to hunt before we flew back to ohio.

The next morning we set up in the same spot, the same turkey came in and yet again he turned away at the last minute, though this time he stayed nearly completely out of sight so even with a gun we had no shot.

That night we tried moving in on some jakes in one of the fields, only to have them scared away but a couple of kids trespassing.

Though it doesn't seem like we had much luck, we sure had a lot of fun!!! We went to a Lee Brice concert, ate good food, got a tan, and hunted every day. Doesn't get better than that!!!

I'm super excited to see how our trip to Kansas and Nebraska work out!!!

Woodland Guides Outdoors
Phone: 352-302-0604

Website:
http://woodlandguidesoutdoors.com