Chasing Osceolas With DDJ

Chasing Osceola Gobblers

Thursday, March 23: For me, there’s nothing like opening up a new turkey season, and I started mine off in Florida with some close friends over the weekend. After three days of hard hunting, everyone scored except yours truly.

Man, these Osceolas were some rude hosts! The birds just weren’t talking and were very henned up. The only bird that came in range was a lone hen, which I videoed and can be watched below.

Some great news did come out of the weekend. I saw four slams completed in camp, three of which were first-time slams. I was hoping to complete my sixth slam while I was there, but it just didn’t happen.

Michael Hatcher, Jake Hill and Jason Richardson scored on afternoon birds. Michael put two days worth of battles against a boss gobbler that had pretty much ignored him until he changed things up with some hard, aggressive box call work. The big gobbler had been dogging two jakes, and when Michael started sawing wood on that box, the jakes started running in… with big boy hot on their tails! It cost him his head, and Michael finished his slam!

Jake Hill used soft calls and decoys to put his slam in the books, and Jason Richardson called sparingly until his bird popped out of a palmetto thicket and into easy gun range.

Longtime friend Nathan Mason completed his third slam with some sweet calls on a custom-made diaphragm.

Brian Gasper, an old friend out of Missouri, moved to within a Rio Grande of a slam. Easy calling on a Hugh Vining box call was more than the 3-year-old could stand. I’m looking forward to reuniting with Brian in May in the great state of Kansas when he comes to hunt with us at Conyers Outdoors. Gotta finish that slam, man!

Back at home in Georgia, it looked like the kids really wore the turkeys out over the weekend, which is always good to see. Saturday morning starts Georgia’s general turkey season, and I can’t wait… at least for my buddies. I will be stuck working all weekend, but Monday and Tuesday I will be in the woods all day long.

I hope all of y’all will follow me from Florida to Georgia and on into Kansas and Nebraska. It’s going to be a long, exciting season and I hope that each of you will have a great, successful one.

Good luck and blessings in the great outdoors!

About The Author: GON freelance writer Donald Devereaux Jarrett has been with GON since 2003 and is currently on the following pro staffs:  JEBS Chokes, Mossy Oak, Conyers Outdoors, South Dakota Hunting Service and Denver Deer Scents. If you’d like to talk turkey with Donald, you can reach him through his Facebook page or through e-mail at [email protected].