"Gettin Close" with Tiffany Lakosky

Don't Hate Me Cuz You Aint Me!

Carter and Dad's 3-D Shoot, Saturday 12, 2008

Top Left: Carter on 4X4 Muley
Top Right: Carter with Cobra

Carter and I headed out to a 3D Tournament shoot in Fremont Nebraska along the Platte River. It was beautiful weather, with a temperature high of 84F. This not only added to our temp comfort level, but also kept the pesky state bird away, Aedes albopictus (aka- Mosquito). As my foot touched the first stake and I peered down the trail to a bull elk 37yds away, it was 9:15AM. I softy heard “Dad there’s a deer right there. I’m gonna shoot that deer right there.” As I peaked over my shoulder, I learned Carter had spotted the real thing. A mere 20 yards away stood a few month old fawn- which by the way was huge. Needless to say, we had a blast as we trekked for hours through the rolling hills and winding creeks of NE shooting 40 3-D targets and seeing many real deer and turkeys along the way. The course was made up of several deer, rams, and elk. We had to keep our eyes affixed ahead as there were many dangerous animals we had to pick off before they got to us, Tyrannosaurus rex, an over sized poisonous frog, spitting cobra and lots of bears to mention a few. It was one of the best father-son outings I’ve had and one that will not be easily forgotten.

2008 Spring Nebraska Turkey

Top Right: This is one of my many 2008 spring turkey set-ups. The blind is tucked in with some dead limbs and 2-3 hen decoys out front at 20 yds.

Right: Anyone who knows me, knows I put my heart and soul into the outdoors. "Work hard and play hard" is a religion to me outside the house. Here I'm pictured on my "pretty" bike that I used to bike in 3 miles to get the edge on hunters and birds. This bike was almost the death of me.

Nebraska hunting has proven to break many of my bad luck streaks. In addition to a good archery deer season in 2007, which came off the heels of a year with many misses and a good lost buck when the blood trail ran dry in 2006, I finally accomplished one of my dreams, a downed turkey-and I did it with a bow! With many opportunities for turkey and it seems like they are everywhere, everytime I went into the woods I was encapsulated with shock gobbles off the roost. And I don't mean one or two, not even several, but one morning there had to be close to 100 gobbles or more. Turkeys are everywhere here! There are Easterners, Merriams, and hybrids of the two. I greeted Saturday morning of the spring opener from a ground blind with three hen decoys out front at twenty yards. My buddy and I had located a few gobblers and set up along a logging road. Thirty minutes after daylight a big tom, ~10 inch beard, showed up and put on a show at 30 yards. When he broke strut, I slung one at him. After the Rage went clean through and stuck into a tree, the turkey acted as if he wasn't even hit and slowly walked off. After not finding him, I quickly learned you don't let turkeys bleed out like deer, but rather tear out of the blind after them. I shot one other 9 inch Tom that escaped me as well before laying the smack down on this good Merriam........................My curse is broken!