A once in a lifetime striped bass came from Lake Murray on April 10 for dedicated striper angler Kevin Yates. Each spring the striper bite comes to life as the bait moves into shallower and warmer waters, and the stripers begin to prowl before spawning. Trolling is a common practice to locate stripers, but it was a fateful first cast of the day that hooked Yates up with the striper of his dreams.

Kevin Yates and his trophy striper

“I have caught plenty of stripers in the 20-pound class, but never topped the 30-pound mark,” said Yates, of Irmo. “I was fishing alone and decided to drift the boat by a rip rap wall near the dam and next to a 40-foot hole. I always use a fish finder to locate the structure that I think will hold fish.” Yates was fishing with a medium-heavy Fenwick rod and a Penn Battle reel spooled with 30-pound braid. “I cast a 7-inch bass assassin lure in pearl white and the big fish sucked in the bait,” said Yates. “I set the hook once and nothing happened, so I set the hook a second time and the striper took off with such a rush that I had to start the motor and chase the fish.” Knowing that this was the fish all anglers hope to hook, Yates said he continually prayed out loud that he could get the fish to his boat.

Any fight with a big fish while on your own can be especially worrisome, but this veteran angler played the striper well. His landing net scooped up the striper with the tale of the tape measuring the fish at 39-inches. Yates chose not to release this striper for the purpose of mounting his trophy fish, but otherwise supports the catch and release of Lake Murray stripers.

Jay Paul, Mike and RJ became friends after meeting at several trade shows.

This hunt really started in the summer of 2012. What I mean by that is I had become friends with RJ and Jay Paul Molinere at some of the summer hunting consumer shows we were attending. The guys are true outdoorsman and have a love for the outdoors and our conversations were about hunting and “GATOR FISHING” as they call it. We really hit it off and I invited them to come over Texas for a whitetail hunt on Savage Outdoors. The guys jumped at the opportunity and we had a date set!

RJ, Mike and Jay Paul pose with their Texas bucks!

If you have watched the guys fishing Gators Jay Paul always has his Savage .17 HMR ready to take down a big gator. We joked when the guys got to the ranch about making them shoot some big boy calibers and they just laughed it off. It is probably not a good practice calling these two wimps. As RJ is a professional arm wrestler and Jay Paul is a cage fighter. I think the gator fights are just practice for their off season activities.

This hunt would be the first time either of them had come to Texas to hunt whitetails. During the week both of them were able to get a good taste of Texas deer hunting. They both killed great bucks and Jay Paul was able to take a free range Axis doe. RJ and Jay Paul both had two great trophies and some of the best meat in the animal kingdom from the Axis deer Jay Paul Scored on to take back to Louisiana. I think this episode might just be a teaser for what is to come with these guys hunting big game animals on TV!

Jason and Cole

Being a dad is a sobering affair. I remember bringing my son home from the hospital. Driving down the interstate with my wife and newborn son in the vehicle was about as nerve-racking of an experience as a man can ever have if you ask me. I could not get past the thought that now I have a real life responsibility that is staring back at me hoping I make solid decisions! It was almost too much to drink in as I realized that my decisions, from this day forward, would affect an entire family that wasn’t centered around my parents … it was my family now and I was the leader.

Today on Spring Chronicles you’re going to watch a hunt with my oldest son, Cole Cruise, that is full of strutters, but that’s not where the strategy is to be found. Today is about the strategy of your legacy, for you see, the roots you plant, and the influence those roots have over time, will remain long after you are gone.

Roots are strong … and The Hag was right: they run deep.

Traveling all across this country allows me to meet a lot of very unique individuals. This week’s episode of Intrepid Outdoors is all about one of those people. While attending the 2012 NWTF convention in Nashville, Tennessee, I was confronted by a young lady named Addy York. Addy’s smile was about as big as she was, standing at just under five-feet tall. She was interested in hunting out west, and being part of a show based out of Cody, Wyoming, I decided to offer her a chance at a Merriams Turkey at Mike Schmid’s Solitude Ranch. I told her that I’d have to check with the boss before confirming the hunt, so she spent the next two days stopping by our booth to say hello and to make sure I didn’t forget about the offer I made to her. Her charm and persistence paid off when Mike agreed to let her come out to try her luck at her first Merriams.
Seeing New Things

Fast Forward to May of 2012. Addy and her Dad, AY York, flew into Rapid City, South Dakota where I met up with them to act as their personal tour/hunt guide. The ride to the ranch was filled with lots of laughter and joking around, but after many photo ops of everything along the way, we finally made it to the ranch. We decided to take a ride in a UTV to see how many turkeys we could hear. Notice how I said how many, not if we could hear any. The Solitude Ranch is beyond explanation with its beauty of dense ponderosa pines and red rock canyons, but the amount of game that runs wild all over the ranch is absolutely jaw dropping!

19-year-old Addy York and her father A.Y. stare down the barrel of a shotgun, ready to blast a Merriams turkey.

In just one evening, Addy was able to see her first Mule deer, Antelope and of course, Merriams Turkeys. After our trip around the ranch, we met up with Mike Schmid, who was entertaining some of his friends and family members. We discussed the next morning’s hunt plans and decided to get as much sleep as possible because the sun was due to peek over the Black Hills at about 5 a.m.

First Morning: Hens 2, Bob 0

The plan was to get set up near a known roost in our Ameristep Carnivore Blind well before daylight. As we sat waiting for the birds to fly down, it sounded kind of like a turkey zoo. The big awkward birds were gobbling to every sound, from coyotes howling, crows squawking to cattle mooing. I patiently waited for good camera light before I began my calling sequence; soft yelps, a few clucks, and my favorite — “the pterodactyl cackle” — which is my best attempt at a fly down cackle.

The birds were responding well, but they were taking their sweet time coming our way. At one point, we had two big Toms within a 100 yards. However, both birds opted to follow the better sounding callers, which just so happened to be a whole flock of Merriams hens. Addy was a little frustrated with my calling skills, but she still had a great time seeing hens come to within just a few feet of the blind. It was at this time that I decided to come clean and let her know what a couple of other young hunters had already named me that spring, “Bad Luck Bob.” Addy wasn’t too surprised after witnessing it first hand that morning. We didn’t give up, though. We kept trying for another two days before finally putting ourselves in the right situation on day four.

A Wet Tom Turkey For Addy

The fourth morning started out miserably wet and extremely sloppy. The area we were hunting was so muddy that we couldn’t get anywhere, so we decided to wait for a break in the rain before heading out. We got our wish at about 10 a.m, and jumped in the truck, making our way to the ranch. As we pulled in to the grounds of the Solitude, we noticed a group of birds that were making their way back up to the canyon cliffs away from us. We decided to let them get out of sight before making our move. Our plan was to get as close as possible before making a peep.

Once set up, AY started using his wing bone call and box call. The luring sounds immediately got one big Tom’s attention. The gobbler turned and headed in our direction, but there was one obstacle keeping him from closing the distance. That obstacle had a name and her name was Henrietta! The Gobbler, as excited as he was, turned and headed up the canyon with his female companion away from our location. We thought, once again, we’d been had. AY continued to call, though, so I continued to film and help call as needed. Suddenly, a Gobbler appeared without making a sound. We all just sat patiently still, waiting for the bird to make his way to our decoy. He eventually did just that. Addy was ready, but she wasn’t about to rush her shot. In fact, I thought she wasn’t going to shoot at all for a brief minute or two. Addy was using a Caldwell Dead Shot Field Pod and it served her well as she took aim and made a perfect head shot, dropping her first Merriams Gobbler in his tracks. As I filmed this young lady’s excited face, I couldn’t help but think back to the weekend she worked her magic on me, Mike Schmid and the whole Intrepid team to get herself out west to take her first Merriams Gobbler!

A.Y. York (left) and his daughter Addy came out west for the first time in search of Merriams Gobblers in Northeast, Wyoming.

High fives all around, and no sooner did we get our video work done, the rain began falling hard again. I guess it was meant to be! I’ve said it a hundred times, I’m not only very blessed to do what I do for a living, but on top of that, I get to meet some of the coolest people in this country. If it weren’t for taxes and bills, I’d do this for nothing.

I asked Addy if she’d like to say something in this blog, and the paragraph below is what she sent me. It truly defines her charming personality.

To Intrepid Outdoors,

“What an outstanding hunt! I have never experienced such a turkey hunt. Going to the Solitude Ranch and killing my first Merriams turkey was a trip I shall remember for the rest of my life. The Intrepid Outdoors team and I connected at an NWTF convention and after that I used my snake-charming technique. What do I call snake charming? A great big smile accompanied by my big brown eyes and my bubbly personality. Bob Lott was like, “putty in my hands” or as we say in Tennessee, “it was like butter on a biscuit.” We have been friends ever since. The lord blessed me that day with a hunting trip out west and some lifelong hunting buddies. Some people say I have a way of stealing people’s hearts. Well, Bob Lott and the Intrepid Outdoors team stole mine on this Merriams turkey hunt. I have never felt so proud to be hunting with such a great group of guys. Please join the Intrepid Outdoors team and this Tennessee girl as we go on an adventure to kill a Merriams turkey on the episode titled, “Spring Thunder.” And remember, big things come in small packages. For this 4-foot-10 girl knows how to knock those turkeys down.”

Sincerely,

Addy York

Jeremy Harrill

My heart sank into my stomach as my mind raced trying first to remember if I’d ever hunted in North Carolina, and if so, what law could I possibly have broken? One would think it was a guilty conscious at work, but I can promise you it was not. I was just worried that I’d somehow broken a game law and not realized it. At that moment, I had no idea that a game warden, of all people, would become a brother to my very soul.

My pulse eased as Jeremy Harrill began to explain how he’d been reading a book I wrote, and had watched some of our videos, all of which got him thinking about his life’s mission. Over the next thirty minutes, he shared his story of how he’d found his calling in life by using his love for the outdoors to reach out to people around him.

Jeremy with a nice eastern.

Jeremy Harrill is, in many ways, a pioneer, and yet he is one of the most humble men I’ve ever known. He’ll never tell you of some of his great accomplishments in wildlife conservation, like being named the NWTF North Carolina Wildlife Officer of the Year in 2011 for his massive efforts to stop turkey poaching rings in North Carolina. He’ll likely not tell you that he was on the team that formed the first mission statement ever created for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. He’ll never tell you about how he’s been used to raise large amount of money for celebrity-driven outdoor DVD projects like Lord of the Spring and The Record Book.

So, it is fitting that Jeremy Harrill’s hunt today is on a pioneer project with Montana Decoy as they field test the prototype their new 3-D tom “Papa Strut.” It’s an awesome hunt, and better yet, it’s an awesome story. After you watch the video, go to GoMission.net and click on “Jeremy Harrill Part 2” to see the rest of his story.

Jason Cruise is the founder of Mission Media & Resource Group and host of Spring Chronicles. You can find up-to-date footage of this spring turkey season at  www.GoMission.net

Do you have lures that provide you with confidence superior to others in your tackle box?

Over the years, I’ve discovered certain lures to produce more bass for me than others and this post will show what those lures are and why they’re the most tied on.

Favorite Lures & Categories

Favorite Lures

My favorite lure categories are soft plastics and top waters.

My favorite lures to attack bass with are as follows: Jitterbug, buzz bait, jig, frog, and Rapala’s husky jerk.

I have had most success with jigs in the spring, buzz baits and jitterbugs mid to late summer into early fall.

Stay Versatile With Soft Plastics

In the soft plastic category my favorite options are twister tails, frogs, and minnows.

You can fish them weighted or weightless, on jig heads or hooks. Soft plastics work year round, work well in rivers and lakes, both for white bass, smallmoths, and largemouths. Plus, if you lose a jig it’s more affordable to replace than other lures and can easily switch colors without retying.

I’ve found success with jigs both on inland lakes and sections of the Fox River in Southeastern Wisconsin.

Watch The Strike

For top water bass lures, buzz baits and jitterbugs are my go-to. Why? Well, I’ve found you can vary your speed to the bass’s mood.

Buzz baits are usually zipped along the top to churn as much water and make as much noise as possible. Jitterbugs are fished slower and work best over calm water or with a slight chop.

Remember to vary your speed; experiment with a slower buzz bait retrieve. Bass will tell you when to slow down and when to speed up.

Top waters provide heart-pounding action you see. Strikes come unexpectedly so don’t set the hook as soon as you see the strike. Although a natural instinct, doing so will rip the bait from the fish leaving you with an empty hook set. Set the hook only upon feeling weight (I’m still working on this).

Diving For Bass

I caught this bass in early spring at Whitewater Lake, WI on a Rapala husky jerk.

For hard baits I like Bomber’s and Rapala’s. Bombers have a great wobble as they float to the surface. Rapala’s offer a variety of depths, options, and colors.

If you know the weed line depth or fishing by structure these baits will work great. You can consistently stay above, or alongside, the weed line or structure with the correct hard bait.

How ‘Bout Yourself?

What are your favorite bass lures? What species of bass is your favorite to catch?
Let us know what state you fish, and your favorite bass lures in the comments!

The Legendary Will Primos

Will Primos is a unique man. He is one of the most incredibly disciplined people I’ve ever met in my entire life. From everything of his approach to manufacturing game calls, to his faith, all the way to his fitness, Will has the sort of discipline that makes guys like me, the undisciplined type, rot with envy. I’ve often pondered how I could somehow slip pure Mississippi Delta sugar into his food for a week just to see how he’d react. To see Will Primos on a sugar high would be, at least for me, reason enough to endure whatever punishment he’d surely dish out.

Will’s life is grounded in discipline. He’s not easily swayed, and He’ll tell you not necessarily what you want to hear, but you can be that what he’ll tell you will be “the truth.” He’s seen so much, and experienced a vast amount of ups and downs in this industry, which makes his counsel incredibly beneficial to say the least, because his insights are founded on both successes and failures. I cannot express how thankful I am to him, as he has helped me so very much in my efforts to reach outdoorsmen. I’m hoping there’s an extra jewel in his crown for that reason alone.

Mary and Will Primos

In today’s segment of Spring Chronicles Will shares a hunt where he is graced with second chances. There’s a lot to learn by observing his set up on this Mississippi gobbler. If you’re going to use decoys in the woods, think through when it will be as to the first time that tom is going to lay eyes on that deke, for it will make all the difference in determining whether or not he’s in gun range when he encounters that decoy.

It’s a great story about his early days of forming Primos, and very fitting for a man who’s made the most out of life’s opportunities.

I ran into Craig Showalter at the Hulett Motel one day about three years ago. He mentioned he was in town to discuss with some local businessmen about the possibility of starting some sort of a turkey hunting competition. I didn’t really know Craig so I just kind of nonchalantly mentioned if they needed any help to give me a call.

Now, let’s fast forward about six months. I get that call from Jim Neiman. He says. “hey Mike, Craig tells me that you might be interested in helping out on this turkey hunt idea. We are having a meeting at the Ponderosa Café in a couple days; we would like you to be there.”

I remember this being early October. So I walk into the Ponderosa in downtoen Hulett, Wyoming and here is a table full of people, some I knew, some I didn’t. Well they started talking about what they wanted to do and I soon realized this ain’t gonna be no ordinary turkey hunt. These people were planning an all out “EVENT” and they wanted it to happen the following spring only six or seven months away. I left the meeting thinking to myself, what the heck have I got myself into. There is no way we are going to pull this size of an event off and run it effectively in this short amount of time.

Intrepid Outdoors Executive Producer Mike Schmid prepares the podium at the Third Annual Old West Turkey Invitational in Hulett, Wyoming.

We knew we had a lot to do. We needed to organize food, lodging, transportation, guides, landowners, auctions, raffles, non-hunt activities, dinners and a banquet just to name a few. Then there was the job of finding sponsors to fund the event and celebrities to attract potential sponsors. It was kind of mind boggling to say the least.

The first thing we did was broke up the responsibilities and name a committee chair to each of the event functions. They in turn found volunteers to help in each individual committee. Craig’s office in Cheyenne would handle all the administrative efforts. We then planned to meet each month so each committee chair could report how their respective department was moving along. After a couple of these monthly meetings, things were moving a long fairly well and I started to think we were going to pull this thing off.

Hulett, Wyoming has a very robust turkey population, making it a perfect site for the annual Old West Turkey Invitational.

My job was to head up the landowners and guides committee. I was in the outfitting business at the time so I knew a few guides, but being fairly new to the area ,I didn’t know the landowners that well. Enter James S. Neiman. This man, 82-years-young has been in Hulett his entire life and knew everyone and everyone knew him. He volunteered to drive me around to the local ranchers and introduce me to them. He said, “you got to do all the talking and explain the event to them. I’ll just do the driving”

Good enough I thought, so away we went. We spent the next two to three days together, stopping at all the beautiful ranches and talking to some of the neatest people I have ever met. Some of our conversations with these folks lasted for a couple of hours, most were 30 to 40 minutes. What I found fascinating is only one ranch did not give us permission and that was simply because they loved the turkeys and enjoyed feeding them and having them around their ranch yard. These folks loved the idea of the event, but didn’t want to harm the turkeys. All the other landowners gave their consent and most even supplied their own guide.

Youth hunter Bryson Mills was teamed up with Intrepid Outdoors producer Bob Lott at the Third Annual Old West Turkey Invitational in Hulett, Wyoming where he scored on the big Tom.

In the end, Jim and I signed up about 50 ranches and that gave us access to hunt more than 50,000 acres of some of the best turkey habitat in the country. Every person I asked to guide said yes as well, once they found out what this event was about and how it would help the community. I was totally amazed at the support this event was getting from the community.

Our monthly meetings were going well and things were coming together nicely. We had our share of surprises — things we forgot to think through — but when they showed up some one was there to handle it. It was an incredible group effort by an incredible group of people and volunteers.

May 2010 finally showed up and the First Annual Old West Invitational Turkey Shoot was underway. We had retired baseball players, basketball players, former governors, professional hunters and local residents among the crowd as well as many businesses from around the state of Wyoming. In total, we estimated there were about 300 people attending this event in our little town of nearly 400. We almost doubled the size of Hulett for this three-day event.

The First Annual Old West Invitational Turkey Shoot was a huge success. There were over 70 hunters, who took over 30 turkeys. We had an Annie Oakley Shoot and a Poker Tournament. It was a lot of fun, and not just fun for a certain group of people, it was fun for the whole family.

Intrepid Outdoors Executive Producer Mike Schmid organizes the next morning’s turkey hunts at the Third Annual Old West Turkey Invitational in Hulett, Wyoming.

The idea behind this event had three purposes. First was to raise money for the Greater Hulett Community Center (GHCC) so they had funds to keep their doors open. Second was to raise money for the Wildlife Heritage Foundation of Wyoming (WHFW) now known as the Wyoming Community Foundation (WCF), which raises money to fund wildlife projects throughout the state of Wyoming. Third was to raise awareness for the incredible Turkey hunting we have here in the beautiful Black Hills of Northeast Wyoming. Needless to say, this event has knocked it out of the park on all three goals. After the third year of the event, each foundation has received more than $150,000 and more turkey hunters are looking at this part of the country to hunt the beautiful Merriam’s Turkey than ever before.

I feel honored to be part of this great event and this neat little town tucked away in the extreme northeast corner of the greatest state in our union. I personally feel this event will be one of the most popular fundraisers in our region. My hat goes off to all the landowners, guides, volunteers and hardworking people it takes to make this event possible. It is nothing short of amazing and proof positive that with an idea, good people and hard work anything can be done!!

Billy Yargus

The measure of talent comes through comparison, and I’d be lying if I were to try and convince you, or myself for that matter, that I never compare my hunting prowess to another hunter. I’d like to think, however, that a sign of maturity is when a man possesses a keen sense of awareness as to when he simply cannot rise above the talent of someone in his own fraternity, and that, friend, is exactly where I live when it comes to Billy Yargus. When it comes to Yargus, I make my home at the intersection of Admiration and Frustration.

I know I can call up birds on a consistent basis, yet when I hear Billy Yargus run oxygen over latex, I must submit to the truth that all men are not, in fact, created equal. Perhaps that is why I have learned so much about the power of positioning in turkey hunting, for I know that no matter how much I may want to, I simply cannot sound like Billy sounds on a mouth call. Never have. Never will.

This week Billy headed southeast from his home in Missouri in attempts to chase Tennessee toms with me. I made him promise to bring only his mouth calls, gear, and gun with him, because truth be told, there’s not room enough in his truck to tote all the trophies he’s won to prove his legend. Not that he’d care about even mentioning them, for he’s absolutely one of the most humble champions I’ve ever met.

Billy is an expert when it comes to wooing a weary old Tom!

I first met Yargus several years ago through a mutual friend, another soul brother of mine, J.D. Huitt, who is a core component of Hallowed Ground, which makes its home right here on the Sportsman Channel. Huitt and Yargus had hunted several times in their home state of Missouri, and a friendship formed that eventually evolved into a brotherhood that we now all share.

Spring Chronicles was created to bring you spring turkey action in what we like to call “real time.” That is, as real in time as we can possibly make it. Yargus started hunting with me this very Monday. This segment is the culmination of our encounters in Tennessee this week.

The South Carolina Quail Project (SCQP) held their third annual Savannah River Turkey Invitational fundraiser on March 29. Two-man teams pay an entry fee that benefits the SCQP, and all properties in the South Lowcountry region are eligible for the competition that decides annual bragging rights for the best gobbler harvested.

A special scoring system that takes into account the length of the spurs and length of the beard, helps to determine the ‘best overall’ turkey harvest. Additionally, custom box calls are awarded for heaviest bird, longest beard and longest spurs.

With the weigh-in nearly complete after a morning of competition turkey hunting on March 29, it was veteran hunter Marion Gohagan showing up at the last second with a gobbler with a MEGA beard. You could hear the rest of the hunters go silent with a collective gasp worthy of the thickest and longest turkey beard they had ever seen!

With SCNDR officials on hand to perform the official measurements, Gohagan playfully revealed that the absolute rope of a turkey beard was not actually attached to the bird. He had constructed it of horse hair and twisted it to resemble a freakish beard that hunters could only dream of clutching one day. His imaginative rendering of a MEGA turkey beard was received with some appropriate laughter, and I knew I had to share this with readers for APRIL FOOLS!

Congrats to Billy Exley from Recess Plantation in Jasper County for tagging the best gobbler and taking home the perpetual trophy for one year. He made a clean kill that morning and his tom weighed 20-pounds, sported a 10 and 5/8-inch beard with a 1 and 1/16-inch spurs.