Sporting Classics Assistant Editor-Digital, Adam C. Trawick, went with Byers Media to take a couple toms off the windy prairies of South Dakota.
Spotted Horse spirits away his first tom.
It was a brutal, gale-force driven 26 degrees Fahrenheit that smacked us as we stepped foot onto the muddy grounds of the Sioux-Lakota tribe’s Rosebud Reservation just a couple hours outside of Rapid City. The overcast skies and sleet-biting wind cast an ominous pall over our sparkling, rose-tinted lenses of thought regarding a week of hunting Merriam’s at Ken Byers’ annual turkey hunt.
As soon as we arrived, Byers breezed around the fence, just off the prairies from his morning hunt with several others who had been there for days. We were greeted with a warm embrace and a little instruction before unloading our rental and heading into the main lodge to warm ourselves with some hot coffee and a warm pork sandwich. The near-numb hunters following Mr. Byers came in shortly after to tell of what hits and misses had been par for the course thus far.
Blackpipe Lodge
It wasn’t long before they were all back out for late-afternoon hunt. Sporting Classics Editorial Director, Scott E. Mayer, went to the storage facility located next to the lodge to select our firearms, the 20 gauge Franchi Affinity, and zero in our Burris red dots. After coming back inside and everyone arriving just in time for dinner, one of the guides, Byron, a tree of a man, with a perpetual smile on his face and a heart and spirit equal to his stature, came up to me as I sat at the main table, listening to stories. He shook my hand and said, “You are Spotted Horse. It is a beloved breed in my tribe. I name you this because I like your soul. Its character. This is your name.”
I don’t know what that means, exactly, but I was touched by the christening.
The next day the wind died down and the sky opened the cloud cover of its eyelids.
The sun warmed the vast region, reaching up to 80 degrees in the afternoons.
Left to Right: Turkey Seducer, Boundless Byers, Spotted Horse
It would be a few days before I tagged my first tom — and Mr. Byers himself was right by my side. Ken is one of those men who has a childlike excitement for everything he does, every time. He is your biggest fan when you are in his company. He demonstrated as much when he personally took me out, alongside our intrepid guide Steven, the turkey seducing, musician of the tom heart with his calls.
There’s no telling how many times and with how many people Byers has been at the right arm of when with folks on their first turkey hunt — but he is a man who makes it seem as though its his first time seeing someone roll these ghastly fowl. His natural and boundless enthusiasm is contagious, you catch it quick and want to keep the fever rush.
Spotted Horse takes tom #2.
I would tag out with two toms by the end of our trip. I fired a total of two shots, after setting my sights on that first day — each landing right where I wanted them: just at the threshold where the feathers meet the neck.
Fittingly, our last day was a windy one. The gales picked back up to a near 50 miles per hour. Spotted Horse would gallop through the dry dust toward the airport, and fly off as eyelid clouds closed, once again, over the prairie lands.
This is Tom Kelly’s classic 1995 season, first published in 1996, reprinted in 2019. The Season is the only book Tom Kelly ever wrote that must be read from beginning to end. This 1995 spring season is typical of the frustration all turkey hunter feel when things start out well and end dull. Buy Now
