Texas Turkey Camp 2025
Field Journal: 03/31/2025 - 04/04/2025
Weather:
H 85° L 60°
Location:
Central Texas
Wildlife:
Turkeys
Zebras
Whitetailed Deer
Axis Deer
Red Deer
Black Buck
Bison
Fallow
Audad
Dall Sheep
Wild Hogs
Oryx
…and so much more
Activity:
Turkey Hunting
Harvest:
Turkeys (4)
Hogs (a few…)
March 31st - April 4th, 2025:
Texas.
Texas is a strange beast. It’s the only place I know where a Lamborghini might kick up dust on a ranch road and no one bats an eye. It’s where a man can sip craft bourbon from a cut-crystal glass while sitting under a mesquite tree older than the Alamo.
It’s a place of contradiction.
Absolute excess is sewn right into the bones of a rugged, thirsty land.
Maybe that’s what makes it so damn compelling.
onX put out the call with a challenge that felt part joke, part dare. Just a few weeks prior, they invited us to come hunt turkeys on a high-end exotics ranch where no one had ever hunted turkeys before. It sounded borderline absurd, but also totally rad.
Before we jump too far into this little tale, (read in late-night infomercial voice) a quick nod to the sponsors:
Big thanks to
onX
Camp Chef
Primos
Mossy Oak
Photographers, extraordinaire Matt Addington and Nick Kelley
and of course, Two Dot Ranch
Welcome to Two Dot Ranch.
The place is otherworldly. It’s an oasis of luxury perched on the edge of parched land, where the infinity pool seemed ready to spill out into the thirsty scrub below but never quite follows through with the tease.
The luxury of Two Dot Ranch feels almost hallucinatory when set against the raw, wind-whipped backdrop of Central Texas. It is a place where oryx and dall sheep roam behind high fences. Their silhouettes move through cedar scrub like confused ghosts. You can watch a herd of axis deer drift through the hills while drinking a cold beer on a limestone patio that looks like it belongs on the Amalfi Coast. The ranch leans hard into the absurd beauty of contrast, offering fresh towels and high-end linens just steps from a landscape that has not known softness since the Pleistocene.
And then there’s the trophy room.
Full body mounts from more than half the globe stare down at you beneath chandeliers, staggered between ancient relics bought and brought to this place. From secret dungeons to Mayan temples, it’s borderline unbelievable. The space is equal parts awe-inspiring and deeply strange.
It feels a bit like Hemingway’s safari tent was airlifted into a Restoration Hardware showroom, with just a hint of Jumanji sprinkled in.
Don’t even get me started on Tutankhamun’s place at the table.
I inhabited the Texas Ranger suite for the week. No amenity was spared. I could go on and on about the accommodations, but I’ll save that fever dream for another day and another platform.
The Hunt
The crew was a glorious mix of writers, outdoor misfits, industry insiders, and Texas locals. They had just enough suspicion in their eyes to keep things honest and matched my cycism jab-for-jab. None of us were quite sure if the turkeys would even play ball on a property like this.
Then again, what would I know? I’m no turkey hunter. My tangles with turkeys are passive at best and only happen with a subspecies that tends to be far more willing to play.
Chasing wild turkeys in a land known almost exclusively for high-dollar, high-fence exotic hunts felt almost comical. We were hunting one of the most democratic game species in North America. These birds are free-roaming, unpredictable, and to be blunt, total assholes. They moved with complete disregard for the human concept of boundaries. The fences, meant to contain African ungulates and Asian deer, became tactical cover for gobblers.
The turkeys showed up. Maybe not in droves, but enough to make us believe in our own bullshit.
They skirted property lines with the cunning of outlaws. They slipped between corners and edges, using the terrain and the wire to their advantage without ever being limited by it. These birds knew the land better than we did, and they made sure we understood that real wildness cannot be fenced in, no matter how many millions you spend trying.
Under the cover of unrelenting fucking wind, I think I spun my head around to phantom gobbles more often than the real deal.
We called. We moved. We cursed the wind.
We drank in the evening and ate ourselves to sleep just to turn around and do it all over again.
Somehow, through a combination of misdirection, sheer frustration, some skill, and a whole lot of undisclosed luck, we tagged four hard-earned Rio Grande toms. These birds that had never heard a call in their lives still came strutting and gave us shots.
Adam and Jared doubled early in the week, which set the bar higher than I would have liked. I never walk into these camps feeling like I need to prove anything, at least not out loud. But when I am almost always the only woman in the group, hell yes, I have something to prove.
I was, however, elated to hear that turkeys had actually fallen. My short-lived sense of pressure shifted to stoke on their behalf pretty quickly.
Without getting too deep into the chaos of how my hunt went down, I will just say it was a full-blown shitshow, more or less. We had all but bailed on the morning and were on our way back to the rig. That’s when I heard my bird.
Once we got to the top of the hill where we figured we’d head him off, Toms were gobbling on both sides of the trail. Two hunters were set up on the opposite face in the distance, talking to one of the gobbliest turkeys I’ve had the pleasure of listening to.
Another hunter was running with us to the top before watching both sets of hunts from the ridge.
Jack and I made the decision to tuck into a mesquite and call to a bird we weren’t even sure existed. We heard him. Then we didn’t. He was close. Then he wasn’t. He was headed away. Until suddenly, he was in front of us.
Out of nowhere, Jack called to him from over my shoulder and pulled him practically into my lap… essentially.
“Shoot that bird.”
-Jack Flatley.
I shot. He flopped. Jack ran. Dead bird.
To say we reenacted this event a dozen times might actually be an understatement.
It was a strange and beautiful resolution to hunts busted by wind and circumstance. It may be the only time in my life that I can say that one of the morning hunts was busted when a dall sheep ram stood between me and the Tom I was chasing.
Yes. An Alaskan dall sheep busted my Texas turkey hunt. You can’t make that shit up.
On the final morning, just when it seemed like the curtain was closing, Eddie Nickens came in hot. He was running on nothing but Red Bull, grit, and whatever primal energy keeps old-school outdoor writers alive in the wild. With one foot out the door and his flight looming, he pulled off the buzzer-beater, bagging a bird with just enough time to sling it over his shoulder and haul himself to the airport. That brought our camp total to four gobblers and one hell of a finish.
A week of chasing Rio Grandes in a place that felt almost too surreal to be real turkey country came to a close. At first, hunting birds in a polished, high-fence oasis built for exotic trophies felt a little ridiculous. The people changed that. They brought the right mix of skill, sharp humor, and just the right amount of cynicism.
It was honest and refreshing in a way that caught me off guard. Usually, by day two on trips like this, I am already halfway packed and dreaming about my own bed. Instead, I found myself surrounded by the kind of folks who made me want to linger a little longer around the table, even when my 8 pm bedtime had long passed.
I stayed present. I enjoyed every single day. And in a job where travel often comes with a heaping side of burnout, that kind of ease is rare and worth soaking in.
Reflection:
Looking back, the whole trip felt like a beautiful contradiction. We hunted wild birds in a place better known for hosting champagne-fueled axis deer shoots and exotic game safaris. We called turkeys across desolate pastures and glassed brush-filled ridgelines framed by infinity pools. And somehow, it worked.
The birds were wild. The people were sharp. The laughs were real.
The snarky moral?
You can wrap a ranch in high fences, drop a fortune on amenities, and stock it with animals from six continents, but a wild turkey will still make you look stupid in front of your friends. If you’re lucky, that same bird will remind you why you love the pursuit in the first place.
Also, never underestimate the power of Red Bull, a good box call, and a bunch of half-strangers who somehow feel like family by the end of the week.
Some weeks, my job sucks. This was not one of those weeks.
Epic write up. I dream about getting a call to hunt like that, and to do it on a ranch that is that…exotic is just icing on the cake.
This comment hits, “A week of chasing Rio Grandes in a place that felt almost too surreal to be real turkey country.”
Texas is an unbelievable and underrated experience. When they act right, the Rio and the Texas landscape will make you thirst for the opportunity for just one more.