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December 26, 2008 by  Promised to post some photos of the horrendous New England ice storm of December 12. Here are a shot of the road out in front of my camp. Know that there was a flock of turkeys roosted up behind the house in the days leading up to the ice—what's become of them is anyone's guess. Turkeys are tough, but I'm not sure that they could have survived it. Will be surveying the damage in the days ahead and post some shots.—Gerry Bethge
[ Read Full Post ]December 16, 2008 by 
The wild turkeys could wait. The phrase “widespread power outages” has dominated news talk on my battery-operated radio. The storm made us native and transplanted New Englanders national news last weekend and well into this one. It ended today, Tuesday, December 16. Unless you count the clean-up to follow: ancient trees split in half, heavy branches all over the landscape, wet basements and the like.
I can hear a neighbor and his trusty chainsaw right now . . .
Yeah, I've stoked the woodstove fire continuously (it got down to 10 degrees one night over the weekend), but the weather eased considerably yesterday (December 15, the last day of the New Hampshire bow turkey season, and I'll eat that tag with some good memories on file). My English setters enjoyed my company during the recent stretch (I think!?), sleeping downstairs with me near the fire while my wife and daughter stayed on the warmer upper level at night.
Hunting camp without the hunting . . .
Just like the outset of Jack London’s classic 1910 story “To Build a Fire,” today also broke cold and gray. Would the power come back on? Or not? That’s been the operative of late: to build a fire. It could be 3 p.m. or 3 a.m. as the great heating unit, like a newborn infant, must be fed. Like you Strut Zoners, I choose skinny logs to provide air around them, and thicker ones to sustain the burn longer into the night, offering more rest for my vigil of warming the house. Sixty degrees is as low as it got while I fed the fire.
Once I stopped, it dropped like a stone in a lake.
But then it warmed to unseasonable temperatures again as if nature were giving us just one more break. And then I heard that sucking sound, and my home office printer purred like a turkey hen and kicked on. Here in southern Maine, the power in our modest little log cabin fired up this afternoon after five days without it. Yep, you heard right: five days. No typo. The moment of truth arrived to the sweet sounds of two sump pumps sucking swamp water out of my basement. You gotta love it.
Before the electricity kicked in, some of my mallard decoys floated around in the several inches of water down there as if in some winter outdoor-industry show demonstration. As clean-up goes, I've a museum of old (wet) basement gear and classic (read retired) camouflage that needs tossed, so that's a good thing! And no I didn't have a generator on hand. It's on my Christmas list though.
Back on the grid never felt better.—Steve Hickoff
[ Read Full Post ]December 8, 2008 by 
Right now, you Strut Zoners are probably in your best physical shape of the year outside of spring turkey season. You’ve been hiking hills, climbing treestands, and on occasion, you’ve dragged a deer out of the woods. You’ve put on drives (where legal), and maybe even hunted a wild turkey or two. Spring gobbler season is coming before you know it. Here are some ways to stay in playing shape, and even to keep what you’ve earned over the years while doing it.
Hunt Small Game: Many “second seasons” are offered for rabbits and upland birds around the country, including wild turkeys and even deer way down south. Ducks. Geese. Don’t stop. Keep at it. Spring turkey will follow all the fun, and it will make winter pass that much faster.
Move That Body, Part II: Don’t care to hunt small game following deer and fall turkey seasons? Join a recreational hoops league (I play weekly in one with several fellow hunters on my team). Indoors, you can also lift weights. Do pushups. Swim. Stay active. Outdoors, you can ice fish. Take up snowshoeing, which is a great way to scout, and even to check out access for new hunting areas. Get out there. You guys down south basically keep going until you hunt that first gobbler. It's tougher up north in the Snow Belt.
Secure Landowner Permission: If you’ve hunted land this fall and want to keep it, make sure you thank the landowner now. Send a holiday greeting. Drop by his house for a friendly post-season chat. Make an effort to expand your hunting areas too. Sometimes contacting the person who posts his land now will let you hunt gobblers in a few months all by yourself. Permission granted.
I recently talked to a Maine farmer who said, “I need all the help I can get with the wild turkeys. There are just too dang many of them!” This morning, as snowflakes fell, I walked his land these many months before spring turkey season to get a feel for it, and found all sorts of turkey sign. Not that these particular birds will stay, but that’s the fun. Do it. Like me, you’ll have a jump-start next year, and something to look forward to.
What do you guys do in the off-season to make sure you’re in shape for next year? Do you have any special tricks for keeping landowner permission, or getting new land to hunt?— Steve Hickoff
[ Read Full Post ]December 1, 2008 by 
I’ve been fortunate to kill some big gobblers over the years in states like Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Texas, and elsewhere, birds that weighed in the 22- to 23-pound range. Twenty-pounders aren’t all that uncommon if you hunt hard in a bunch of states as many of us do. Actually, they’re squirts compared to the current Top 3 Eastern (“Typical”) birds registered with the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Kyle Nook’s tops the list at a weight of 35.8125 lbs., a gobbler taken in Guthrie, Iowa back on April 28, 2001. A box call brought the bird to the gun.
Scott Cernohous is next in line. His St. Croix, Wisconsin longbeard creaked the scales at 34.5000 lbs. He got that one by the feet on April 10, 2002. The medicine? Again, a box call.
Allen Vanderpool’s 34.2500 lb. Whitley, Kentucky gobbler ranks third on the list. His date of kill? April 13, 1998. You guessed it. This longbeard was also lured in with a box.
My assessment? Use a box call and hunt in April! Kidding aside, I killed this 22-lb. Merriam's in the South Dakota Badlands this past spring. (Heaviest Merriam's ever? George Connors's 31.5600 lb. Stevens, Washington bird taken on April 29, 2006. Yes, he also used a box call, and a diaphragm too.)
What’s your heaviest gobbler ever, Strut Zoners? What call did you use to pull it into range, assuming you used one? Did you do it in April?—Steve Hickoff
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