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July 29, 2009 by
Like you Strut Zoners, I'm getting my fall turkey permits, multiple-state licenses and other details all lined up. Once bow turkey, resident honker and other opportunities begin in September, it's fast and furious on this end until the winter show season. Four plus months of sweet madness.
It all started today in the northern New England summer heat; at least in my mind. I dropped $15 for a Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, a long-tailed duck drake bobbing on the open ocean next to a bobbing deke.
"That's the second one we've sold today," the postal clerk exclaimed, laboring to the back room to fetch one. "You hunt?" she asked on her return, oblivious to my camo cap.
"He hunts," my 11-year-old daughter answered in the affirmative. "Turkeys. Geese. Ducks. My daddy's crazy about it."
"I'm not big on hunters," the clerk continued. Ok, here it comes, I thought.
She launched into an anti-hunting monologue about us, and, according to her limited experience, the bad example we set. Then she quizzed me, thinking she had the upper hand: "Know what kind of duck this is?"
I did. Told her they were formerly called "oldsquaws" and that they still are by some veteran New England waterfowlers I know. Educated her to the fact only the males have long tails; that the hen's posterior end is a stubby little fan. The two mounted on the wall above our log home's woodstove (a drake and hen) are great examples, taken offshore on the Atlantic Ocean years ago.
"Guess your daddy knows a lot," she offered. "What a learning experience."
I didn't stop there though, on the offensive now. I told her about holiday dinners with ducks and geese and dipping sauces. Wild turkey on Thanksgiving Day. About wildlife management. About what the duck stamp money did and what it symbolized. About my love for the tradition. You might have done the same thing.
"Thanks for the learning experience," she offered: half grinning; half-sarcastic.
"Have a good day," I smiled.
"No really, thanks. That's interesting. I never knew that," the postal clerk ended.
"Bye," my daughter, ever the good-will ambassador, said, waving. I shot that clerk another smile and closed the deal.
Waterfowl season started today as I affixed that purchase to my license and signed the face. The real deal will arrive with the resident honker season in September, and I'm ready. I'd like to think a momentary cease-fire was struck with at least one anti-hunter: the woman who sold me my 2009 Federal duck stamp.
How ironic is that?
[ Read Full Post ]July 27, 2009 by
You don’t need to see that visual red swath of heat on Weather Channel maps to tell you it’s hot in some regions of turkey country right now. These birds are challenged by many things in summer: brood hens raising poults, and in the case of both sexes, finding drinking water.
According to Texas Parks & Wildlife (TP&W): “Turkeys, like all other terrestrial animals, require water for survival. Wild turkeys are able to get water from green plant material, fruits, insects, dew and free water from puddles, ponds, creeks and rivers. In the Post Oak Savannah and Blackland Prairie, water is generally not considered a limiting factor in habitat, except during extreme periods of drought.”
Like now. The TP&W also states that: “Wild turkeys prefer to roost in large, mature hardwood or coniferous trees with large horizontal limbs. Therefore, care should be taken to protect these trees from land clearing operations, especially along creeks, drainage areas, and wetlands.” Something to keep in mind as we work away at that to-do list on our properties between the spring and fall turkey seasons.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) agrees, stating: “Wild turkeys require water, and ordinarily aren't found where it is lacking.” Put simply: no water; no wild turkeys.
They even go so far as to suggest how we turkey hunters can help.
Construction of one small pond per square mile, or preferably one per quarter section (where there is no permanent water) will improve turkey habitat, says the MDC.
It’s all about balance. Habitat management for turkeys, as for any wildlife [such as deer], lies in developing the proper combinations of food, cover, and water which produce maximum numbers compatible with other land uses. In habitable range, the MDC stresses, food must be in proper association with cover and water. Seasonal abundance or scarcities of acceptable and preferred foods bring about changes in both habits and habitats of wild turkeys.
Want turkeys? Get yourself some water, and/or work hard to keep it.
[ Read Full Post ]July 16, 2009 by
Fellow turkey hunting fanatic and friend Jim Spencer confirmed the rumor: Ray Eye, one of the most well-known and beloved personalities in the turkey-hunting industry, continues to fight a valiant battle with some serious health issues—the result of a run-in with his lawn tractor late last month.
According to Jim, Ray spent some time in the hospital and had an operation to remove a big blood clot in the Achilles tendon area of his right foot.
"They thought for a while he was going to lose the foot," Spencer says. He's in for another 4 to 6 weeks of pretty rough going, according to the doc, and I'm guessing several months of skin grafts and physical therapy after that."
Spencer is behind the effort to help our buddy out with what is sure to be a financial setback:
"The idea is for everybody who can to contribute a few dollars toward a fund that we'll send to Ray. It doesn't have to be much, just a few bucks or a ten or a twenty, whatever. If we all sent just ten dollars, it would mount up to a pretty good sum, and the Eyes have more to worry about right now than paying the light bill. We can't help him get well, but we can show him and Jan whose side we're on."
Jim contacted me today and said that Bobby Whitehead, Ray's good friend, has agreed to serve as the bank for this effort and get the collected money to the Eyes. If you can spare a few dollars, send cash, money order or check (payable to Ray Eye) to Bobby, addressed as follows: Bobby Whitehead, Outdoor Guide Magazine, 505 S. Ewing Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63103. It would probably be a good idea to put "Attn. Ray Eye" or some such on the envelope as well, Spencer suggests.
If you Strut Zoners can contribute to this effort, please do it now. Many of us who have had the pleasure of hunting with Ray over the years certainly will. Bobby will get all the contributions to the Eyes. If you know of other people who have been touched by Ray Eye's turkey hunting wisdom and humor over the years, and who you think might contribute, please forward this SZ post to them and spread the word. Thanks guys.
[ Read Full Post ] July 9, 2009 by
Should enhanced predator controls be applied by state wildlife departments? What about those old-school bounties? According to the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (VFWD), additional predator “control” strategies (such as a bounty system or management method other than hunting and trapping) wouldn’t benefit wild turkeys.
In their current Big Game Management Plan 2010-2020 draft, the VFWD suggests that: “Predator/prey relationships are extremely dynamic and complex. These relationships involve a variety of factors which defy a simple, quick fix. Wild turkeys are prey to a long list of predators including coyotes, bobcats, foxes, fisher, weasels, skunks, opossum, raccoons, snakes, hawks, owls, domestic dogs, and humans. In the case of implementing ‘coyote control,’ for example, assuming that this could be effective, removal of coyotes would only reduce competition among the remaining host of predators that would continue to prey on turkeys.”
In other words, coyotes help control the list of other turkey predators.
“Coyotes, in fact, prey upon weasels, opossums, raccoons, foxes and rarely skunks,” the VFWD suggests. “All of these species are effective predators of nests, chicks, and nesting turkey hens. For this reason, it is possible that removal of coyotes [via additional controls] could allow the populations of these other predators to increase resulting in more, not less, turkey predation and an overall decrease in a turkey population. Complex species relationships are common in nature.”
Predator hunting is encouraged however. There’s no closed season on Vermont coyotes, and a fall trapping season as well.
[ Read Full Post ]July 2, 2009 by
So why do some hens get shot in spring?
Here’s where it gets tricky. It’s legal in many states. At least if they’re bearded. Sure enough, some hens have beards, often thin, with a kink in the middle, though they can go eight inches or so. Consider recent kill statistics for two states this past spring season: one in America’s turkey-hunting heartland and another on the northern edge of turkey habitat.
Missouri, long a destination to tag a big longbeard, posted 41,829 turkeys this past spring. 32,028 were adult gobblers, and 9,208 were jakes. That’s all good. What caught my attention were how many bearded hens were registered: 593 female turkeys. Think Missouri is alone? New Hampshire registered 4,056 turkeys: 2,609 adult gobblers, 1,435 jakes and yes, a dozen bearded hens.
Bearded hens, all hens in fact, chance at raising a brood of poults in the spring—but not if you shoot that turkey.
What do you Strut Zoners think? Should shooting bearded (possibly breeding or nesting) hens be legal in the spring? Why? Why not? Have you ever shot a bearded spring hen? You autumn turkey hunters who take legal either-sex birds in the fall, do you think it's okay in the spring? Should a bearded spring hen be regarded as a trophy?
[ Read Full Post ]
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