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November 4, 2009 by
New York turkey camp was pretty much history. Handshakes, photos, and good wishes all around; many of the guys were heading off to hunt Ohio turkeys; problem is, we still had a little gas left in our tanks, Daryl and I did. And a couple New York tags to spare. A plan was hatched.
Pete had his big running male Byrne dog Clyde along. When we heard the gobbler yelping in the woods—cronk, cronk, cronk—it wasn’t long before our canine partner was on that assignment.
Barking followed, then flushing turkeys, more barking up the hill, and even beyond that. Now that the flock was separated, we’d set up at the break site to try and call them back to the guns. Mr. Clare installed Clyde in the blind. Scott Basehore did the same with his dog Jenny. Mr. Stubbs overlooked one side of the setup, and I did the other. We had it covered.
You fall gobbler hunters know a wait can be involved. They can come back gobbling and yelping after a break, even strutting. Sometimes it happens instantly; often enough not. This one took nearly two hours. Pete gobbled and Scott tagged jake yelping on the end of it. We heard one turkey fly down off near Clyde’s second round of barking; then another. We waited a bit more.
Then suddenly Basehore hissed: “Turkeys, to your left. Don’t move.” Two gobblers cruised down the incline, stalking the calls. Stubbs had the shot, a tough one. Bird down, but not out. The second poke did the job. The survivor sprinted down the far hillside.
After a fist bump or two, Daryl and Pete left while Scott and I hatched a plan. “I’m ready to wait here all day if you want,” Basehore, who had put a tag on a bird days before, offered. It was game on.
Another long sit, but I could live with it. The scene was something out of a Ned Smith painting—a gorgeous hardwood hillside in turkey heaven. My pleasure increased as Scott floated some well-timed gobbler yelps then laid on some silence. Then, from the direction the surviving gobbler ran, came yelping, coarse and steady. We both heard it. I readied myself in that direction. That was when another gobbler started yelping from above, the site of the Clyde’s third round of barking. It sounded closer. I wheeled, set up, shotgun facing that direction.
No sooner had I done that, movement up the incline, through saplings: a black body and the sight of a gobbler coming. The bird bobbed and weaved through ground cover, stalking the setup, and likely the sound of the other turkey. I picked my window of opportunity. The gobbler stepped out, looked. What a beautiful thing. I pulled the trigger. We closed the deal on the ultimate experience in the fall turkey woods.
[ Read Full Post ] November 2, 2009 by
CANDOR, NY—New York’s first modern wild turkey hunting season commenced back in the fall of 1959. Spring hunts didn’t begin until 1968. Pete Clare of Turkey Trot Acres wanted to honor that inaugural hunt 50 years later.
No blinds, decoys or as Clare says, “supersonic-hearing enhancers,” would be permitted. Vintage shotguns were highly approved of. While Realtree and Mossy Oak camouflage could be found on vests, boots, seat cushions and even guns, nostalgic retro garb was strongly encouraged.
Over the three-day hunt, 10 turkeys were taken; two hunters tagged two. Neither heavy winds, slanting rain, nor well-fed, acorn-enriched turkeys finding heavy mast edibles over widespread upstate NY hillsides and ridge tops, could keep Clare and his Team Retro from their appointed task. Credit John Byrne’s storied line of Appalachian turkey dogs—Luke, Clyde, KeeKee and Jenny, among other canines in camp—as well.
The dogs found and scattered many flocks during the recent hunt. Guides and hunters called every bird taken back to the gun. Some flocks numbered in the ‘teens, along with smaller groups of 8-10 birds. Fresh scratchings indicated that roving fall turkeys were covering the hillsides. Mid-hunt, a storm front rivaling something out of The Wizard of Oz blew through and flushed some turkeys from the woods where they could be seen in the Tioga County farm fields.
The New York autumn turkey season remains open in some areas, including those Clare hunts, until Nov. 16. For more on Turkey Trot Acres, check out: www.turkeytrotacres.com/
(Later this week, NY fall longbeards here at the Strut Zone . . .)
[ Read Full Post ] October 27, 2009 by
Trick or treat? Saturday October 31 marks the start of Pennsylvania's 2009 fall turkey season. I hunted its rolling north-central ridges and hardwood hollows as a teen, and as a road-tripping adult from my New England home base. Good memories.
So what's in store for this season? The Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) is expecting hunters to encounter a sizeable wild turkey population when they head afield on Halloween's opening day. According to sources, this autumn's abundant acorn crop may make finding flocks more difficult than last year, as widespread food souces tend to disperse turkeys. Most acorns are of the red oak group, as white oaks tend to be scarce in some areas of the state.
Mary Jo Casalena, PGC wild turkey biologist reported to the Strut Zone that: "The [overall] turkey population in the spring prior to nesting was above average, at about 345,000 birds, rebounding during the past three years from its low in 2006 of 291,000, so there remains an above-average population of turkeys in Penn's Woods. The state's wild turkey population is above the 10-year-average thanks to good reproduction the past two springs ['07 & '08] and generally conservative fall season lengths, which prevents the overharvest of hens."
She did note that fall turkey hunters will likely encounter smaller flocks of young turkeys caused by the recent cool, wet spring that decreased nesting success. This translates to a lower than average population of birds of the year.
"Overall, I anticipate turkey hunters to enjoy success rates only slightly lower than last year, when 16 percent of fall turkey hunters harvested turkeys, a great improvement from the 12 percent success rate over the previous three years. Hunter success has been as high as 21 percent (2001, a year with excellent recruitment), and as low as 4 percent (1979). The final 2008 fall take was 24,288, similar to the previous several years," said Casalena.
Season lengths vary in the state's Wildlife Management Units for fall turkey hunting: WMUs 1A, 1B and 2A (shotgun and bow and arrow only) - Oct. 31-Nov. 14; WMU 2B (shotgun and bow and arrow only) - Oct. 31-Nov. 21; WMUs 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F, 4A and 4B - Oct. 31-Nov. 14; WMUs 2G, 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D, 4C, 4D and 4E - Oct. 31-Nov. 21; WMUs 5A and 5B - closed to fall hunting; and WMUs 5C and 5D (shotgun and bow and arrow only) - Oct. 31-Nov. 4. (NOTE: On page 52 of the 2009-10 Hunting Digest, the fall turkey season dates for WMU 2F are incorrect. The correct dates are listed above: Oct. 31-Nov. 14.)
The preliminary spring 2009 PA turkey kill, calculated from hunter report cards, was about 41,400; similar to last year. Additionally, during the recent spring season, hunters took 1,880 gobblers using the second tag, or "special turkey licenses." Even though spring numbers are down from the record 49,200 in 2001, Keystone State sportsmen have consistently maintained spring numbers above 30,000 bearded turkeys since 1995, exceeding most other states in the nation.
[ Read Full Post ]October 24, 2009 by
We hunters are a results oriented bunch. "Did ya kill?" Back where I come from the expression “Get your turkey?” was (and still is) a common query from men in my native north-central Pennsylvania hometown where fall turkey hunting reigned king until the new modern tradition took over. It’s still big back there. Less so here in moose/deer/bear Maine where I make my home base.
Our Maine fall shotgun turkey season is short: just six days. It ended on Friday, October 23. Confession time: I was still carrying my tag. You’d think somebody in the family died by the way some of my buddies have reacted. “Oh man, I’m sorry to hear that buddy.” Add a moment of respectful silence here. The thing is, I’m cool with it. Really. I hunted hard five of the six days (Wednesday I caught up here at the home office), had action on all of them. My promising new work-in-progress turkey dog Luna (age 1) is so full of hard-hunting pleasure and desire you forget that part of the deal is to kill a bird. Not that we didn’t try to do that! A hunting buddy was also involved two of the days, and he went down swinging too. Ouch.
We laughed about it on the drive home. Listen. A skunking knows know personal history; no so-called "expert" status (which I doubt really exists). Both of us travel the country to turkey hunt. Marc has actually called in the Nationals several times. Yes, we’ve taken multiple Grand Slams, all that. Veterans. But this particular Maine fall turkey season we went out “still carryin’” our $20 fall permits. I could tell you about the Opening Day Maine '09 spring gobbler I killed on one of the same farms we hunted, but I digress. Still, I’d say we got our money’s worth of the intangible stuff:
I had a merlin (pigeon hawk) fly in and light on a tree limb above my wooded setup as I turkey called. It then flew down and hovered face to face, inches away, with my camouflaged form. Twice. Is that cool or what?
I had numerous pleasurable conversations with farmer(s) and landowners prior to and following hunts. On the last day we learned from one gentleman that: “a big flock of turkeys is on the other side of the road right now”—pause for effect; a smile creeping on the edge of his mouth; a twinkle in his eye—“but they won’t let you get at ‘em over there!” Low-key New England Yankee humor. I love it!
I talked to one three-note yelping gobbler that wouldn’t come. I scouted 16 birds in the rain and wet snow on the no-hunt Sunday that roosted on the other side of posters that night. The next day, two shots over there, right after fly-down time. I worked a family flock, and scolding brood hen ("Get over here you young turkey you!"), and pulled them to within 80 yards in the woods until they drifted off. On the last day, we were 45 yards from a small group of birds (4), that spooked on our approach. We found trails in the wet pasture grass where they'd been feeding, and fresh droppings nearby. With all the acorns, they hadn’t been in the fields until then. Until then. Yep, I’m eating my Maine fall turkey tag. I’m okay with that. You can save the condolences though. I'm still in the game.
“Why haven’t you been here in the morning when I wake up?” my 11-year-old daughter has asked me more than once of late, a sad tone to her voice as we often share breakfast. Some daddy time for sure is due, then I’m back at the fall turkey flocks (New York State), which—as you all of you Strut Zoners know—are EASY.
[ Read Full Post ]October 19, 2009 by
Fall turkeys are easy. Yeah, right. For the Maine shotgun opener, we stayed local. It was my dog Luna’s first in-season hunt.
Some 20 turkeys had flooded this rainy field days before the weekend start-up, shaking off like black Labs after a retrieve. Game time broke frosty though, near freezing; sunny, breezy and cold. Geese wheeled in the sky, but we were after different game. Turkeys? They’d vanished somewhere in acorn-strewn woods. At 8:30 my buddy Marc and I broke for breakfast coffee and to hatch Plan B.
Plan B: a bigger nearby farm. After a run to my house, we now had Luna along, my renegade English setter, age 1. She’d rather scatter birds than point them—good for this game. I’d found two flocks here: one with 4 turkeys; one with 9. The farmer offered his blessing, and we were off.
Turkey dogs must run big, but check back. Find turkeys then scatter them. Barking helps note the flush location. Once set up at the break site, you hide the dog, and attempt to call the birds back.
But first you have to find them. All bird dogs, especially pups, are a work in progress. As a handler, I lean toward quiet. I don’t like to give many verbal commands to avoid alerting game. This takes time; years. The silent approach is earned. With my setter Radar (7+) it’s all hand signals, stealth and the rare whistle. Like a sports parent from the sidelines, with Luna on her first hunt, I got way too chatty.
Turkey scratchings? Everywhere. Luna was gone for stretches of time, but no barking. Her tendency to yip-yap at yard squirrels and doves hinted at possibilities. “I noticed you kept looking at your watch,” my buddy Marc said. Yep. The last thing I wanted to do was lose her on her first fall turkey hunt. My verbal commands likely scared the turkeys deeper into the woods: “Luna come,” followed by whistling, way more than I usually do. Was I eager to speed the day to "finished" dog, and impress my longtime bud who’d hunted with my best turkey dog ever, my Midge, now gone? Maybe.
We hunted hard. By the end we were both carrying tags. Arriving home, my wife said: “You’ll never believe this!” One of her Facebook friends had just posted a short video of turkeys in his backyard 22 minutes before. Her FB friend, let’s call him B., didn’t hunt, but he had a fix on turkeys: out his window. “My” turkeys. He and his wife live on the other side of the woods we’d just hunted.
“Nine turkeys?” I asked, almost knowing the answer. I watch the vid with her. Sure enough, there they were on the popular social networking site. My 9 birds. My buddy Marc’s joking jab: “They were just about as far away as scared turkeys would run if a guy in the woods yelled at his dog all morning!”
Busted!
[ Read Full Post ]October 16, 2009 by
You get 25 points just for taking the time to read this post when you could be out setting trail cams for whitetails.
You know there’s a difference between a hen yelp and a gobbler yelp. Add 5 points. You regard opportunities for all the other upland birds as secondary when compared to running your canine hunting partner on fall flocks where legal. Add 10 bonus points. Five more if you own more than one dog and hunt multiple fall turkey states.
Take 1 point for each extra 1,000 road miles you put on your truck in autumn looking for turkeys, which is only rivaled by the month(s) you hunt spring gobblers.
You happily take a fall bird of the year, preferably a pink-faced jake, and declare it equal to a springtime longbeard. Add 5 points. You bow hunt but only for wild turkeys during extended archery-only opportunities. Add 5 points.
You started out cutting your teeth first on fall turkeys decades ago before the modern tradition shifted to the spring. Zero points but we've got your back.
You have never hunted fall turkeys. Subtract 10 points. Subtract 5 points if it's not legal in your state (maybe consider a road trip?). You think fall turkey hunting should be outlawed. Subtract 20 and read a little more on the subject.
You know that fighting purrs will sometimes bring male turkeys in for a look, expecting a gobbler fight. Add 5 points.You had your taxidermist mount a bearded adult hen your son or daughter tagged one frosty fall morning their first turkey season. Add 15 points.
You once passed on filling your tag on opening day fall birds in range just to savor the moment and make it last, only to eat it that last day of turkey season when time ran out; a season you consider a success for all the action you had. Add 15 points.
Take another 3 points if when you fill your last deer tag you start to look around for neighboring states where a fall (or winter) turkey season is still open. Take 5 points if you routinely argue with “beards in the spring, antlers in the fall” buddies who don’t believe male birds gobble (or sometimes strut) in autumn.
Add 10 points if you turned down a college pal’s bachelor party in Vegas because it conflicted with the opening weekend of autumn turkey season.
Scoring:
75+ points: You're a fall turkey hunting superhero.
50+ points: You're welcome to share my turkey camp anytime.
0-49 points: You're still a brother (or sister!) since you hunt, but . . .
[ Read Full Post ] October 10, 2009 by
Ohio’s fall turkey season opened Saturday, October 10, Columbus Day weekend. According to one source though, the turkey hatch is down for the state.
“Summer brood observations suggest a below average wild turkey hatch this year,” reports Mike Reynolds, state biologist. “In addition, acorn crops were highly variable across Ohio this fall. In areas with poor acorn production, hunters may have more success locating turkeys around agricultural fields rather than hardwood ridges.”
Last fall Ohio turkey hunters killed 2,139 birds. The current population stands at around 200,000 turkeys. Defiance and Williams counties are now open to fall turkey hunting for the first time in modern management history. Check out: www.ohiodnr.com
Over in West Virginia, it's much the same deal. Paul Johansen, Assistant Chief of DNR Game Management says that, “The poor and spotty mast conditions reported this fall will tend to concentrate birds, and wildlife biologists expect many flocks to be out feeding in open fields and along field borders.” As a result, turkeys will be easier to find, and more accessible. This could increase kill numbers.
Last fall, WV hunters took 1,206 birds. An increased number of brood sightings reported this summer hints at a higher harvest too, especially when poor, spotty mast conditions are factored in. The WV fall turkey season begins Oct. 24. Specific season dates can be found at: www.wvdnr.gov/
New Hampshire's five-day fall shotgun turkey hunting season runs Monday, Oct. 12 through Friday, October 16 in eight select Wildlife Management Units in the Connecticut River Valley and southwest portions of the state. The lengthy NH fall archery turkey season is offered from September 15 - December 15 statewide (except WMU A in northern NH). Check out: www.wildnh.com/
Here in northern New England (Maine, NH & Vermont), and over in New York state, turkeys I (and other sources) have been watching are now transitioning from bugging late summer fields to the early fall woods where mast production is good throughout much of the region. Fresh scratchings in early October indicate flocks are hitting this autumn buffet pretty hard.
As the result of widespread food availability in parts of the Northeast, finding birds might prove challenging. Weather events can tip your hand. Flocks tend to move to fields during windy and showery weather events, and can sometimes be located this way.
[ Read Full Post ]October 5, 2009 by
Rain. Wind. Gloom of day. Still carrying my two NY turkey tags. It's open until Nov. 20 in the area where we hunt 'em and we'll be back there soon. Other states will follow in a bit. Stay tuned. On downtime, I caught up with nationally competitive turkey caller, call designer, and hardcore Ohio hunter Josh Grossenbacher of Zink Calls to check his pulse on hunting fall longbeards and the best mouth call for kee-keeing.
SH: You've roosted a fall longbeard flock, and know their preferred food source. How does Josh Grossenbacher hunt 'em? Set up near the roost? Set up on the travel path? Set up on the food source?
JG: In a situation like this, the first thing I would put into perspective would be how much time I have to work on this flock of longbeards. If I only have a few hours to hunt before work, my approach would be get as close as possible in the pre-dawn darkness to these roosted gobblers while staying far enough away without being detected. Knowing where they are feeding I would setup an ambush between roost and feeding sights, trying to make it a quick successful hunt catching them right after they hit the ground on their way to feed making it a quick hunt. The disadvantage to this approach is the possibility of bumping these longbeards and ruining their
predictable pattern for possible future hunts. With time to hunt this flock all day I would pack a lunch and snacks and find a nice cozy spot where I can sit with good cover and wait. If these longbeards are as predictable as they have been I will have no problem waiting all day for them. I will call very little, maybe 3-4 times per hour, with just clucks and gobbler yelps. The disadvantage to this type of setup is time. Most turkey hunters lack patience (myself included); long sits are hard to handle. I really like to cover ground and hunt aggressive, but in a situation like this the long wait will usually pay off if the birds have not been disturbed and are still on the same pattern.
SH: What reeds do you prefer in a diaphragm for kee-keeing? Single? Double? Others? Why?
JG: In a kee-kee call I prefer a double reed with the top reed being heavier latex and the bottom reed being lighter. With the lighter reed on bottom it makes it easier to control your whistles while the heavier reed on top makes it easy to get deep raspy yelps. Zink Calls does have a kee-kee style call coming out this year. It is a double reeded ghost-cut style call named the Lost Lady. These calls can be ordered at our shop by calling 1-(877)-LEG-BAND or check us out at: www.zinkcalls.com/
[ Read Full Post ] September 28, 2009 by
Let the games begin. Gathering gear for a fall turkey hunt (and road trip) isn’t all that different than in spring, unless you hunt with a dog as I and many others do. I spent September chasing early Maine geese and scouting turkey flocks, often at the same time. My home base shotgun season for turkeys doesn’t arrive until Oct. 17 though, so I’m off to New York in early October. The season starts Thursday, Oct. 1 in the upstate area I'm hunting; I'll miss the opener but get in there not long after. Stay tuned here for a full report.
In the meantime, I’m packing for the trip. Here’s what I’ll need:
CALLS: A custom paddle box, waterproof box, single- and double-reed diaphragms (for kee-keeing), several slates (for hen and gobbler yelps), and a gobbler call.
GEAR: Turkey loads (3-in. #5s & 6s), two shotguns (this is a road trip fellas), several pairs of boots, many apparel changes including raingear. Other stuff: penlight, seat cushion, choke tubes, etc. License holding two fall turkey tags. Wallet-held hunting licenses for the three states I pass through. A copy of the NY State hunting regs. Knife. Facemask, gloves, extra hat, bug dope, and a soon to be disclosed lucky charm my 11-year-old daughter will give me before departure.
DOG STUFF: One of my roomy turkey vests for extra gear, including leads, collars, a portable blind, a zippered camouflaged bag to conceal my canine partner, head exposed (Virginian John Byrne’s and his wife Miss Sue's invention; adapted by turkey doggers and their better halfs around the country), first-aid kit (these dogs are athletes), an extra water bottle and collapsible dog dish. Dog bed for downtime. Dog crate when afield. Of course the dog herself (our moon-white renegade English setter Luna, just 1 and some change, full of hunting desire and a love of feathery game). Memories of my late great canine hunting partners Midge March Madness and her half-sister Jenny (both buried in the last several years; Jen on August 31 at 13+ years old) will inform the hunt too. Midge's first fall turkeys came to the post-flush calls all those years ago with her at the same age as Luna(tic). Our other setter Radar, 7, will be part of the fall fun too. It's a continuum . . .
MISC.: Batteries for my HD mini-camcorder, my alarm clock and my digital camera. A borrowed cell phone (wife's loaner), which won’t necessarily grab a signal where we’ll be hunting. DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteers for Maine, NH, VT and NY (always present in my truck and filled with annotated scrawling from turkey sightings written in cryptic code). Pens, a notebook, maybe a laptop (see "borrowed cell phone" for rural hunt challenges). Road trip CDs ranging from Willie Nelson to The Clash to Springsteen. (Eclectic? Heck yeah.) Cooler for soft drinks, snacks, various food items. You eat and drink the contents then ideally put your fall bird(s) in there at trip's end.
What vest essentials do you guys insist on when you hit the turkey woods?
[ Read Full Post ] September 21, 2009 by
The NHL’s New York Islanders play here. Billy Joel sings about it. And now Long Island, New York is also having its first modern turkey season.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) has announced dates for the first Long Island wild turkey hunting season, crediting over a decade of wild turkey reintroduction efforts. Just five days long, but hey it’s a start. The season is limited to the five-day fall hunting season in November (see dates below), providing the opportunity to put one on the Thanksgiving table (Nov. 26).
“The region is extremely excited to give Long Island hunters a local turkey hunting opportunity,” Peter A. Scully, Regional Director recently said. “Not only does this new season give more opportunities to local hunters, but it can also serve as a poignant example of how locally extirpated populations can be successfully reintroduced given enough effort and attention.” He goes on to say that: “This season exists due to the diligent work of our regional wildlife staff as well as the cooperative efforts of local hunters and volunteers who took the time to fill out and submit surveys of turkey sightings that allow our staff to assess population health and growth.” Here’s the skinny on the new turkey season:
1. Limited 5-day fall hunting season beginning on the third Saturday in November (11/21/09 - 11/25/09).
2. Season limit of one bird of either sex.
3. The use of either archery equipment or shotgun.
4. Shooting hours: sunrise to sunset.
5. All participants must carry a valid turkey permit and tag.
6. Other general hunting regulations are the same as for other small-game hunting on Long Island, and for fall turkey hunting elsewhere in New York State.
Visit the NYSDEC website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/32162.html for further details.
(No word as to whether Billy Joel will participate in the Long Island turkey hunt.)
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