The forecast wasn't good for hunting turkeys today and the turkeys themselves helped to fulfill it. Nothing gobbled early so I headed down a hardwood ridge to do a little blind calling, thereby keeping my eleven year string intact for scaring a gobbler off the roost on opening day. The woods are still so open, this bird saw me from two hundred and fifty yards away and decided it was a good time to visit his friends in the north part of the county.
I finally heard one gobble, but couldn't get an exact fix on him so I just went toward his general vicinity and sat and called. I took the diaphragm caller out of my mouth at one point and laid it on a magnolia leaf by my side while I called with a slate. When I picked it up to put it back in my mouth, a garden slug/shelless snail/slimy, nasty, gooey, creepy-crawly had take up residence on the latex, undoubtedly enjoying the tiny remnants of my morning repast. I'm just glad there wasn't a turkey gobbling out in front of me because the caller would have tasted real nasty. As it was, I took it back to camp and soaked it in Listerine for a half an hour---if I'd had a pint of Everclear I'd have used that.
The peacock call didn't work for me, at least not on turkeys. It seriously p!ssed off a crow---I could hear him coming from a half a mile away, cussing in crowish. He lit right over me and kept up the racket until I waved my hat at him and he flew off, still cussing. The second time I tried it, a squirrel got so disturbed that he will be in emotional turmoil for days. He barked at me until he got hoarse. The reaction I got from these two critters makes me wonder what's been going on while I'm gone.
When the rain started to sprinkle, I gave up and headed for camp in the golf cart. About halfway back, a gobbler stepped out of the woods up ahead of me and I swear he was big enough to stand flat-footed and peck Wilson on the nose. He went back into the pines and I made a mental note to load with a bigger shot size Monday, if it's through raining by then.
