In training...3/12/16

Two more days until turkey season. I'm not as excited about it as I have been in the past due to the decline in the turkey population, but I have made myself stay in training for the event---sleeping on coils of barbed wire to get ready for the briar thickets, pouring fiberglass insulation inside my clothes to inure myself to the itching of poison ivy and tick bites, and carrying a tractor tire around with me to condition myself for the terrain, which is all uphill.

The EMTs have become accustomed to calls from my neighbors from when my dear wife runs screaming out of the door to get away from my practice calling and there are owls lined up on my rooftop, attracted there my owl calls to elicit shock gobbles. I have checked and re-checked all five of my turkey shells, even though I doubt I'll use more than one or two---somebody may need to borrow one.

To h#ll with the sheepshead and Spanish mackerel for the next week. I'm going to go get briar-scratched, bug-bit, exhausted, sleep deprived and totally humiliated for the next few days. See y'all later.

Good luck Haywire. Chasing an old love crazy gobbler is probably the most fun you can have without a fishing rod in your hand. Be safe.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pmri2drfwV...hot+turkey.jpg

Stay safe Mr. Wire ;-)

Goodluck haywire, was gearing up for it myself, then got the call that the man we leased our hunting club land from had sold the entire property, so now im hunting for new land instead of gobblers

I went and listened this morning. Heard nothing and found very little sign. Our season don't open until the 2nd so maybe things will change. Good luck to you and post pics.

George, don't let them birds get the best of ya... G'luck.

Evidently, turkey season is open up here now, (not really, not until the 19th), as I was trout fishing and listening to the turkeys a short distance behind me and "bang!!!". Someone must have opened the season a little early. I wonder if it was a hen or a tom, I was listening to hens, & I didn't hear any toms. I guess it really doesn't make any difference an illegal bird is illegal.

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Originally Posted by flyguy

Evidently, turkey season is open up here now, (not really, not until the 19th), as I was trout fishing and listening to the turkeys a short distance behind me and "bang!!!". Someone must have opened the season a little early. I wonder if it was a hen or a tom, I was listening to hens, & I didn't hear any toms. I guess it really doesn't make any difference an illegal bird is illegal.

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Did you call the warden?

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Originally Posted by CarlF

Did you call the warden?

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No! I fish on the guy's land that probably shot it. He is my neighbor and that is not the neighborly thing to do. I could not do that to a neighbor and I know very well that I should. BUT!!!

Momma always said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Screw that, "Poachers are scum!" I'd would've called the warden and/or said something to the property owner.
"Hey man, I heard somebody shooting turkeys OoS on the property, don't know who it was but I called the warden, I hope you or them catch them."
If it is the owner, he isn't worthy of neighborly considerations.

There is a huge difference between bending a rule and straight up poaching.
E.g. use a treble hook in the wrong manner or a ribbon rig in Florida, toss a little corn on a plot in AL or some such in anywhere USA is different from straight up poaching Out of Season'.

Just my $0.02

Good luck Haywire! Turkey hunting is one of the most pleasurable tortures we have. At least it usually takes place in fairly warm weather where you chase them. It's both amazing and humbling that a bird with a brain roughly the size of a walnut can be so good at not getting it's self killed. I guess that's what makes it so great.

Go get 'em...

Of all the things a gobbler can do to confuse, confound and humiliate me, at least he does it in the daytime---doesn't go nocturnal like a big buck. I know he's out there somewhere, so all I have to do is try and coordinate our position in the space/time continuum---i.e. be in the same place at the same time so I will have the opportunity to shoot in the wrong place.

It doesn't look like it's going to take me long to finish turkey hunting. I've been over several miles of logging roads today and haven't seen the first turkey track since the rain. Shi----I mean, sherbet.

Patience, Grasshoppah. Timber rooster very sneaky creature. He fly across muddy road to fluster hunter, cunfuse his ying and yang, make hunter go home.

And during deer season they'd cover a plot eating corn till their crops bulged and you'd have to practically run them off the trails going to/from plots.

A few years back, I had a hen turkey, that I called "Sterile Peril" who lived in my back yard for 3 years. She never had a brood, never joined another group of hens, ate what spilled out of my bird feeder, drank from our pond and the water garden. scolded me, or the dog, if we got to close. It was cool to have her hanging around the yard all the time. One day she was gone, she wasn't around, I never found any remains, maybe she found some friends who told her to "stay away from that guy". Whatever!!!!

"Patience, my ass, I want to kill something." Said one buzzard to the other.
There may be a few turkeys around, but if they are elusive enough to avoid an expert, experienced and accomplished turkey hunter such as myself, I'll let them have the woods all to themselves. I don't want to get to the point where I'm like the man who kept hitting himself over the head with a hammer because it felt so good when he quit.

I'll come back to the pier where I know there are some fish swimming around, whether they bite or not. Heck, I can always eat my bait, which I have already done once this year. Even Fish'ntime said he was busy at the cleaning station yesterday (he didn't say if he was cleaning fish, or if he was, whether he caught them himself).

Hunting turkeys can be an exercise in futility when there are plenty of them around, so I ain't gonna do it when the odds are practically zero.

I hope my turkey that use to visit have made a return,like the deer did this past season.......since the neighbors dogs are gone,that ran everything off the past few years......looking for something to eat (starving)
Seasons still a month away