Now it was time to head home for a little bit, and this year I felt like stepping back in time by going to an area where I had experienced many great hunts in my early years of turkey chasin'. It had probably been close to 20 years since I'd last hunted that section of the Hoosier National Forest, but low and behold, there were still turkeys gobbling in all the old familiar haunts! I spent 3 wonderful days camped out in my beloved home turf, and I had my pick of turkeys to pursue each morning. On both evenings in camp I would hear this one particular tom gobbling (along with a couple in other directions), but it wasn't until the 3rd morning when I decided to cross the steep ravine between us and set up near the property line fence. The tom was actually roosted a little ways onto private land, but the ridgeline on my side of the fence was scratched up like crazy and I had every confidence that he'd come towards me after flydown. He did, too.
In all the years I've hunted, and all the turkeys I've shot or guided for other people, there has only been one tom that had more than 2 beards...a triple beard that I shot in NY many years ago. Then, I shot a four-bearded tom in VA a couple weeks prior to this hunt, and when I rolled this joker over, I found that he was sporting FIVE sets of whiskers!!! Here he is, along with a cool creek below his final resting spot:
Calling my longtime buddy Tracy to tell him the news, I told him he should come down for the morning hunt. This was a favorite spot for us both in those early years, so it didn't take much convincing, and the next day we had 3 more turkeys hammering it. The one we set up on hung up at 75 yards and gobbled non-stop for an hour before he finally came sneaking in, and then Tracy took FOREVER to kill him. There was a stick in-line with the tom's head, so he held fire until the bird took a step to the right and died at 21 yards. Here's Tracy and his tom, along with a interesting old barn we found nearby with a walnut tree snaking up through it:
Next stop was PA, where our FL friend Bill George has a family "cabin" that is a beautiful old farmhouse with about a bazillion bedrooms. It's really a neat old place, and there are turkeys out the wingwang on all the surrounding public land. Tracy followed me there from home, and Doug Pickle came in from VA, while Bill's daughter Belinda accompanied her Dad. Since Tracy could only hunt about 3 days maximum, he just bought 1 tag. The rest of us had 2 apiece, and we wasted no time in filling them. In fact, we went 9 for 9, and while Tracy only had that one tag, he made out like a bandit by filling it with a tom sporting double leg bands!!! Here are mine, Tracy's, and one of Belinda's, which must've gobbled 200 times:
Next stop for me was MA, and it proved to be a bit of a struggle. These Northeastern states allow you to hunt on any ground which isn't posted, but I had a hard time adapting to that. You see, I'm a public-land-loving hunter, and nearly all of my turkey hunting is done on National or State Forests, WMA's, or some other easily recognized public property. It feels strange to be allowed the option of just stopping anywhere I feel like hunting, and I spend too much time looking over my shoulder and worrying about making somebody mad or stepping over a boundary. And so, I kept seeking out public ground to hunt. I finally succeeded in finding a couple birds willing to gobble and die on public lands, but it took me 8 days to do so. Here they are, and I'm darned-proud of them....both for the excellent hunts they provided, and for sticking to my guns long enough to find them!
Here's some pretty MA views, also:
Now for the highlight of my year! I have a spot that I hunt in NH that is very special to me. The landowners are some of the nicest people I've ever met, and they treat me better than a relative. All the surrounding land is either owned by neighbors that know me, or is non-posted and huntable anyway, so I feel as comfortable as if it were National Forest. On the 2nd morning there I heard a tom far off, but he was the only game in town, so away I went. Soon, I was set up about 120 yards away from a tom that was gobbling like crazy and on the same shelf as I was, with the rest of the mountain sloping up on my right as I faced the turkey. The first time I touched a call he gobbled hard, so I waited about 1.5 minutes and just as I touched the peg to glass again and made the very first note of my next yelp, I caught fast movement out of the corner of my right eye....something was coming at me FAST, and I instantly knew that I was under attack! A sound involuntarily escaped my throat unlike anything I would have ever thought possible as this furry missile propelled itself towards me, and then I realized it was a bobcat, in mid-air, just about to pounce on me!!! When I screamed like a girl (not really, but it felt like it), he turned himself inside-out in trying to reverse course, and hit against my right leg. Pushing off against my calf with one paw, he ran back up the mountain a dozen yards and stopped to stare back at me with a look that totally said, "what the heck was THAT?" Then, he slunk off. I think he was embarrassed.
And me? I was a little shook up by it all, but the only damage was a small scratch on my calf. The turkey continued to gobble like there was no tomorrow so I sat still and continued to work him....all the while keeping a sharp lookout over my shoulder and behind every surrounding bush. For the next three hours I stayed right there working that tom, until he and his hen finally moved off a little bit and I was able to move up to just short of where they had been hanging out all morning. When I uttered one yelp from my new location, they quickly came back towards me and I killed the tom at 21 yards.
Wow....what a hunt! I was lucky to only suffer a tiny scratch from the bobcat attack; the tom fared far worse!
After that escapade I hunted VT in numerous spots. Again, I was wanting to find public land toms, but the weather and steep terrain seemed to team up and keep me from hearing even a single gobble for 6 days in a row. Finally, I decided to go look at an area of unposted private land that a wildlife officer had recommended, and as I was driving by a big milking barn a fella was walking out the door so I stopped to see if it was ok to hunt his farm. "Sure thing," he said. "No problem." But, he told me that he hadn't been seeing much turkey activity around the main farm all spring. However, they had another piece down along the river, where there had been a couple toms hanging around regularly, and I was welcome to go check it out. Thanking him profusely, I headed on down there and when I pulled in to the silage pits, there was a hen right where he told me to park. Good sign. The toms had been hanging out in an isolated little 30-acre field already planted to corn, so I started down the farm road at 8:40. At 8:50 I came into view of the field, and behold, there were 2 strutters showing off for a hen in the field. At 8:55 I was already set up at a corner of the field when they gobbled on their own, and they both answered my first call soon thereafter. The hen also yelped at me, and soon all 3 turkeys were coming my way with one tom gobbling good. Because of some greenbriar in front of my hastily-made set-up, I lost sight of them all at about 40 yards, and the next time I saw turkey flesh I was looking UP at a gobbler! I quickly shot him at 7 yards, before he got too close!
The other tom flew out and never came back for the final 3 days of the season, but I have a feeling I will see him again, next year.....
The end of May usually sees me heading for home, but this year Maine's season ran until June 6th. When I crossed the border I called my good friend Les to see if he thought I might be able to get something going in the final 6 days. I mean, except for the bobcat day and the late morning flash hunt at the dairy farm, I hadn't heard but a handful of gobbles in the last 2 weeks. What's more, it had now been raining for 2 days and nights straight, and predictions were for at least another day of solid rain before any chance of clearing weather. If he'd told me to, I was prepared to just come out and eat some fried clams, then turn my rig west and go home. But, as we were talking on the phone and he was telling me that I was welcome to come hunt a tom he'd been seeing at his bird feeder regularly, Les suddenly blurted out, "THERE HE IS." That's all I needed to hear, so when my clothes were dry at the Laundromat I headed for his place.
It was 5:30 before I got over there, and as I walked in the house we could still see 5 jakes in his back yard. We soon went for a walk to look over his property, and he showed me where toms were regularly seen and heard, and introduced me to Patrick, his wild ruffed grouse that acts like he's a pet. In fact, as soon as we entered the woods here came Patrick, and he followed us around the whole time we were out there, just like a dog!
It rained all that night and all the next day, but I had put out my DB blind the night before so I was able to stay fairly dry, although by 10:30 I was getting damp and cold. Patrick had showed up immediately after daylight and spent the entire morning within 2 feet of my blind, and he murmured grouse talk whenever I hen yelped. It was at that point when I decided to go up to the house and heat a can of soup to warm me up, then get back to my blind asap because Les said turkeys regularly gobble in this area from 11am onward. The rain was beginning to slacken up, so maybe I might yet get something going?
At about 1:30 Les called to give me some good news...the gobbler was back under his bird feeder with some jakes! I increased my calling at that point, and twenty minutes later I saw turkeys headed my way. They answered my calls with yawks and squawks and came to me on the run, but it was only 5 jakes and a hen....no tom....so I texted Les and he answered back that the tom was still under the birdfeeder and to "be patient, Grasshopper." I then cranked up the calling even louder, and finally I heard a gobble! Les texted me immediately, "Last Supper. Headed your way. Bang." A couple minutes later the tom gobbled halfway to me, and a minute after that I saw his red head through a cedar tree. Soon thereafter, Les' last text proved prophetic, while Patrick sat there the whole time and never even flushed at the shot!
I then traveled an hour west and joined up with another good friend, Henrik. We had big fun for the last few days of the season. He wanted to kill a turkey with his bow though, so I knew it was going to be a challenge. The second morning we hunted till 10am before Henrik had to do some chores, but as we were driving back to his cabin we saw 2 toms with a hen on ground I could hunt. Once we got back to the cabin I grabbed my stuff and went back there, and within a half-hour of walking out the cabin door I had 2 toms and a very black hen standing 13 paces from my gun barrel. This one finished up my Maine limit:
The next day (second to last day of the season), we hunted a spot where I'd been seeing a tom and numerous jakes, and there was so much turkey sign in the field that you'd have thought there were at least a dozen others nearby! But it was cold that morning, so Henrik the world famous Maine fishing guide spent the first couple of hours in his zero-gravity chair, bundled up in his blue binky. :lol: Here's the proof:
Then, 7 jakes came over the hilltop across from us and started down the green sloping field like the Scottish warriors in "Braveheart," and I knew we were about to see some action up close! They came right up to my Strutter and the hooligans ganged up on him as teenage boys will do, and Henrik ended up shooting 2 of them at 13 yards. But, archery turkey hunting being what it is, we never found either one. We followed blood and feathers, then searched and searched, and even brought in a dog, but I'm afraid this story ends in disappointment. I really don't know where those arrows hit, since that bow was scorching-fast, but I know Henrik will be ready next year with broadheads of the Gobbler Guillotine persuasion...no more cripples; they're either dead or missed!
Our view out the blind that morning:
With the season ending the next day (we tried hard to get Henrik's lovely girlfriend Marivi her first turkey, but the wind was horrific and we couldn't convince any toms to come play with us), there was only one thing left to do; pick up some lobsters for the ride home! I bought 20 of them at $4.70 per pound, and we had a Lobsterfest the night I got home, the likes of which I've never seen! It truly was incredible, and when I reflect on it, so was the entire season! It will be one I shall not soon forget, and I can only strive to duplicate.....well, maybe everything except the surgery, the bobcat, and the lost jakes. Other than those instances, it was a CensoredCensoredCensoredCensoredCensoredCensoredCensored run and a fantastic spring. I can hardly wait to see what 2016 has to offer!
Final picture is of my good friend Tom, who is the best-danged chef I know! We eat some incredible meals and wild game feasts at his house, and that's where we had the 2015 Lobsterfest:
In all the years I've hunted, and all the turkeys I've shot or guided for other people, there has only been one tom that had more than 2 beards...a triple beard that I shot in NY many years ago. Then, I shot a four-bearded tom in VA a couple weeks prior to this hunt, and when I rolled this joker over, I found that he was sporting FIVE sets of whiskers!!! Here he is, along with a cool creek below his final resting spot:
Calling my longtime buddy Tracy to tell him the news, I told him he should come down for the morning hunt. This was a favorite spot for us both in those early years, so it didn't take much convincing, and the next day we had 3 more turkeys hammering it. The one we set up on hung up at 75 yards and gobbled non-stop for an hour before he finally came sneaking in, and then Tracy took FOREVER to kill him. There was a stick in-line with the tom's head, so he held fire until the bird took a step to the right and died at 21 yards. Here's Tracy and his tom, along with a interesting old barn we found nearby with a walnut tree snaking up through it:
Next stop was PA, where our FL friend Bill George has a family "cabin" that is a beautiful old farmhouse with about a bazillion bedrooms. It's really a neat old place, and there are turkeys out the wingwang on all the surrounding public land. Tracy followed me there from home, and Doug Pickle came in from VA, while Bill's daughter Belinda accompanied her Dad. Since Tracy could only hunt about 3 days maximum, he just bought 1 tag. The rest of us had 2 apiece, and we wasted no time in filling them. In fact, we went 9 for 9, and while Tracy only had that one tag, he made out like a bandit by filling it with a tom sporting double leg bands!!! Here are mine, Tracy's, and one of Belinda's, which must've gobbled 200 times:
Next stop for me was MA, and it proved to be a bit of a struggle. These Northeastern states allow you to hunt on any ground which isn't posted, but I had a hard time adapting to that. You see, I'm a public-land-loving hunter, and nearly all of my turkey hunting is done on National or State Forests, WMA's, or some other easily recognized public property. It feels strange to be allowed the option of just stopping anywhere I feel like hunting, and I spend too much time looking over my shoulder and worrying about making somebody mad or stepping over a boundary. And so, I kept seeking out public ground to hunt. I finally succeeded in finding a couple birds willing to gobble and die on public lands, but it took me 8 days to do so. Here they are, and I'm darned-proud of them....both for the excellent hunts they provided, and for sticking to my guns long enough to find them!
Here's some pretty MA views, also:
Now for the highlight of my year! I have a spot that I hunt in NH that is very special to me. The landowners are some of the nicest people I've ever met, and they treat me better than a relative. All the surrounding land is either owned by neighbors that know me, or is non-posted and huntable anyway, so I feel as comfortable as if it were National Forest. On the 2nd morning there I heard a tom far off, but he was the only game in town, so away I went. Soon, I was set up about 120 yards away from a tom that was gobbling like crazy and on the same shelf as I was, with the rest of the mountain sloping up on my right as I faced the turkey. The first time I touched a call he gobbled hard, so I waited about 1.5 minutes and just as I touched the peg to glass again and made the very first note of my next yelp, I caught fast movement out of the corner of my right eye....something was coming at me FAST, and I instantly knew that I was under attack! A sound involuntarily escaped my throat unlike anything I would have ever thought possible as this furry missile propelled itself towards me, and then I realized it was a bobcat, in mid-air, just about to pounce on me!!! When I screamed like a girl (not really, but it felt like it), he turned himself inside-out in trying to reverse course, and hit against my right leg. Pushing off against my calf with one paw, he ran back up the mountain a dozen yards and stopped to stare back at me with a look that totally said, "what the heck was THAT?" Then, he slunk off. I think he was embarrassed.
And me? I was a little shook up by it all, but the only damage was a small scratch on my calf. The turkey continued to gobble like there was no tomorrow so I sat still and continued to work him....all the while keeping a sharp lookout over my shoulder and behind every surrounding bush. For the next three hours I stayed right there working that tom, until he and his hen finally moved off a little bit and I was able to move up to just short of where they had been hanging out all morning. When I uttered one yelp from my new location, they quickly came back towards me and I killed the tom at 21 yards.
Wow....what a hunt! I was lucky to only suffer a tiny scratch from the bobcat attack; the tom fared far worse!
After that escapade I hunted VT in numerous spots. Again, I was wanting to find public land toms, but the weather and steep terrain seemed to team up and keep me from hearing even a single gobble for 6 days in a row. Finally, I decided to go look at an area of unposted private land that a wildlife officer had recommended, and as I was driving by a big milking barn a fella was walking out the door so I stopped to see if it was ok to hunt his farm. "Sure thing," he said. "No problem." But, he told me that he hadn't been seeing much turkey activity around the main farm all spring. However, they had another piece down along the river, where there had been a couple toms hanging around regularly, and I was welcome to go check it out. Thanking him profusely, I headed on down there and when I pulled in to the silage pits, there was a hen right where he told me to park. Good sign. The toms had been hanging out in an isolated little 30-acre field already planted to corn, so I started down the farm road at 8:40. At 8:50 I came into view of the field, and behold, there were 2 strutters showing off for a hen in the field. At 8:55 I was already set up at a corner of the field when they gobbled on their own, and they both answered my first call soon thereafter. The hen also yelped at me, and soon all 3 turkeys were coming my way with one tom gobbling good. Because of some greenbriar in front of my hastily-made set-up, I lost sight of them all at about 40 yards, and the next time I saw turkey flesh I was looking UP at a gobbler! I quickly shot him at 7 yards, before he got too close!
The other tom flew out and never came back for the final 3 days of the season, but I have a feeling I will see him again, next year.....
The end of May usually sees me heading for home, but this year Maine's season ran until June 6th. When I crossed the border I called my good friend Les to see if he thought I might be able to get something going in the final 6 days. I mean, except for the bobcat day and the late morning flash hunt at the dairy farm, I hadn't heard but a handful of gobbles in the last 2 weeks. What's more, it had now been raining for 2 days and nights straight, and predictions were for at least another day of solid rain before any chance of clearing weather. If he'd told me to, I was prepared to just come out and eat some fried clams, then turn my rig west and go home. But, as we were talking on the phone and he was telling me that I was welcome to come hunt a tom he'd been seeing at his bird feeder regularly, Les suddenly blurted out, "THERE HE IS." That's all I needed to hear, so when my clothes were dry at the Laundromat I headed for his place.
It was 5:30 before I got over there, and as I walked in the house we could still see 5 jakes in his back yard. We soon went for a walk to look over his property, and he showed me where toms were regularly seen and heard, and introduced me to Patrick, his wild ruffed grouse that acts like he's a pet. In fact, as soon as we entered the woods here came Patrick, and he followed us around the whole time we were out there, just like a dog!
It rained all that night and all the next day, but I had put out my DB blind the night before so I was able to stay fairly dry, although by 10:30 I was getting damp and cold. Patrick had showed up immediately after daylight and spent the entire morning within 2 feet of my blind, and he murmured grouse talk whenever I hen yelped. It was at that point when I decided to go up to the house and heat a can of soup to warm me up, then get back to my blind asap because Les said turkeys regularly gobble in this area from 11am onward. The rain was beginning to slacken up, so maybe I might yet get something going?
At about 1:30 Les called to give me some good news...the gobbler was back under his bird feeder with some jakes! I increased my calling at that point, and twenty minutes later I saw turkeys headed my way. They answered my calls with yawks and squawks and came to me on the run, but it was only 5 jakes and a hen....no tom....so I texted Les and he answered back that the tom was still under the birdfeeder and to "be patient, Grasshopper."
I then cranked up the calling even louder, and finally I heard a gobble! Les texted me immediately, "Last Supper. Headed your way. Bang." A couple minutes later the tom gobbled halfway to me, and a minute after that I saw his red head through a cedar tree. Soon thereafter, Les' last text proved prophetic, while Patrick sat there the whole time and never even flushed at the shot!
I then traveled an hour west and joined up with another good friend, Henrik. We had big fun for the last few days of the season. He wanted to kill a turkey with his bow though, so I knew it was going to be a challenge. The second morning we hunted till 10am before Henrik had to do some chores, but as we were driving back to his cabin we saw 2 toms with a hen on ground I could hunt. Once we got back to the cabin I grabbed my stuff and went back there, and within a half-hour of walking out the cabin door I had 2 toms and a very black hen standing 13 paces from my gun barrel. This one finished up my Maine limit:
The next day (second to last day of the season), we hunted a spot where I'd been seeing a tom and numerous jakes, and there was so much turkey sign in the field that you'd have thought there were at least a dozen others nearby! But it was cold that morning, so Henrik the world famous Maine fishing guide spent the first couple of hours in his zero-gravity chair, bundled up in his blue binky. :lol: Here's the proof:
Then, 7 jakes came over the hilltop across from us and started down the green sloping field like the Scottish warriors in "Braveheart," and I knew we were about to see some action up close! They came right up to my Strutter and the hooligans ganged up on him as teenage boys will do, and Henrik ended up shooting 2 of them at 13 yards. But, archery turkey hunting being what it is, we never found either one. We followed blood and feathers, then searched and searched, and even brought in a dog, but I'm afraid this story ends in disappointment. I really don't know where those arrows hit, since that bow was scorching-fast, but I know Henrik will be ready next year with broadheads of the Gobbler Guillotine persuasion...no more cripples; they're either dead or missed!
Our view out the blind that morning:
With the season ending the next day (we tried hard to get Henrik's lovely girlfriend Marivi her first turkey, but the wind was horrific and we couldn't convince any toms to come play with us), there was only one thing left to do; pick up some lobsters for the ride home! I bought 20 of them at $4.70 per pound, and we had a Lobsterfest the night I got home, the likes of which I've never seen! It truly was incredible, and when I reflect on it, so was the entire season! It will be one I shall not soon forget, and I can only strive to duplicate.....well, maybe everything except the surgery, the bobcat, and the lost jakes. Other than those instances, it was a CensoredCensoredCensoredCensoredCensoredCensoredCensored run and a fantastic spring. I can hardly wait to see what 2016 has to offer!
Final picture is of my good friend Tom, who is the best-danged chef I know! We eat some incredible meals and wild game feasts at his house, and that's where we had the 2015 Lobsterfest:
