Waiting for Turkeys to Come to Water

I have read that for the most part turkeys come to water every day. From the sign I've seen and turkeys that I've seen at waterholes from afar, it seems like they go to water mostly in the afternoon. The problem is that I've sat by a lot of watering holes in the fall hunt and never had any luck with it. Most of the time I sat by water holes in the afternoon, but I have also sat in blinds by tanks in the morning and other times of the day too. One time I was hanging out in a blind and noticed an apparently half full bottle of gatorade. After seeing some sediment in the bottle it occured to me that it wasn't gatorade. It is kind of fun to be near a water source, because of all the song birds and things that hang out there. Another neat thing I've seen in holes are waterdogs. They are creepy looking half tadpole half fish things that float around in the muck picking at stuff in the water. Sitting gets boring for me after too long. I'd do it again if the activety around the hole seemed really extensive, but the drought we've been experiencing lately looks like its starting to break and hunting a tank might be even less productive then it was. Without a drought, animals don't have to come to the exact same water everyday, because streams are running and seeps and springs pick up. One fall there was a cattle trough that had water in it all the time. A leaky valve or something would let the water into the trough a drip at a time. The area was very active and there was fresh sign all over the place. My dad said he felt like it was almost cheating to be sitting near the trough. We sat all morning, it was very beautiful, but the turkeys never showed. My dad thinks he heard some turkeys coming and might have been busted. I think the flock in the area was also using a drinker on the other side of the ridge. At the time we were anaware of the drinker. Anyway, if you decide to hunt a water source make sure there is tons of activity around it. One or two foot prints doesn't mean much. If you put it all together I've probably sat by a water hole 40 hours and haven't even seen a bird during that time. Most of the unproductive time can probably be chalked up to inexperience. I've sat near tanks that had little or no turkey sign. Animals are on high alert when they go to water since it is a perfect place for predators to ambush them. A lot of animals won't come to a tank if they think things aren't just right. Turkeys can be particularly twitchy.

Hunting Merriams

I mention in my welcome that there are some key differences in how to hunt the Merriams sub-species compared to the Eastern sub-species. I have never actually hunted Easterns, but most turkey publications are about Easterns. To make it even harder on us Merriams folks, the people who write these articles often use the generic term "Wild Turkey", as if Easterns are the only kind of turkey in the world. When I started the sport, I would read these articles and try to apply the techniques that I had learned. It took me years to realize when I read an article or publication about turkeys to be very careful about which sub-species the author was talking about. Here are a couple of really good information resources on the Merriam's subspecies: Mark A. Rumble has several publications on line that helped me understand the habits of Merriams like http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/sd/microhabitats.pdf and http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/rapidcity/PDF/macrohabs.pdf I studied http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/rapidcity/PDF/roostinghab.pdf long and hard to understand roosting habits. This one is great http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/rapidcity/PDF/feeding.pdf, but kinnikinnik is scarce (if there at all) where I hunt, so I had to kind of extrapolate. A good book about Merriams is Stalking the Big Bird by Harley Shaw. In my opinion the biggest difference in hunting Merriams vs. Eastern turkeys is the forests that they live in. Eastern turkey woods are a lot tighter, with a lot more cover. The Ponderosa Pine forests of the west are pretty open with a lot less understory. I think with a more open forest the turkeys don't talk as much. The turkeys can rely on their vision more for cues within the flock. Only when they get in more dense cover do they need to use their calls to communicate. Less cover also means less cover for a hunter to hide. I can probably count on one hand the times that I have surprised a turkey while walking around. Probably half the turkeys I've seen during hunting season are while rolling along at a pretty good clip in a truck. I think the turkeys just don't have a chance to leave the area when your bumping along at 30MPH down a dirt road. When your walking around in open woods though, they see you coming long before you see them. Walking around in Ponderosa woods looking for turkeys in pretty futile. My plan in the future when trying to locate birds during the day is to walk and call a lot, not looking for birds, but listening for them. I've heard of this tactic being used extensively on Eastern turkeys, but I think that with Merriams it is highly over-rated. I spend months and months planning for my turkey hunts though, so I don't want to just sit around at camp all day waiting for the morning hunt. Another big difference is the barred owl shock call. I went to a turkey hunting seminar before I ever went hunting. The expert demonstrated the deadly barred owl shock call. I must have cooked for you all (the call of the barred owl sounds like "Who cooks for you, We cook for you all") for two years before I figured out that barred owls don't live in the U.S. rockies or southwestern states. Don't expect the barred owl call to elicite any response from a Merriams. I've had better luck with slamming the car door than the barred owl call. If you want to do an owl try the Western Screech Owl (pretty hard to master though). Other shock calls I've had luck with are mooing and morning dove. I think I may learn to elk bugle, as last spring it elisited a good response as I mentioned in my Lonely Bachelor post. I have to say that at least with Merriams "shock" call is not the right word. A better name would be "possibly somewhat disturbing, but no real need for me to call back" call. Lastly, there is an idea out there that is widely written about called "roosting the bird". It is painfully clear to me why roosting the bird would greatly increase you chances of killing a big gobbler. I have busted my rear trying to roost a bird and during the whole 6 years of hunting I don't think I have been successful once. I have on several occasions made a good guess where the birds are roosted, but never have I "used my shock call to put the bird to bed". I'm not saying that its not possible to roost a Merriams, but I'm resonably sure it isn't the way they do it in the Eastern turkey woods. Perhaps I got discouraged from roosting gobblers because I used my barred owl shock call. Anyway, I hope that I don't come off as bitter about the press that Easterns get, but if your hunting Merriams or probably any of the other sub species besides Easterns, be careful what you read.

Camo

Camo is really magical. The technology that has gone into it over the years has made it really effective. Here are a couple stories about how effective camo really is: One fall turkey season I was sitting up on the hillside. The road was about 15 feet below me. I was in full camo including gloves and face mask. A couple of guys on ATVs came humming along at a really slow rate. I could tell they were deer scouting by the way they were looking around and driving. I wasn't hiding and I wasn't in any ground cover. There were some pole sized ponderosa, but it wasn't thick forest. The first guy drove by me without a glance. The second guy drove slowly by me and looked at me for more than a few seconds. I was about to wave to him and say "hi" because I thought he saw me when he stuck his finger halfway up his nose to pick it. It was then that I realized he was looking right through me. Needless to say I let him slide by. I wouldn't want to bother someone when they're prospecting and I think this guy may have hit the mother lode. Another time I got to see the power of camo, my dad and I had stopped in the shade on a warm fall day to eat lunch. We were in an area with heavy cover, but we were in full view. Neither of us was trying to be stealthy, we were just eating lunch and talking. My dad had fallen asleep when a young doe walked up on the bench of the canyon we were in, about 20 yards below us. The wind must have been right because the doe looked to be completely at ease. She bedded down looking into the canyon. I sat and looked at her for the next fifteen minutes or so until my dad woke up. When we got up the movement startled her and she ran off. The coolest time I saw the effects of camo was when my dad and I had been scouting this canyon. I was really interested in this canyon and had gone ahead of my dad for twenty minutes or so. He had already headed back to the truck. After a while I went back to the truck too and when I got there, I didn't see where my dad had gone. I went to look inside the truck to see if he had leaned the seat back for a nap or something, when I heard his voice. He asked me something about what I had seen in the canyon. I proceeded to have a conversation with him for about three minutes without seeing where he was, so I'm like, "where the heck are you". He said, "I'm over here." I looked toward his voice but still couldn't see him. I looked harder and finally spotted his disembodied head floating in the forest. A fraction of a second after I saw his head, the outline of his body slowly traced into view like he had just appeared from a different dimension. His camo was just regular pants and shirt when that happened and he was standing in full view. With the L.L. Bean 3D suits I will sometimes lose sight of him, even when I know exactly where he is. Its kind of funny, because when someone is wearing camo in the city, it sticks out so much you might as well be wearing hunter orange.

Strange Clucking

I've looked at a lot of info on turkey hunting since I started. One of the first interests I had was what an actual wild turkey sounded like. I heard guys like Ray Eye the world famous turkey caller doing his thing and recordings of wild turkeys. Most of the clucking I heard sounded kind of like a hollow truncated yelp. The first few years while learning to hunt I didn't hear a lot of turkeys, because the most inter-action I had was watching them run away while we drove around on logging roads. Since we have found the new honey hole, I have heard and seen a lot more turkeys that were unaware of my presence. I was really surprised when I heard them cluck. At first I thought the sound must be the putt sound since the hens that were making it when I first heard it were flying out of their trees to get out of Dodge, because I had just planted myself in their territory. Then some hens showed up later who weren't away of me and they were popping along nonchalently. The sound they were making sounded like the pop from the song "Lollipop". The part where the song goes "Lollipop (POP) Ba dum dum dum" at the end of the chorus like a cork gun popping. I've never heard this online and never have the guys in the turkey calling contest used this call that I've heard. Anyway, I think that there may be local dialects for turkeys not as much for the mating calls like gobbling and yelping, but maybe for calls like clucking an purring they can differ from flock to flock. If anyone else has experienced different turkey "dialects" leave me a comment so I know I'm not crazy.

A Disertation on Gobbling

In every book that I've read about turkey hunting it says, "Never, ever, ever, never, ever gobble", they continue to say that for all intensive purposes there are hunters out there just waiting to shoot wildly at foolish hunters who gobble in the turkey woods. For a long time I didn't gobble because it is important to me to be as safe as possible. I still don't gobble when trying to locate turkeys. I only gobble when I think it will really make a difference and I'm calling in a bird that I can actually see. Still if gobbling is so dangerous, then why is it ok to bugle in an elk. Also, I haven't read many cautions about decoys. It seems to me that a turkey replica is much more likely to get shot at than a hunter gobbling. Third, there are not many hunters in the places that I go, if I only gobble at birds that I can see and I'm trying to call in. The other hunter is more likely to shoot at the bird than me. I could see where a hunter could shoot at a bird without knowing the backstop. I try to mitigate that risk by keeping a close eye out for other hunters and letting people I meet know when and where I'll be hunting. If I see another hunter walking around, I say hello. I've had hunters who see me coming yelp and it really confuses the issue. I wonder, "does that guy know I'm here? Am I in danger walking around this guy?" If I think someone is yelping to announce themselves, I say "hello" and then head the other way.

Call a Lot

Early on I was warned not to call too much or I would affect the behaviour of the birds in a very negative way. I was almost afraid to call at all the first hunt that I went on. I also felt like when I did call, all the birds within three miles would hear it and depending on how well I had imitated the call of the wild turkey all or none would come. There are key times when not to call, but in my experience these are the exception, not the rule. There are three times while turkey hunting that you shouldn't call. When you have called once in the morning to let gobblers, you heard gobbling, know where you are, stop calling until the gobblers come down off the roost. Calling over and over to birds on the roost will make a gobbler think you are so hot to trot that he doesn't need to come to you. If you want to work the bird up while he's on the roost, use a shock call. My favorite shock call is mooing. You can tell the bird is off the roost because there will be a pause in his gobbling and it will be a lot less loud or he'll shut up completely. Sometimes the gobbler will turn away from you on his roost, making the gobble quieter, but if you hear several quiet gobbles in a row especially if they are dimming each time the bird gobbles, he is off the roost and its time to start calling again. If the bird honors your call, wait to call again until you can determine if he's walking away or towards you. If he's walking towards you don't call, except to cluck softly and/or purr. If the birds is leaving, call a lot, you don't have much to lose. If it seems like the turkey is going to leave all together, consider gobbling. I would hate for someone to get hurt, by taking my advice, so don't gobble until you have read my post on gobbling (coming soon) and even then be sure to make your own informed decision about it. Another reason not to call is if you see another hunter. Say "hello" instead. Turkeys don't talk so hopefully they won't shoot at you. Re-cap: 1. Don't call to birds on the roost once you've told them where you are. 2. Don't call to a gobbler that's coming in. 3. Don't call when you know that another hunter is in the area. Say "hello" instead. Otherwise call a lot. Its really hard to get close enough to a turkey to shoot it without calling it in.

Hunting Alone

For me it wasn't intuitive to hunt by myself. One of the main reasons I go turkey hunting is to spend time with my dad. I like the comfort of having someone nearby while I'm out in the woods. Its also nice to be able to discuss the information at hand and brainstorm to come up with ideas about what to do next. I was very apprehensive about going out on my own for the morning hunt. My dad and I had the same or similar information and so we could take our different viewpoints about what happened on a given day. I think this was good for learning. We could discuss what we saw and heard and later come to a consensus about what we had learned. In retro-spect I think we could have benefited from going it alone half the time during the initial stages of our learning. Our independent experiences could have been put together at camp, thereby effectively doubling our experience. Another good reason to go it alone is you double the ground that you cover as a team. For me this can be a great morale booster. If I have a bad day, my dad's good day can bring me up and vice versa. Also, If we both don't see anything, we can be more confident about moving on. Conversely if we both have good days there is more opportunity for making good decisions about tomorrow. Another good reason not to hunt together is safety. I once had a shot (albeit a bad one), but didn't want to take it because my dad was down range of me. As it turns out, my dad didn't take the shot either because he wanted me to have a shot at the bird if it was presented to me. As it turned out the bird just kept on going and we never saw him again. Lastly, when there is two people in an area there is twice as much movement noise and general hubbub. In fact with two people around, the whole is probably greater than sum and your even more than twice as likely to be busted when your together, considering that people like to talk to each other. One day when the action had died down, I was sitting and watching the woods in my set up when a hen came ambling by. I was having great fun watching her when all of a sudden she became very alert and then high tailed it off over the hill. About five minutes later my dad showed up ready to move on. Had that bird been a rooster I would have had a good shot at it and my shot may have been ruined by my dad getting up from his set up and coming over. By the way, he was a least three hundred yards away in full camo in medium thick woods. By the timing I'm sure that hen saw him when he first got up from his set up. Unless your behind a hill a turkey will see you coming when your walking. The only chance you have not to be seen is when your in light cover, full camo and completely still. I think it is appropriate to walk around and call, but you'll hear turkeys and thereby locate them, rather than see turkeys most if not all of the time. So if you've always hunted with your buddy go ahead and keep the tradition, but make sure that some of the time, you split up.

Being Deliberate

Last spring I came up with a three part plan to bring my odds up for killing a turkey. One bullet point was to be very deliberate about the decisions I make while hunting. I'll outline what I mean by this. I'll also make it clear why being deliberate is important. You might ask why someone wouldn't be deliberate in making decisions. Well, it is very easy to lose focus while hunting. First of all, no one has told me when I'm doing something wrong. I didn't learn how to hunt turkeys through a mentor. My dad and I were both just as green when we started. If you have a buddy who is very experienced, they will tell you when you've made a bad decision. It is easy to be deliberate when your following someone else. Second, when there is little or no information about the animal your after, it is very hard to make good decisions. You see a little sign or hear a crow cluck and you can quickly be off wandering around on some dead end road. Third, being away from regular society makes superstition more real. It is easy to hear and see things that aren't really there. Being deliberate means not giving in to shadows and ghosts. Either you saw it or you didn't. Making decisions based on "I think I saw something" is a real waste of time. The idea of being deliberate can be a little abstract, but making a decision and sticking with it can really make a difference. Only if a decision is made based on sound logic and real evidence will the effort pan out. So, if you give a decision its proper due, you can also be more sure if it was a mistake. To a large degree this kind of confidence only comes with experience. Here's an example of not being deliberate and what it cost: My dad and I had set up on a hill side near a known roosting area early in the morning. I had located these roosting trees 5 months ago. It was the first time I was able to find bona fide heavily used roosting trees. After a morning full of gobbling and a hen yelping near us, everything shut down. I assumed that the turkeys had all left. About 20 minutes after the calling had shut down, I decided to give up and show my dad the roosting trees, since he hadn't seen them yet. While we were standing around kicking at piles of turkey crap under the trees, the forest exploded with gobbling and it was all my dad and I could do to get to some light cover and sit down. A huge boss gobbler showed up strutting and drumming across the clearing. He was in a hurry to beat up another gobbler who was gobbling nearby. We weren't prepared for these birds to show up because of our lack of deliberation. Furthermore, we didn't hang around very long and try to call the birds back to the area. Here's an unglamorous example of how being deliberate taught me something valuable. One day my dad and I decided to try to ambush a bird on a game trail. We layed up for about 4 hours as quiet as mice waiting for a turkey to show up. The lesson was you better have a pretty good reason to do such an exercise. We didn't and I got the message.

Turkey Beard and Shotshell

Lonely Bachelor

Last spring turkey season my dad and I went out to our favorite hunting spot and set up a tent in the snow. It was kind of unusual for it to snow so late in the season. The next day when we got up the snow was still on the ground. I was excited because we would be able to see fresh turkey tracks in the snow. It was one day before the season opened. We had learned that for no apparent reason a big flock of turkeys could move out of an area that previously had a lot of activity, so we usually go out a day before season opens to be sure the birds are still where we think they are. We drove some of the roads above our camp after breakfast. We saw a bunch of hens about 200 yards off on the ridge we were on so we felt good about the area we were in. Later we fooled around in our camp, since we already had decided where we would set up in the morning. The next morning we hiked up the road in the dark and sat up on the ridge where we had seen the hens. We saw that they had come from the north, so we set up in that direction. It was cold in the morning. When the sun rose it was really quiet in the woods, which is unusual in the ponderosa woods in the morning. Usually there are woodpeckers, crows, and other animals chirping and squawking when the sun comes up. After the sun came up the wind picked up and it was hard to hear anything. All in all after seeing all those birds the day before, it was a very discouraging morning and the wind for me makes it very hard to hunt turkeys. I get discouraged pretty easily during my turkey hunts. While I love being out in the woods with my dad and enjoying the great outdoors, by the end of a fruitless day I can get pretty grumpy. I was stewing pretty good by the afternoon. We stopped by a watering hole to scout it on our way out to town and met a guy who had killed a turkey in the area. On our last day of the hunt the year before, we set up by the watering hole and the forest exploded with turkeys that flew out of their roosts. We could hear two different gobblers going off again and again. I had planned all year to sit in that same spot, but decided against it when we had seen those hens up on the ridge. On our way into town I was in worse shape mentally than I've ever been since we started turkey hunting. Just ready to call it quits. In an effort to save my sanity, I decided I would do three things. 1. I would be a lot more deliberate in decisions I made about my hunt. 2. I would call a lot. 3. For the second time ever I would go alone to my morning hunt. I think these decisions uped my odds the second I made them. I'll discuss each one in detail in other posts. That evening, I walked a logging road for about two miles squawking my box often while I walked. I didn't hear or see any birds, but I at least felt like I was doing something productive. As it turns out right after I got back to camp, we heard another hunters box call just 200 yards away by the fork in the road. I went over to say hello, but then realized that it was a real turkey hen that had high tailed it up the hill. I think it had heard my calls and was calling me to the flock up the hill. I had talked over the morning hunt with my dad and we had agreed to hunt different areas in the morning. With the encounter that night as well as the birds we had seen the day before, my dad still felt like hunting the same ridge as in the morning. I had decided to hunt by the watering hole we had scouted that afternoon. We both woke up at about 4:30 packed up and headed out. I drove my dads pickup to about a quarter mile from the watering hole. It was darker than the inside of a cow, but I could barely see the logging road that lead to the watering hole in the starlight. I didn't dare turn on my headlamp. I just walked carefully and slowly up the road. I passed by my setup by accident and could see the stars reflected in the water hole. I retraced my steps and inched my way into the inky undergrowth. I got settled in about a half an hour before the skies started to lighten. When the sun came up the forest woke up nicely. I heard an elk bugle way off in the distance. I'd never heard an elk bugle in the spring before and wondered if a hunter was using a bugle as a shock call. Whoever or what ever it was, it worked. About 300 yards up the hill and south of me a gobbler sounded off. Throughout the morning, until about 7:30 two more gobblers joined in. I chimed off a string of soft tree calls and the gobblers went nuts cutting each other off mid gobble. After about a half an hour of this mayhem, everything went quiet. When everything went so dead quiet I was worried that would be the last I heard of them. I called aggressively as per my plan. I continued to call every five minutes or so for the next half hour. I hadn't heard anything, so I was thinking that the excitement was over when a gobbler barked a gobble behind me about 200 yards off. I was so surprised I about jumped out of my skin. After a prescribed waiting period of 3 minutes of so, I yelped on my box. The gobbler hammered on my call, so I layed off and clucked with my mouth. He gobbled about two more times and then turned around. I couldn't see him yet, but knew he was headed the other way by the sound of the call. I yelped at him again and again to get him to come back. He finally hammered my call and just kept gobbling over and over. I knew he was coming in so I had moved to the other side of the tree I had set up on, I knew he wouldn't see my movement because he was still on the other side of the crest of a small hill. When he bobbed into view he was in full strut. As excited as he was, I expected him to be spitting and buzzing, but he was quiet except for bellowing a gobble every minute or so. He looked for my call, but I could see he didn't recognize any danger, as he casually strutted up the hill away from me. He was in full view so I could only cluck at him with my mouth or I would have been busted. Then he strutted away up the hill over the crest, gobbling the whole way and leaving me sitting there flat footed with my back to him. With the gobbler "safely" out of site I moved back around to where I was sitting before and made a decision to gobble at him in hopes of attracting him back. I fully expected to never see the bird again, but when I gobbled he turned back immediately from a hundred and fifty yards away on top of the hill. He gobbled my way again and then crept slowly down the hill toward me, I could tell he was really looking hard for a hen, so I was as still as the ground under me. When his head went behind a tree a hundred yards up the hill, I yelped at him. He gobbled, displayed and spit for just a second and then hopped into a clearing and looked right at me. I could almost feel his laser gaze searching for me. I froze in place like a statue, and he didn't spot me. Then he dropped low and ran right toward me. I thought, "crap, he's going to run right into my lap and I won't be able to get my gun up to my shoulder". Then he slowed down and turned left at about forty yards. It proved to be his undoing. If he had kept coming straight down the hill, he would have busted me had I tried to shoulder my shotgun, but to the left there was cover. He walked behind a ponderosa and I shouldered my shotgun in one quick smooth motion. I remember thinking that if he came out the other side I would take the shot. As he appeared on the other side of the tree, I tracked him on my bead for a fraction of a second. Then something weird happened to me. It felt like my gun the bird and my body were all connected together like some kind of crazy machine. I don't remember pulling the trigger, although I do remember calculating the shot. In that moment all in a millisecond everything came into focus. Not just visually, although there was that, but spiritually and mentally and everything else. I was awoken from my trance by the sound of the shot. I sprang up and racked another shell into my shotgun. When I saw the bird it was flapping and flopping on the ground. I could tell he would never get up again. I ran over and stood on the birds neck to be sure that he wouldn't. I stood over him, very emotional and after 20 seconds or so he ceased to move. I knelt down and petted his dark body, bowed my head and thanked God. I opened my eyes and told the bird I was sorry and thanked him. My excitement and sorrow were all one thing and I was completely overcome by emotion for a short time. I carried him back to my set up and prepared my things to bring him back to my dad's truck. He was very heavy to carry. I wrapped him in my hunter orange game bag that my wife had sewn for me and carried him out over my shoulder. I was elated and could hardly contain my self. On the way back to camp I listened to Bluegrass music and whoohooed a couple times. I felt on top of the world. When I got back to my camp I set to work field dressing the bird. I was struck by how hot it was when I reached in the body of the turkey to dress him. When my dad came back. I had on my orange stocking cap. I knew that would signal him as he hiked back into camp that I had gotten a bird. He told me that when he saw me in the orange cap he knew I had. It seemed like it took forever for him to come back from his hunt. My success was just as much his. He had been with me from the beginning and we had learned together.

Weeds

My wife and I are watching a show called Weeds that she got on DVD for Christmas. The show is good so far. I fully expect it to get way out of hand in the next season. I think next season its going to get Melrose Placed.

My wife started watching Melrose Place when it first came out. Since I was a huge couch potato back then I couldn't have gotten off my rear to leave the room and so I started watching the show too. The show wasn't too bad at first. The characters showed more depth each episode and it was pretty interesting. Then weird things started happening and I'm thinking, well things should settle back down here in an episode or two. Well things just got crazier and stupider until finally, I had learned my lesson. When a serial drama gets Melrose Placed, just walk away.


So anyway, back to Weeds. The intro has a really cool song, called "little boxes". It really makes me think. How can I in this American society not live in a little box made out of ticky tacky. I, as the song suggests, went to the university where they put me in a little box and I came out just the same.

There's a joke going around on the Internet. It says something like, "the Indians went hunting everyday and then had sex every night and it takes a white man to think they could improve that system". I don't know if it was the Indians that invented that lifestyle, but I do think we were all fools to have given it up.

Drainage Draw or Arroyo

So I created a blog called Drainage Draw or Arroyo a while back and then lost interest in writing in it. I re-read some of it and most of it holds true and I feel as strongly about what I said then. That said, I have learned a lot since I originally wrote that blog and it seems that my enthusiasm then has grown into a deep love for the sport of turkey hunting.

I lost the password to the original blog and the e-mail I used to set up the account is long gone. I think it is appropriate to start a new blog anyway, since it has been so long since I wrote in the old one. The "wish me luck" post I made on Sept. 16 was appropriately the last post I made, because it was soon after that my life took a nasty left turn. It was about then that my marriage which had always been a haven for me turned into Dr. Moreau's island. My wife and I were able to pull it out by the skin of our teeth, but the experience left deep scars. I don't know if either of us will ever be able to relax and just let us be us again. Hopefully we have entered a stage of healing and we'll someday be better off for the work we've done. I know that things are much more peaceful now than before.

In other news: I was finally able to get my turkey last spring. It took me 6 years to do it. I took him in the [Top Secret Eyes Only] National Forest in an ahem...undisclosed location with my Browning BPS, carrying Remington Magnum 2 3/4 in. shells with #6 shot. It was a good shot at 30 yards, in spite of my excitement I was able to take an extremely deliberate shot. It was a clean kill and I thanked the Lord and the bird. I called the bird in with a H.S. Strut Field Champion box and a Quaker Boy gobble tube. It was definitely among the most powerful experiences in my life. In a later post I will tell the whole story in detail. If no one ever reads it fine, but I'd like to put it down for posterity at least.

I will be flying out and meeting my dad this spring. I'm looking forward to going back to the same place as last year. I didn't get to go to the last fall hunt due to my grandfather's death. Its been a long year and I'm really looking forward to getting out.