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2011 turkey odyssey, game calls, turkey and turkey hunting

The 2011 Turkey Odyssey Begins

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So I think we’ve officially put winter in its grave here in southwestern Ontario (with perhaps a temporary blip this weekend that will see a brief return to sub-zero temperatures…one day of zombie winter if you will) so I’ve decided that I can really put the spring turkey preparations into high gear.  Even though I’ve been talking about it for almost three months now, I’m officially dubbing today the start of 2011 turkey hunting for me.  Yes, I know the season isn’t open until April 25th, I even posted some links about it.  I’m referring to the arduous process of preparation that is really just a kick-start for the fun.
The gun has been choked, the bags packed, and the vest prepared for some time now, but one notable handicap persists: I have not been able to get a good line on a local bird.  As mentioned in an earlier post on the subject, landowner permission has been a non-starter in the area so I’m giving up and focusing on scouting in the county forests as priority number one.  I’m also trying to put together a scout-a-thon on the Bruce peninsula this coming weekend (with perhaps some festivities thrown in for the Friday and Saturday evenings…who knows?) but getting some turkeys on lockdown up there is still a nebulous endeavour at the current time.  Weekends are touchy in my household currently; daycare is required since my spouse works retail hours and it might not be responsible to bring my twenty-month-old son into the woods with the expectation that he can sit quietly still for a few hours…although maybe I can time his naps right.  Also simple overnight trips to Lion’s Head or even to Barrie are almost out of the question when fuel hovers around $1.30/litre in my neck of the woods.  So, infiltrating the local haunts of some gobblers becomes an even more pressing concern.
It’s not desperation time just yet…but it’s getting close.
I’ve also ramped up my practicing; both in my basement and garage (as those are the only places where I’m really allowed to crank up the volume) it constantly sounds like the drunken happy hour at some unholy wild turkey beer hall.  Suffice it to say that my neighbours (and maybe my wife) hate me at this time of year.  The biggest challenge this year was mastering the rhythm of running a mouth call at the same time as I operate a box or pot call.  I’ve never been too adept at doing two things at once, and the risk is that one will fall into the same yelping or cutting rhythm with both calls…a problem which inevitably ends up sounding like a symphonic and harmonious hen turkey duet.  I will admit that this is actually a pretty cool sound, but it is in no way natural.  I’ve heard two hens barking at each other in the wild and the outcome is usually anything but harmonious.  Luckily, after weeks of endless yelping, cutting, squealing, and kee-keeing I think I’ve got it down and can sound like two or more distinct hen turkeys…yet still the practicing continues.  This is a sickness I tell you, a sickness.
Lastly, my discretionary spending is almost non-existent now (see the section above about gas prices) so the new decoys I was itching for will have to wait another year.  Since I am a gear nut, this is disappointing news in one sense because I was really hungry to get some new, ultra-realistic decoys.  But in another way, since I am a gear nut, this is great news because it means I get to do some cosmetic surgery on my current decoys, a process of maintenance that I thoroughly enjoy regardless of what time of year it is.
Quick sidebar: I once flocked two dozen Canada goose decoy heads inside a 700 sq ft apartment, and then hung the heads by strings over the 6th floor balcony to air dry.  Not only was my apartment and everything in it covered in a fine dust of black flocking material, my wife was enraged and mortified because from the parking lot the dangling decoy heads looked like some macabre set of wind chimes.  The superintendent had some questions and it may have even made the local newspaper…mind you this was all done at a time when I (erroneously) cared much less about what others thought of me or of hunters in general.  Still, it was all pretty ingenious in retrospect.
Anyway, for the turkey dekes, some duct tape, some touch up paint, and maybe some stuffing should do the trick.  They are foam collapsible decoys from Flambeau and despite the manufacturer’s guarantees to the contrary, they hold a dent like mad.  More than once I have found myself attacking them during the pre-season with my wife’s hair dryer in an effort to smooth out the bumps, creases, and dents.  This is of course a completely insane and fruitless undertaking since they become horribly stilted and deformed once they go back into the carrying bag or stuff into the back of my vest.  Last year I even used the steam iron to straighten out the stub of a beard on my jake decoy; it had taken on a distinct, unnatural looking kink while in storage.  Results were…uhhh…mixed.  I’ve always thought about just filling these decoys, stakes and all, with spray foam insulation and eliminating the need to ever have to worry about them looking sunken, misshapen, and flaccid again.  Problem is that I don’t really have a line on a cheap and ready source of spray foam insulation, hence this dream goes unfulfilled.
So with scouting, calling, gear maintenance, and (probably) a lot of driving ahead in the comings weeks it becomes a case of so much to do, so little time.
High stress? Hardly…but here we go again.  I couldn’t be happier.
game calls, hunting gear, turkey and turkey hunting

Confessions of a Turkey Hunting Gearhead—Part Two

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Having covered the apparel and outerwear aspects of what I take into the turkey woods, let’s talk about the fun stuff: equipment, ordnance, and accessories.
As I said in the earlier post on this topic, I take an unbelievable amount of equipment with me when I go turkey hunting; the challenge is deciding what to use and when.  Sometimes you have to just go with what is working on a given day, and other times I find that I need to switch tactics and be agile.
Shotgun, Choke, and Shells
The item I can say that I use the least is perhaps the most important; my shotgun.  I carry my first shotgun with me into the field every season.  It is a Remington 870 Express chambered for 3” shells.  I received it for Christmas many years ago when it became apparent that I was going to take up hunting.  It was the best Christmas ever.
Last year I broke down and bought a new aftermarket synthetic stock and fore-end from Remington in a Mossy Oak Break-Up pattern.  I had previously experimented with a variety of other camouflage options, including the no-mar gun stock tape that many retailers sell.  In my experience, even after following the package instructions meticulously the tape left residue on my gun.  Clean up of this residue was lengthy and at the expense of some very minor damage to the finish of the factory stock and fore-end, so I decided that in the name of convenience to make the switch.  I’ve attached a Rhino-Rib sling from Kolpin as well.
I find that my shotgun patterns Federal’s 3’ 1 ¾ ounce #6 Mag Shok shells with the Flitestopper wad the best.  Using BassPro Shops Redhead turkey pattern board I found that at 40 yards I still had slightly over 90% coverage in a 30” circle, with no major holes or gaps in the pattern.  This all comes out the business end of my 870 through a Hunter’s Specialties Undertaker extra-full choke tube.  I got lucky in a way because I chose this set up arbitrarily and it just so happened to work out.  Since I’m not a competition shooter and don’t really feel inclined to stretch my gun out past 40 yards at turkeys (although I’d have at least two more birds in the bag historically if I felt differently about that) I have not had to spend additional money on testing a variety of choke/ammunition combinations.
Calls
This is my favourite part of turkey hunting.  I love owning calls, practicing on them, becoming semi-proficient at them, and then using them in the field.  One thing that will become immediately apparent below is that I show no brand loyalty in my calls.  I own calls out of necessity, obsession, and based on what I think sounds the best.  Your choices may, and likely will, differ from mine.
I went about turkey calling all backwards when I decided to get into the sport.  Almost all turkey publications and turkey gurus (self-professed or otherwise) would recommend that a beginner start out on a box call, a simple push-pin style call, or a the most a single-reed mouth call.  I can say that I agree wholeheartedly, primarily because I, in true masochist style, suffered for a year of trying to master a raspy four-reed Old Boss Hen mouth call from Quaker Boy that barely fit in my mouth.  I ended up trimming the tape and finally found a good fit.  Luckily the year in question was the year before I went out and got my turkey licence, so by the first day I went afield I had gotten pretty good with it.  The year after that I bought a four pack from Hunter’s Specialties that also had to be trimmed to fit.  Once I had the sizing down, they worked really well, and I called my first turkey in to 25 yards with an HS clear double-reed.
Right now I carry four mouth diaphragms.  Three of them are from Knight & Hale because I find that those fit my palette most comfortably without requiring the tape to be trimmed.  I carry a clear double-reed, which I find is good for soft tree-yelping and plain yelps; it is also a call that I can crank the volume on indefinitely and this versatility makes it the one call that I most likely have between cheek and gum for most of the season.  I also carry one Knight & Hale triple-reed call and another four-reed, both with various cuts and notches.  The four-reed has a bat-wing cut and I like it for calm days when volume is not as much of a concern but long-distance cutting is my priority.  The triple reed has a V-cut and it has a higher pitch for slightly windier days.  I also find that I can purr like a fiend on this call, so when I want to switch things up and throw a fighting purr sequence in my calls, I pop this one in.
The fourth call is a M.A.D. calls Billy Yargus Signature Series four-reed cutter call that a friend won and subsequently donated to me, although I almost never use it.  It is plenty raspy, and I did use it in a competition in 2010, but it is just slightly too large for the roof of my mouth.  On the plus side, this call is ideal for gobbling on so I do carry it in my vest in case I find that one day when I need to gobble challengingly to a hung up gobbler (safely and on private land of course).
I carry a Primos Wet Box box call and cannot say enough good things about it.  I only have limited hunting days in a year, primarily because I don’t live in a rural area and the landowners immediately near my house in Cambridge, Ontario are not fussy on allowing permission to people who show up at their door in February or March.  This all means that I’m travelling to hunt so if it is raining, I’m still going out in basically any weather short of a full-on thunderstorm.  I’m not fussy on chalking box calls and then putting them in Wonderbread bags so I picked up this waterproof box call, and waterproof is an understatement.  This call has been so soaked that I thought it would float away, and through it all it has never slipped or squeaked once.  I’m not famous enough to have a binding endorsement deal with anyone (Hello, Primos?  Call me…) but I would certainly recommend this call to anyone.
In 2009 I finished second in the men’s open division at the Strathroy Great Canadian Turkey Call and won, as part of a large bag of swag, a Quaker Boy Trifecta friction call and a Quaker Boy Easy Yelper push pin call.   The push-pin is great for close in finishing work to any gobblers that I know can’t see me.  It took some off-season practice but I can now run this call in my left hand while having my shotgun ready.  If I was more mechanically inclined I’d probably rig up some pull-string contraption and affix it to my shotgun’s fore-end, but I’m not so I haven’t.
The Trifecta has three surfaces (aluminum, slate, and ‘cordy’) that all make different tones when played.  I found the factory striker that came with it was a bit of a uni-tasker so I picked up a three-pack of strikers from Primos.  I find that each works best with a specific surface (aluminum surface/acrylic striker, slate surface/purple heart striker, etc) but what I like best is the option to make many different turkey sounds with one call.  I lost the small square of conditioning paper that came with the call so I use a medium/fine-grit sand paper to rough up the surfaces of the strikers and the call.  In 2010 I finished third in the same contest (clearly my calling skills are on the decline) and only won Quaker Boy mouth calls, which as I said don’t really fit my mouth very well.  I used them as Christmas gifts for some hunting buddies…my wife refused to accept them as her stocking stuffers.
In terms of locator calls…let’s just say that I may have become a victim of marketing.  I have three locator calls, all of which have never worked once.  The HS Palmer’s Hoot Tube sounds just as it should.  Just for fun last year I used it on a squirrel that was puttering around my set up: the squirrel’s reaction was one of the funniest things I had ever seen and reinforced my knowledge that it in fact did sound like a barred owl.  No early morning turkeys have responded to my owling though.
My Primos Old Crow call does a great job of calling crows, but to date has not made a single turkey gobble, even when I know there is one nearby.  Most frustratingly, after I’ve called in crows, I’ve had turkeys shock gobble at the real thing, but not my imitations.  Can’t say my self-esteem wasn’t a bit dented by that.
I bought a Quaker Boy Screaming Hawk call that also has done nothing except call in Red-Tailed hawks.  I used it once on public land in the Simcoe County Forests near a Northern Goshawk nest.  Big mistake; I’m lucky to still have a scalp.
I have so far resisted the temptation to buy any gobble-shaker calls, gimmicky hen-calling contraptions, or anything so handcrafted and expensive (think very attractive exotic wood pot calls or box calls) that if I lost it I would need to consider filing an insurance claim on it  in order to recoup my financial losses.  But I’m still young, give it time.
Accessories
The following items all find their way into my turkey vest at one time or another throughout the season: water bottles, handheld pruners, camera, small headlamps, and sunglasses.  In terms of accessories I only have three mainstays.
The first is my knife, or more accurately, two knives.  I have a classic Buck 110 folding lockback knife that was a gift for my 15th birthday; just in time for deer season.  It is a timeless piece of cutlery and it has done everything for me from notching out tags and cleaning waterfowl to gutting and skinning deer to taking the beard and tail fan off a turkey.  It is as sharp as ever and a large scar on my left thumb from skinning a buck in 2008 is testament to that.  If it has one knock on it, it is that it is slightly too long for most turkey hunting applications.  With that in mind in 2009 I bought a Gerber LST drop point that is slick as all get out for precision jobs.  Like the Buck 110 it is also wickedly sharp, but I know that my clumsy hands will one day lose it in the forest because it is camouflage patterned.  At least I won’t be surprised at this eventuality.
The next is a small blaze orange wallet that holds all my necessary licenses, registrations, permits, tags, and identification.  I usually wrap this in a small zip-top baggie because I want to keep it dry before I bury it in some godforsaken pocket in my vest for the season.  This is obviously of vital importance, and the color reflects my fear of losing it.
Lastly are my decoys.  I bought a Flambeau Breeding Flock set in 2008 at the Toronto Sportsman’s Show consisting of two hens and one jake.  The hens are upright and feeding respectively, while the jake is frozen permanently into what is called an “Intruder” pose.  If I’m only carrying one of them I stuff it into the back “game pocket” of my turkey vest.  If I’m bringing the whole crew, as I am sometimes apt to do, then I have a Redhead decoy bag that they all fit quite nicely into.  I’ve had these decoys be completely ignored, and I’ve had them generate some interest, so I can’t make any claims at their efficacy.  What I will say is that relative to a strutting tom decoy (which I have never hunted over so I have no opinions on that front) they were a cost-effective, three-for-the-price-of-one kind of deal.  Which, based on the amount of calls I need to budget for, is a good thing.
So there you have it, as requested that (in two parts) is what I take with me into the forest and fields each spring.  I know I may have skirted the “what would Shawn recommend?” portion of your question on most fronts, but that is only because I can’t say my choices in gear are any better than your own or that what I say will lead to success or failure in your turkey hunting career, especially since I’ve failed far more often than I’ve succeeded.  But I looked good doing it.
Really, all I’ve done is find the things that work the best for me and then stuck with it, which is really my best advice for anyone doing any kind of hunting.  So this, in the end, is a bit of a cop-out cliché I guess.  Sorry…and good hunting.
game calls, hunting, turkey and turkey hunting, whitetail deer

Hope in a Hopeless Month

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In the dregs of an Ontario February (a time that for those who have not had the privilege to experience it is arguably the bleakest, wintry, and most depressing period of the year) hunting can become a distant and dream-like memory.  Sure, in some parts of the province there are year-round opportunities for coyote hunting, and in other areas there are still pocketed opportunities for rabbit hunting, but generally hunting for everything else is closed.  The return of the big game hunting for deer, bears, and moose that sustained us through the fall and into December won’t be returning for the greater part of a year while the halcyon days of spring turkey hunting, while imminent, for now seem to be permanently buried under the grim pallor of ice and snow.  Here and there you may get a week of goose hunting in early March, but for many we won’t hear the braying, cackling, and murmuring of Canada Geese settling into decoys until September.  Ducks?  Around the same time, give or take a couple of weeks.  The only similar lull to these mid-winter blahs is the lazy, hazy days of mid-summer; even then the opportunity to get out and wander the woods and fields is an attractive diversion.  I know very few people who are motivated to go out hiking in the wilderness when the snowdrifts are a meter deep and it is 14 degrees below zero.  Snowmobiling?   Maybe, but certainly not hiking.  And I’m in southern Ontario, in a region deeper south than most of the rest of Canada.  In the northern parts of this country it is likely that they’ve been under this hunt-stifling deep-freeze, or an even more severe one, for far longer.
 
Even the prospect of Valentine’s Day (with the promise of candy and sundry other things) can’t seem to get me out this funk.  Yep, February is pretty depressing.
 
So what can one do?  Well, I started this blog so I could have an outlet for my pent up hunting needs.  I also endorse sitting around with friends reminiscing about past hunts, watching hunting shows on television and the Internet, and preparing to go hunting when the seasons re-open by cleaning and polishing (and then re-cleaning and re-polishing) your weapons, unpacking, organizing, and then re-packing your equipment, and practicing your calling constantly and at a volume so excessive that it lowers your property values.
 
For those of you with non-hunting spouses, these well-intentioned outlets of therapy may seem to your husband or wife as pointless puttering or in the case of practicing with your game calls, a sign of mental illness.  But really it is just a coping mechanism employed to help us survive the long winter of non-hunting inactivity.
 
But wait, in this self-pity there is an opportunity for perspective.  Think of the game animals that you respect and cherish so much; they are outside right now really surviving.  And not surviving so that you can hunt them when the next season opens, not surviving because they have nothing better to do, but surviving because they have to, surviving for the very definition of survival.
 
Because, after all survival is what they do best.  That is why they are a challenge to hunt.
 
Every turkey that you hunt in the spring survived the depths of winter.  All the moose and deer that are being hunted in the fall are being hunted by virtue of their (or their mother’s) survival through the previous winter.  Every animal that we in the hunting community pursue had to survive countless natural and man-made threats to their very existence, and it is through their survival and adaptation that they gain the skills necessary to thwart and beguile predators (human or otherwise) everywhere.  That challenge is an integral part of the appeal of hunting, at least for this particular hunter.  My father told me once at deer camp that it was a good exercise to take a step back from the thrill of hunting, especially in the euphoric moments after harvesting game and think quietly about the life that the animal had lived, how it had survived, and the harsh reality of that animal’s existence in the wilderness as a participant in the struggle between prey and predator.  I think introspection is more than just a good exercise, but an absolutely necessary part of the act of hunting.  Too often the game being pursued becomes a footnote in the hunt, and not the main character; regularly confronting the more unpleasant bits of survival and death are what make hunting what it is.
 
So I guess before I go feeling sorry for myself about not being able to get out and hunt much of anything right now, I should probably just be thankful that I’m not sleeping outside in a cedar swamp, or trying to avoid being eaten by coyotes, or starving.  I should also be grateful that by the virtue of their superb adaptations and incomprehensibly powerful will to live that wild game continues to thrive and provide opportunities for myself and others to pursue the hunting tradition.
 
And thinking all that I realize that wild turkey season is less than three months away here in Ontario.  Which is just about long enough, with nightly practicing of course, to get my pot call and strikers all tuned to perfection.