Sunday, May 2, 2004

Dueling box calls and other forms of interference A turkey hunt is easily messed up. Most of the time, I can do it just fine by myself. Today, though, I had a little help. I should have killed a bird this morning. I blew my only real opportunity by trying to relive last year's successful hunt. A little before dawn this morning, I walked into my brother-in-law's woods in New York's gorgeous Southern Tier. I was late. Robins and cardinals were already singing. A grouse sailed overhead, an easy incomer, heading for the rich clover that grows on the woods road. A tom was already gobbling when I approached the spot where I killed a two-year-old bird last May. Like last year's bird, this guy was down the hill in a posted oak woods. "This is gonna be too easy," I thought. I was wrong. Instead of setting up right where I was, I headed uphill, thinking I could call this guy up the road just like last year's bird. I got settled quickly against a big maple and started calling. He answered a couple times, so I shut up and figured I'd just let him come. Instead of heading up the hill to me, though, he went south to the hayfield where I had parked. His gobbling grew more distant, then ceased by 6:45, when he either found a hen or walked out of earshot. In less than an hour it began to rain, so I moved back toward the field and set up under a white pine, where I had a good view of the trail he probably took. Should have started right here. I had called a few times, when I head yelping to the north. "Hen or box call?" I wondered. After we traded yelps several more times, I guessed the other yelper was a hunter because the yelps were pretty insistent and they were coming from the same place. The next time "Box Call" yelped, he was much closer. I gave him some in-your-faced cutting and waited for him to walk into view so I could ask if he had permission to hunt here. He must have figured out he was talking to another box call because I never heard him again. Time to move again. This time I set up on the field edge and put out three silhouette hens and a silhouette jake. Not long after that, a doe ran across the field and I heard something in the distance. A gobble? Yes! But also a hound! Sure enough, a minute or so behind the deer, here came a beagle and a black-and-tan mongrel with a white-tipped tail. The hound bayed enthusiastically, while White-Tail chimed in with a few yips now and then. They passed by about 75 yards to the east, hot on the doe's trail. In the next ten minutes, that deer or another one led those dogs in a big circle through Spence's woods and completely around the field. If they had been sent on a mission to spook every turkey on the hill, they couldn't have done a better job. The rain let up, and a strong south wind moved in. I hate trying to call from one spot in the wind, so I spent the next two hours still-hunting along Spence's trails, stopping every hundred yards or so to send out a loud series of box-call yelps and cutts to see if there might be any tom still willing to talk back. With less than an hour to go, I tucked myself into the back corner of the upper field, with three decoys deployed in the field and one at the intersection of two trails. I had just enough time to finish a mid-morning snack when the next assault came, announced by the unmistakeable putting of a small gasoline engine. Yup. Two kids on ATVs came down the hill to the field. When they spotted me, they turned around and headed back up the hill. No need to ask them if they had permission. No time to catch them, either. I'll have to tell Spence he needs to patrol the hill again. So, Day One is a bust, thanks to my own mistake, but assisted by a couple deer-running dogs and two kids who would be much better off if they got down off those machines and took a walk in the woods. This hunt can only get better! Later... 2:00:59 PM    comment []

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