Wednesday, May 5, 2004

New York Turkey Hunt, Day Two Brother Mike and I hunted on Paul Locke's place in Cattaraugus County today. We hiked in to a spot we hunted last year, a small cedar grove in the bend of a logging road about a half-mile in from the blacktop. Mike heard one gobble off to the south, so after an hour of sitting, we began trolling in that direction. We would still-hunt for about 100 yards, then stop at a spot where it made sense to call: just before the crest of a rise, at the intersection of two trails or where we found a couple big trees to hunker by in case we got a response. We would call for a minute or so, then wait a few minutes for a response. Hearing none, we moved on. After a half-mile or so, we came to a logging road and took that back to the north, following the same routine. At about our fourth stop heading north, a bird gobbled in response to my cutting, so we set up and began calling. Over the next hour, we chatted with several birds, at least one of which was a mature gobbler. Three jakes walked up on Mike and spotted him before he could make a move on them. They putted and disappeared. The gobbler came within 60 or 70 yards, judging from the volume of his gobble, but wouldn't cross a ravine and some thick cedars. He must have had hens with him, as we heard several birds yelping and clucking quietly as they walked away. It's tough to work birds when you are pinned down by a gobble like that, but it's the only way I know to try to create some action on a day when they just won't gobble on their own. We later spooked a tom on a gasline right-of-way and flushed a hen off a nest in the woods, not far from where (She was sitting on five eggs.) we had worked those birds. We spent an hour trying to pick an easy route to get back to that spot in the morning and eventually made it out to the road at 1:00, where Paul Locke was waiting for us. "Looks like you got lost," he said. "No. We just got turned around for an hour," I replied. We hopped into his truck and he gave us a tour of his property, including a couple options for getting back into the center of the property in the dark tomorrow morning. He had been working a big tom this morning, when a neighbor's guest shot it almost under his nose. At noon on the way out of the woods, he spotted another tom that had been heading his way. Like us, he had been out of position, outflanked and now was out of time. Weatherman says it will freeze tonight. We'll give it another shot in the morning. Gotta get more than four hours of sleep tonight, however. Later... 9:59:57 AM    comment []

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