Pennsylvania Game News - March 2011 - 20

become easy pickings. I now watch for farmers planting or plowing fields in my area, and make a note of their locations for such rainy days. Case in point, last spring I tagged my gobbler on the first morning of the season. Rather than going back home, I offered to call for a friend the following Wednesday. On Wednesday morning it was raining hard. I supposed it would only be a matter of time before the telephone would ring. I was right. At 3:45 I got the call, and it was obvious from the tone of my friend’s voice that he expected — or maybe hoped — I would call off the hunt. He was wrong. I told him to get his rain gear and meet me a few miles from my camp at 5 o’clock. After a brief silence, he halfheartedly agreed. I chuckled a little after hanging up, because I knew something he didn’t. The forecast the night before had said it was to clear up around daybreak. Even if it was wrong, I knew we still could take a short drive to another place where I had seen a farmer plowing the day before, set up inside the woods line and intercept the turkeys between their roost and the fields. When his truck rolled into the parking lot, the first words out of his mouth were, “You’re nuts,” followed by, “Do ya have any coffee?” As we sat in my truck drinking our coffee and waiting for the rain to let up, I offered a couple of game plans. We could sit in the truck until it quit raining and then hunt the area nearby and hope for the best, or we
20

Go out when it’s raining, move slow, keep your calling to a minimum and, maybe, over that next rise, you might find yourself looking down on the biggest gobbler you have ever seen.

could drive over to the plowed field I had located. He opted for the plowed field. By the time we parked and walked to the field edge, the rain had slowed to a mist. It was beginning to get daylight when we reached the halfway point in the field and stopped to listen. It wasn’t long before we heard a gobble, immediately followed by another. Both birds were in the hollow below us. Being familiar with this area, I was aware that if the birds were in that hollow they would work their way out onto the power line and then follow its edge into the plowed field to feed. We quickly set up inside the edge of woods near its intersection with the power line and waited. Although it was a damp, bonechilling morning, I was comfortable. I had worn a set of polar fleece pants and shirt under my GORE-TEX rain gear. When the birds gobbled again, I answered them with some light feeding calls followed by a few clucks. They responded immediately. At that point I elected to stay quiet and let them come to us. I have hunted many times in conditions such as this and, in most cases, the calls you hear turkeys making are very soft feeding calls; they just don’t call much. Suddenly we saw two gobblers and three hens working up the power line in our direction. When they were in range, my friend was in position for the shot. He picked the bigger gobbler and dropped it. Walking back to the truck my buddy said, “You’re still nuts. But, by gosh, you were right about coming out this morning.” I just grinned. It’s not often that a hunter can go out on the fourth day of the spring season, hunt public land, never see another hunter and kill a turkey that easily.
GAME NEWS

Pennsylvania Game News - March 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - March 2011