Pennsylvania Game News - April 2016 - 12

bridge over the Monongahela River.
I proposed a different plan. We
needed to drop into some sheltered
hollow, out of the wind, where we could
hear any gobbles, and where a turkey
might hear our calls.
Aaron persisted, however. "I know
there's a gobbler up on that ridge. Why
go somewhere else and hunt cold?"

Entering & Leaving
the Turkey Woods
The final two weeks of the statewide
spring gobbler season are open to all-day
hunting. But during the youth hunt for
spring gobblers (April 23 this year) and
the first two weeks of the statewide
season (April 30 to May 14), hunting
hours close at noon, and hunters are
asked to be out of the woods by 1 p.m.
This recommendation serves to protect hens, and increase the chances their
nests will be successful.
While nesting, hens hold tight in thick
cover for most of the day. But they leave
nests briefly for food and water, and this
occurs most often during the middle of
the day, when temperatures are hottest.
If hens are disrupted while off the
nest, these otherwise short trips might
be extended, leaving eggs vulnerable to
dropping below minimum incubating
temperatures and failing.
Hens also lay eggs during the period
from late morning to early afternoon,
and many hens still are laying during the
early part of the season.
The chance for disrupting laying or
nesting hens decreases significantly as
the season goes along, which is why allday hunting is permitted during the final
two weeks (May 16 to 31).
While hunters are asked to leave the
woods midday early in the season, when
hens are more vulnerable to disruption,
returning in the evening in attempt to
locate gobblers for the next day's hunt
causes minimal threat to hens, and is a
common practice.
12

Resigned, I concluded this was his
morning. He got home only rarely and
he deserved to plan and implement the
hunt the way he wanted.
Still, I couldn't resist a little wisecrack.
"Kids today," I quipped to Jim. "Raise
'em up and they never listen to you."
"The last thing you want outdoors is a
'yes-man,'" Jim cautioned, loud enough
for Aaron to hear, and we decided to
follow my son through rain and wind,
out the ridgeline to where he'd last heard
the tom.
Just before dawn and during our trek
along the ridgeline, the rain stopped
pelting, but the wind still bored up and
over the ridgetop, herding funnels of
dried leaves through the trees.
We set up two decoys in the trace of
an old logging road that ran the ridge
spine. We then backed off to a spot just
south of the crest, and set up as a group
in a position that roughly suggested a
baseball field.
Our decoys were standing at second
base, Aaron was seated against an
oak at third, Jim was stationed under
another big tree at first base, and I, as the
designated caller, was assigned to home
plate. The set-up was Aaron's idea, based
on his belief that the bird he'd heard the
evening before was somewhere over
the crest in what would correspond to
centerfield. His hope was that if the
gobbler came toward our calling, either
Jim or he would get a shot. For an
hour I cast what I thought were futile
yelps into the wind, and Aaron clucked
occasionally with a wood-peg pushbutton caller. We heard nothing but the
gale, and the only bird life we saw was
one pileated woodpecker that sailed over
the ridge, nearly sideways in the wind.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - April 2016
