Location is KEY

Big gobblers, like the left one, must be played carefully

Big tom turkey’s don’t get old or big by being easily fooled. Timeing and location play key roles in turkey hunting success. photo Dave Richey ©2012

There’s an old real estate adage that almost everyone knows. The key thing to remember is location, location, location. Where the land or home is located means almost everything.

This old saying also holds true for turkey hunters. Location means everything, and if a hunter is going to have any kind of success with a big gobbler, he must be in the right spot at the right time.

So far, I’ve talked to just two people with a first-season turkey tag, and neither man has found gobblers yet. Both cite high winds, rain and on again, off again cold weather and snow as various excuses.

We had some snow on the ground yesterday

One guy was looking for birds near home, and his brother was scouting a nearby area. My buddy checked where he’d seen a gobbler fly up to roost the night before, and estimated he was 150 yards away.

He waited for dawn, listened to the bird gobble once from the roost tree at about 6:30 a.m., and called twice, and that was all it took.

That bird might have come to him if he’d called, but the season is still about two weeks away,” he said. “The bird flew down from the tree, and shut up.”

His brother, who had not seen or heard a bird, and had traveled to what would be a new hunting location when their season opened. They walked into the area, sat down with their backs to adjacent trees, and began to listen for birds.

“I soon heard a bird that wasn’t very far away,” he said. “I listened to him for 40 minutes. He seemed to have a couple of hens and lesser gobblers with him. We sat still and never spooked the birds.

That’s one way to play the pre-season scouting game

“At first we thought there was just one bird but it turned out to be two adult gobblers traveling together. Finally, one split away from the other, and came our way only to be spooked by a roaming coyote. Those birds should still be around when the next season opens.”

Well, that just might be a bit of wishful thinking. All scouting does right now is show and tell you where the birds are today. They could be, and quite likely will be, two miles away when the season opens. The birds often do return to an area eventually if they are not badly spooked.

I’ve heard it mentioned many times by turkey hunters that they believe gobblers and hens may be spooking from decoys. If there is no wind, and the decoy doesn’t move, the bird won’t come in. Obvious, this isn’t an across-the-board belief, but some birds seem definitely afraid of one or more decoys, and a scouting hunters should never put out decoys before the season opens.

More and more people are using decoys now than ever before. It stands to reason that some birds are spooked by the fakes.

Being in the right spot at the right time is crucial to success. I don’t consider myself a great caller, but I know enough not to call too much once my season opens. Finesse the birds a little, don’t call too loud so the bird gets spooky, and chances are good you can close the deal on a gobbler. The trick is to be patient, and don’t call too loud or too often.

Years ago, my wife and I drew first-season hunting tags, and we got set up early, and she wanted to take her gobbler with a bow. I had her sitting inside a hunting coop. I had three decoys — two hens and a jake — positioned in front of her with the jake only 15 yards away.

I sat outside with my back to a big tree and waited for the first gobbler to sound off. A few crows called, and then he tuned up the volume and rattled the trees in that woodlot. I gave a soft tree yelp, and he gobbled again and again while I remained silent. It’s part of the teasing process.

Here’s a bit of good advice to try on a solitary gobbler

As a southern buddy used to tell me: “Tell ‘em what you think they want to hear, but give them a pack of lies. Make your calls sound too good to be true, be patient and they may come.”

Five minutes passed, and the longbeard gobbled again, and I gave a soft tree yelp, waited until he quit gobbling, slapped my pant legs a few quick times to simulate a bird flying down, and could hear that bird busting branches as he flew to the ground.

He gobbled again on the ground, came walking through the woods, walked within three feet of my boots and strutted out to whup on that jake decoy. I could hear him drumming and spitting, and he gobbled out a challenge to the jake decoy, and walked in to smack the fake bird around.

The gobbler offered Kay a good shot, and that was the end of that bird. It wasn’t the largest gobbler she has killed, but doing it with a bow was a major accomplishment.

A year earlier, much the same thing played out as I called in a nice gobbler for her, and she took it with a shotgun. In fact, I’ve called in most of her gobblers over the past twenty years.

A person can be the best caller in the world, but if he is in the wrong spot, there will be no birds racing in his direction. Personally, I’d rather know where the bird is roosted, and be a mediocre caller, than to be in the wrong spot with championship calling skills on my side.

Location to a turkey hunter, as it is to a real estate agent, is the most important part of the hunting equation. It’s what can put a tasty bird on a turkey platter this spring.

Just make certain your scouting efforts don’t spook birds out of the area, and for Heaven’s sake, be smart enough to leave your calls at home while scouting before the season opener. The birds don’t need more of an education than they already have, and it pays to scout with binoculars or a spotting scope. Find the birds, drive away, and know where a few birds may be when your turkey season opens.

Avoid these turkey hunting mistakes

Do everything right, and avoid Mr. Murphy, and you can shoot a bird

Hunt wild turkeys long enough and you’re gonna make a blunder or two. That’s bankable. photo Dave Richey ©2012

“Keep your powder dry” was the motto in the 1700 and 1800s when muzzleloading hunters and frontiersmen roamed parts of North America. Those who failed to follow that sage advice often went hungry or had their hair lifted and cut off below the roots.

My list of hunting mistakes with game, especially turkeys, is endless. Years ago, while hunting in a heavy rain with a muzzleloader, I forgot to cover the muzzle. I set my front-loader against a tree with the powder and shot charge in the barrel but the shotgun wasn’t primed.

I set out my decoy, retreated to my chosen spot, and primed the muzzleloading shotgun. A large number of gobblers and hens came, and milled around in a tight circle near the decoy, and I couldn’t shoot for fear of killing more than one bird. They eventually left, and I called again.

Make certain to learn the exact location of a roosted longbeard

A lone gobbler a half-mile away answered, and I sweet talked him with a soft yelp and some hen jabber with a push-pull call. He came running up. I saw him first at 30 yards, and then he dropped into a little dip in the ground, and popped up again at 20 yards and stopped. The shotgun was up, and when I pulled the trigger, the primer went off with a pop. The powder did not.

I’d forgotten to put a balloon or anything else over the muzzle to keep my powder dry. The Pyrodex was a black semi-liquid. It was a lesson well learned and never forgotten.

I took a guy out one day, late in the season, and spotted a jake 150 yards away. This guy wanted to shoot a gobbler, and beard length didn’t matter. It took 30 minutes to bring the jake within 80 yards, and the guy was aiming at the bird.

“He’s too far away,” I whispered. “Don’t shoot yet. Let him get to within 35 yards.” He said the bird was only 35 yards away, aimed and shot.

The young gobbler hauled tail feathers into the woods. The man maintained the bird was only 35 yards away until I asked him to give me a prominent landmark where the bird had been standing. He said the bird was right near that little bush that stood three feet high.

He was urged to pace it off in approximately 36-inch steps as I walked beside him counting the paces. I got 80 steps and he got 77 steps, and then he realized the mistake he had made. It was the last gobbler we saw that day.

Pay attention to distance and don’t take long shots

This didn’t happen to me but to a friend. He knew, within 50 yards of where a gobbler had roosted the night before. He snuck in the next morning, and stopped well short of the roosting area to wait for the first gobbles of the morning. The sun came up and all was silent.

He gave a very soft tree yelp or two but nothing responded. He stuck with it, and finally with a great deal of impatience, he uncorked a loud yelp on his box call and something happened. A big gobbler bailed out of the tree he was sitting under, and it flew 75 yards, hit the ground a’runnin’, and that was it. He had set up directly under the gobbler and missed his big chance.

Two friends, on their first gobbler hunt, went looking before dusk and spotted several dark birds on the ground. Just before dark they flew up into a tree. These guys knew about roosting birds and were happy.

Be positive roosted birds are wild turkeys

They returned the next morning well before dawn, set up about 100 yards away, and waited for the day to wake up. Tweety birds tweeted, crows cawed, and they yelped on box calls. They could see several dark forms in the trees, and called again and again.

Eventually the birds flew down, and went to where the hunters had seen them the previous night. No amount of calling seemed to work, so one of them slowly eased his binoculars from his backpack, and with infinite patience, eased them up to his face and studied the birds.

The birds they had roosted the night before were not real turkeys. They were turkey vultures, and they were feeding on carrion on the ground. They admitted it, and took their share of ribbing.

There is only one sure thing when turkey hunting. Murphy’s Law always applies, and simply stated: If anything can go wrong, it will. Keep Mr. Murphy in mind, try to outguess him, and sometimes the gobblers react as you plan and the hunt is a success.

Of course, when we mess up, it’s still good for a laugh even when we don’t feel much like laughing at our silly mistakes. Trust me on this: if you hunt wild turkeys long enough, you too will make a blunder or two.

No safe ice yet

Seeing a fish in an ice hole is tempting, but wait for safe ice.

Ice gives ice fishermen two different options to consider. One is to ask questions of bait-shops and local anglers before venturing out onto any ice or they don’t ask. That’s the way it works most years, but certainly not this one.

Let’s face one very important fact. Anyone who has spent much time on the ice over many years has probably seen someone fall through. I’ve gone through three different times. That I sit here on the computer every night writing personal blogs means I survived each incident, but I haven’t forgotten them. It also is a gut-wrenching event, one that smart folks never forget.

Those who have gone through, and lived through the experience, often gaze toward the sky, and murmur a very special thanks.

Preparation for any eventuality on ice is just common sense.

It also means that a person should always be prepared for such an accident. Most people fret about falling out of a tree, so they buy a safety harness of high quality, learn how to use it, and if by chance they do fall, they survive. Ice anglers should always take precautions.

People believe such things only happens to other people. Anyone with some intelligence can see how such ice accidents can and do happen. For many it means a bitterly cold bath but they survive.

Michigan’s weather is amazing. Last week’s temperatures didn’t make any ice, and the this week anglers are being warned to stay off any half-frozen lakes and streams, if they can find any ice.

Read this and repeat it as if it were a mantra: There is no really safe in the Traverse City area now. Some small bog ponds may be froze but only a fool would venture out on them.

It’s well known that ice doesn’t freeze uniformly. Lakes that set down in a valley often freeze up first because cold weather settles, but those same lakes often are the first to get covered with water and slush during warmer weather, and then the ice becomes unsafe.

Large lakes are slow to freeze, especially those with deep water. Good examples of such waters are Crystal Lake near Beulah and Higgins Lake near Roscommon. Some of these lake may not go over (have safe ice) until next month, and then waters like Grand Traverse Bay at Traverse City may not freeze at all. If it does freeze early, it’s often goes out in mid-February, and the thaw usually comes early. Be extremely cautious at all times. So far, as of yesterday, there is no ice.

As it stands right now, very few lakes in the northern counties have safe ice. Now, very few lakes have any ice following the warm spell and high winds.

What’s a person to do? First thing is to check with local bait shops to determine ice safety. The other thing people can do is stay off the ice until they are certain it is safe.

Thin ice kills people every year. Avoid that temptation.

Me, I like at least four inches of hard blue ice under my Ice Man boots. Six inches is even better, and I’m most comfortable with 10 to 12 inches. Some anglers go out on Saginaw Bay, but as prone as that ice mass is to breaking away from shore on a stout west wind, it pays be very cautious.

A few smaller lakes near Traverse City are good for bluegills and sunfish, and Spider Lake can be great. Nearby Platte Lake has very poor ice conditions, and any ice is very unsafe. The same holds true for Long Lake, another popular spot.

I dearly love to fish through the ice. I also like to continue breathing, and you won’t find me out on a lake with a skim of ice. I know many people who put their lives at great risk, as well as others who might try to save them, but it’s senseless to do so this year.

Burt and Mullet lakes in Cheboygan County should be producing walleyes and some perch, but again, conditions are bad. In-flowing and out-flowing streams make safe ice problematic. Warming weather hastens a sudden ice melt, and ice can turn treacherous.

Be patient for safe ice, and if it doesn’t happen, wait for next winter.

Anglers would be smart to hold off for another week or two, and realize right now that there may not be much, if any, safe ice fishing this year. It all depends on whether we get freezing temperatures at night, and allow everything to stiffen up again. A second freezing (after a melt) often doesn’t produce great ice so keep that in mind.

Risking one’s life on inland lakes and rivers is not worth the effort. The best catch of game fish in the world isn’t worth taking chances with your life. The safest and wisest thing to do is to watch and wait for good ice to form

Local bait dealers know when the ice is safe and where the fish are biting. Keep track of conditions with a phone call or two, and don’t take chances. Going through the ice is a harrowing experience, if you survive, and a tragedy if you don’t.

The worst case scenario — death by drowning or exposure — is the other possibility. Neither option appeals to me or other sane people.

Little Things can Change a Hunt

The result of good planning and the plan working out.

Many hunters think of bow hunting as a huge-antlered buck standing motionless at 20 yard with nothing but a few low-growing weeds and air between them and the deer.

This so-called calendar pose is what many short-term bow hunters expect to see while hunting. They’ve been conditioned over many years to expect such a shot, no matter how unrealistic it may be.

The same hunters seldom think of spotting a nice buck, his head held low, as it ghosts through a cedar swamp or tag alder tangle. The truth is that while an occasional shot is taken at a broadside, head-in-the-air buck, the reality is much different than what our imagination tells us is true.

The little things about bow hunting should tell us that a buck seldom offers an easy, open shot. Often, the animal is partially screened by brush or is standing in thick cover. Deer often stop when their vitals are screened by thick brush.

I’m not naive enough to believe they deliberately do so.

One of the little things that hunters must learn, and practice faithfully, is an extraordinary amount of patience. Hunters who get strung out by a motionless buck that doesn’t move are usually unprepared for a shot when the deer does move.

Patience is something all of us must believe in. It’s always better to sit motionless, and if the buck doesn’t move before shooting time ends, chalk it up to another night when the deer outsmarted the hunter. Such things happen far more often than most of us care to think about.

Sitting motionless and silent is far preferable than trying a Hail Mary shot that may make it through the brush to the buck’s vitals, but for whatever reason, it rarely does. Taking a low-percentage shot only educates or wounds deer.

There have been countless times when I’ve spent 30 minutes to one hour waiting for a good buck to move that last 10 feet to offer an open shot. More often than not, they refuse to budge and shooting time ends with the animal still standing motionless in thick cover, still looking around.

Another little thing to remember is to stay in your stand until the buck moves off by himself. Start crawling down out of a tree, and you’ll have ruined that stand for the rest of the year. Just hang tight, remain silent, and let him move when the mood strikes him. Wait for someone to come looking for you, and let them spook the deer rather than you doing so.

Building your patience level doesn’t occur overnight. It takes time and a great deal of practice, and blowing some possible shot opportunities, before you acquire the necessary skills to wait out a slow-moving deer.

Don’t do something stupid if the buck is slowly making his way to you. Perhaps you are in his travel route, and if you sit patiently, the buck may move to you. If you haven’t been calling, and suddenly start calling to a nearby deer, the animal may turn away. It may or may not spook, but if the deer keeps coming to silence, don’t introduce something new into the equation because it could backfire.

Be very cautious about dropping things. I’ve seen bucks and does stop 50 yards away because they saw something they don’t like. I once watched a buck come a long ways only to stop just out of easy bow range.

Why the buck stopped was beyond me, but stop he did, and he kept looking on the ground along the edge of a tag alder run between us. I studied him through binoculars, and tried to see what he was looking at, and it remained a big mystery.

He left without coming the 20 yards necessary to provide me with a clean shot within my established shooting distance. He walked off and soon disappeared, and as shooting time emded, I eased from the stand and walked over to that spot.

It took a moment of looking around but I found what had spooked the deer. A hunter had moved through that area while hunting grouse and woodcock near the alders, and apparently had shot at a bird.

I found an empty 12 gauge shotshell, and it was laying somewhat in the open where the setting sun would glint off the brass. It wasn’t much, but from where the buck had stood, there was still a tiny glint of sunlight there. The buck knew something was different, and turned and took another route out of the area.

It’s some of these little things that can make or break a bow hunt. Always be aware of what is going on around you during a hunt because it can affect how deer react.

Accurate shooting requires good optics and lots of practice

Dave Richey with big Alaskan moose.

The truest form of respect  we can give to the animals and birds that sportsmen hunt is to make a clean, killing shot, whether with a bow, muzzleloader, pistol, rifle or shotgun.

The thing that many anti-hunters are against are wounded animals. I have people contact me, and some say they are ill-prepared for the shot. A bad hit is the result of jittery nerves, buck fever and/or an inability to shoot straight when an opportunity presents itself.

People who regularly hunt make killing shots. Most of them hunt with a bow, even during firearm seasons, but others also hunt with a muzzleloader or center-fire rifle. When they aim at a deer, and pull the trigger, the animal goes down and dies instantly.

True hunters help keep excess deer in line with livingng space and food supply.

There is no long, lingering chases to finish off the animal. There is no long hours spent blood-trailing a deer for miles. There are no cases of someone taking a hasty shot, and making a bad hit.

These hunters have one thing in common: they can shoot straight, and they don’t miss. One man has shot eleven bucks, and he takes only one each year. Five were taken with a bow and none ran over 75 yards, and four died when the arrow sliced through both lungs.

The other two deer were taken with a flat-shooting rifle with a 140-grain pointed soft point. Both deer were hit low behind the front shoulder, and both deer died instantly where they stood.

Another man shot a big 10-point last fall after he had hunted the animal into December. The buck made a mistake, walked past the hunter, and one arrow killed the buck. It went just 50 yards and tipped over.

What do these men have that other sportsmen don’t have? They have the patience to wait for a clear shot, and the ability to put an arrow or bullet in that spot.

They know they have more time to shoot, and are in no hurry to do so.

They practice shooting all year. The centerfire rifle usually doesn’t come out of the gun safe until just a week before the Nov. 15 firearm opener. They may shoot the rifle a dozen times in one day before the season opener, and they are familiar with their bow or firearm. They know that when the rifle’s cross-hairs center the heart-lung area that the deer is dead but doesn’t know it just yet.

An old hunting question has been around for more years than I can remember, and it goes like this: People don’t ask, can you? They ask, did you?

A big black bear from Ontario.

Good hunters know that when they put the bow sight behind the front shoulder of a buck, that animal will go down. They shoot regularly, never exceed their shooting abilities by taking long bow shots, and they know how and when to draw and shoot. The deer they shoot are unaware of danger because these hunters play the wind every day.

These men and women are not casual hunters. They work hard to learn as much about deer as possible. They know how and where deer travel, and soon learn when the animals will come near their stand.

They never take hurried shots, and never take a low-percentage shot. They know that tomorrow may offer a better opportunity, and are willing to wait until all conditions are in their favor. They never make a mistake when shooting game, and they respect those animals they hunt.

I once shot a 6X5 elk in New Mexico at 350 yards. Elk are very big critters, and when my Swarovski scope’s crosshairs settled low behind the bull’s front shoulder just as he finished bugling and he’d emptied his lung, the trigger was squeezed and the bull died instantly.

Another time I shot a very nice mule deer across a side canyon along the north rim of Arizona’s Grand Canyon with a 7mm Magnum at 450 yards. One shot, and down he went. My guide said he’d never seen such a shot. There was nothing for me to say because I’m accustomed to long shots, know my firearm and know what it can do

Practice in aiming, handling and shooting a rifle is the key to making good shots.

Hunters must practice, and I don’t pretend to specialize in long shotsm but I only shoot when I know from past experience that I can make that shot. Some of it isa result of  practice, and most of it is knowing that the shot can be made. Both of these shots, no brag, were instant kills.

Hunters who can do this on a regular basis have no need to brag about their prowess, never make the deer appear dumb or stupid, and they never show the animal any disrespect. Many have learned over time that hunting means more than just killing, and also know that the meat from these animals will grace their table all year ’round.

They know that hunting is something more, much more, than killing a small deer with tiny antlers. They are willing to pass up young bucks, knowing that two or three years on a buck will allow them to take a trophy buck of their dreams.

More so, they are hunters, 365 days per year, and that is why many are so deadly in the autumn woods. They have the patience, skill and practice to do everything right. They don’t have to think about it but just react to the situation.

Thinking too hard on anything can make it more difficult than it should be. And that, my friends, is a direct quote.