Fall Beckons

I gave up on bow hunting this year due to a bum shoulder, and that has meant a lot of free time. That's okay, we had a 4-day family squirrel hunting trip, and a bunch of time to scout. Moose, #2 son, is hunting as an adult for the first time this year. That means he can be separated from Dad for the first time. The result has been a lot more activity in our woods, and a lot more time afield.

It has also meant a lot more contact with the turkeys. A morning does not go by without contact with one flock or another. The Gobbler's Knob crew and the Hundred Acre Wood crew have met up with us whenever we are in the neighborhood. We also frequently run into the Honey Hole mob, and the Soggy Bottom Women's Auxillary. No one seems to mind. We just keep quiet and the flock moves through, keeping a polite distance. I like to cluck here and there just to let them know that something IS out there. That way we do not have any rude surprises and a lot of unnecessary running and putting and such.

There has been one surprise out of all this. One of my food plots that is frequented by the Honey Hole's Two Jakes has become the focus of attention for a new crew. I just discovered them last weekend. I was up the ladder at Midway, a new ladder stand I have parked between two clover fields. An earlier trip to Midway had shown a massive flaw in the design of the stand. Midway is a recycled buddy stand that I cut from 15 feet down to 12 due to a badly bent section of ladder. After a complete redo, I put it up in a thin tree line that lies between my new food plots. The idea was to use it as a late-season rifle stand with 150- 190 yard shots. I was up in it last Friday night, with my binos, some liver pate and a flask of a good single malt, glassing a herd of does when the dominant female decided that she didn't like what was up in the tree and slowly left. As it grew dark, and I got down, I could see why. The light from the sky was shining through the burlap skirt and it made me nearly naked to the world. I went back up on Sunday morning after squirrel hunting to add an opaque layer of fabric underneath.

I had no sooner started when a brand new flock of turkeys entered the field. They came by way of the Honey Hole, so at first, I thought it was that crew. However, it seems that two younger hens had a bumper crop of poults this year and a total of nine turkeys came out into the far end of one of the plots and did a line-abreast sweep of the field before doing a column-wheel-left right under my stand and went back the other way. Two of the turkeys were a bit larger than the others, so I figured they must be the Mommas. The rest were all 2/3 scale turkeys-- cute little buggers. They held up my progress for a good half hour, but the show made it well worth it. None of the ones I saw had the size feathers I have been picking out of that field. So I figure the Two Jakes, The Soggy Bottom Boys, and the whole Honey Hole crew must be mixing it up here and there in the two plots.