Outdoor Odyssey

Finally, Wednesday afternoon, getting out to go hunt a gobbler, no luck this time, but after I had been in my hide for about thirty minutes, out walked a full size, turkey hen.  This was a big one, not the hens that I saw on Sunday afternoon, they were young ones, jakettes, or properly, jennies.

The big hen saw the two, hen decoys that I had put out and made a bee line for them.  Right away I started snapping pictures of her. 

None turned out except for this one, where she was looking in my direction, probably trying to figure what was that thing in the creek bottom, behind the cedar tree?  The hen was twelve feet from me when I got this "shot"!

Having finished my taxes, when this posts, I'll be in a different "hide" trying to lure in a gobbler.

Hope springs eternal!

As the sun was coming up on Saturday morning, April 3, I was tucked into a “hide” along a creek where last month I’d spotted turkeys roosting in the trees along the same creek.  There had been nine birds but it was too far to make out their sexual proclivities, probably hens?

This morning, to whet the big birds competitive spirit I was using two decoys, a gobbler and a hen.  Maybe this would draw out a suitor?   No luck and by 9:30 AM the sun was up good and in my eyes so I called it quits.

Saturday afternoon I was in another hide, in a different creek bottom, behind a cedar tree, practically invisible.  One hour into my hunt, around 6:30 PM, out walked two hens.  They looked at my two decoys and couldn’t figure what was going on.  Not being able to unlimber my camera, I froze, they fed along and walked right between the decoys and me.  Holding my breath the two hens moseyed along to within fifteen feet.  I didn’t move anything, even squinted my eyes, both birds looked right at me and just kept moseying!  Probably if I had even blinked, both of them would have been long gone!  Exciting, but no meat on the table.

Sunday, being Easter was a no hunting day, Layla and I had to attend a funeral on Monday morning and now, income taxes have reared their ugly head, so it’ll be hit and miss on the turkeys for the next two or three days.

But still, hope springs eternal.

Last year, a terrible drought stricken spring led to a poor turkey season, but two days before spring season opened, I “shot” these pictures of a nice, gobbler that responded to my calling.  My “hide” was a good one, he came within ten feet of me and these were the best shots” that I had all season.

However, this morning at sun up, the 2010 spring turkey season opens in Mills County, Texas.  The big, birds have been moving around and, during my scouts, I’ve heard scattered gobbling.  It looks like this year the State has gotten it right, timing the opening day with the breeding season.

As this is posted, with two decoys out, I’ll be scrooched into a hide along a creek on the southeast side of my ranch.  Turkeys have been roosting along this creek and maybe today I will entice a gobbler?

Hope springs eternal!

Below, we pick up Howard Bryan’s tale of another turkey that succumbed to his muzzle loader.  At the time of this story, Howard still lived on his farm in Appomattox County, Virginia.


“Turkey Stories
      By Howard Bryan

A few years later I was headed to the back of our farm, hoping to get some tender venison for the freezer.  Again I was carrying the flintlock.  As I approached the edge of the mature oak woods that covered the Western part of the farm a flock of turkeys flushed, and flew to the West.  

I thought that they would fly across the creek bottom behind the ridge where I flushed them and that they would go to the next ridge over, so I ran as quickly as possible to the Northern edge of that ridge.  I had no sooner settled between a large oak and some thin cedar scrub when I heard the turkeys talking to each other.  I did have time to get rid of the bright orange scarf I wear when moving about during hunting season before a doe and a young, slightly spotted fawn approached in company with the leading turkeys.
 
Now turkeys, with their keen eyesight and sensitivity to color; and deer, with their keen sense of smell and their acute hearing; are a bad combination for a hunter. Either will give an alarm, and everything close around the alerted animal will flee.  Fortunately the slight breeze was in my face, and I had not walked into the area where the deer were moving, so scent was not a problem.
 
As I raised the rifle barrel the lead turkeys veered slightly away, just over the ridge, so all I could see were bobbing heads.  The doe and her fawn saw the movement and froze.  None of them spooked.  The decision was, doe or turkey, since both were in season then.

I decided on the turkey, since I would have to shift about 30 deg. left to cover the deer, which was already alert.  Sure enough, one turkey's head and neck bobbed right into the line of the barrel.  I aimed and shot, breaking the turkey's neck.  The distance wasn't great, about 35 yards, but it was one of the most difficult shots I ever made; one that my wife still calls the luckiest shot she ever heard of.   It's difficult to impress some women!"

Besides blogging, I have spent time researching my ancestors and particularly intriguing, was why my 2G Grandfather, John Bryan, sometime prior to 1847, changed his surname from Bryant to Bryan.  Having drawn to a dead end trying to trace his forebearers I stumbled onto an old Bryan, family tree, then researching various wills, probates and other family trees, surmised that indeed, he changed his name.  

Posting a story on Ancestry about the name change, soon I received a note from Howard Bryan in Virginia thanking me for clearing up a similar problem he had with John’s Father, Benjamin Bryant.  It turned out that Howard and I, besides a common ancestry, enjoy hunting.

He sent me two excellent, stories about his turkey hunting exploits with a muzzle loader!   Each is a neat story and I want to share the first with everyone.


"Turkey Stories

One year while we were living on our farm in Appomattox County, VA, I was doing taxes on the last day of deer season.  Needless to say, it was an irritation.  While the old computer was digesting the expenses for the winery we were operating at the time, I was preparing to clean my flintlock rifle so I could put it away until the next year.  It still had a charge in the barrel from the previous day's hunt.  As I was about to discharge the weapon to clear it, I decided that taxes could wait for a few minutes, and I walked into the woods about 200 yards from the winery.
 
I went into the woods a few yards to a small stream and leaned against a tree  where I had been seeing deer.  In a very few minutes I heard some scratching, and a turkey flew down off a ridge to the South and landed in a tree.  She was followed by several more - I counted eleven in all, and all of them were looking at me, in my blue sweater and red shirt.  The closest bird was about 110 yards away, which is a very long shot for a flintlock, even one as good as the one I was carrying.
 
Jim Hash of Appomattox County, had made the rifle for me a few years before, and he had stocked it with part of a wild cherry log from our farm that I had given him.  It is a .50-caliber weapon with a 41-inch half round, half octagon barrel rifled for round ball.   I have shot 3-shot groups at 50 yards with that rifle that overlapped like a clover leaf.  All the mountings are iron except for a thumb piece of coin silver so it is a real hunting rifle, not a flashy thing.

I watched the turkeys for a minute, trying to decide how to sneak up on them while they watched.  Finally I decided to be brazen about it, and walked towards them, zig-zagging my path, whistling a tune.  I was able to nearly halve the distance before the nearest bird started acting anxious.  By the time she started shifting like she was going to fly, I was behind a large poplar that served as a rest for the rifle.  I needed that rest, for I was no longer exactly calm.

The 13-lb hen started moving at the flash from the pan, but the ball caught her at the wing roots, and she fell at the base of her pine tree.  Needless to say, I went back to the taxes with a better frame of mind once the bird had been cleaned."

Darrell had gone to north Georgia to help one of his girlfriends move to a new trailer park leaving Dwayne (pronounced Deewayne) home at their place between Cartersville and Kennesaw Mountain.  During the past week, Dewayne had called my hunting partner Craig Harmon, now deceased, and said that he had found a couple more coveys of birds along a creek we had frequented the past season and Craig had immediately set us up for a hunt the coming Saturday afternoon.

Ready to shoot some birds, on time Saturday, we arrived at our designated “meet.   After the one plus, hour ride from Sandy Springs, Rooster, my Brittany, was ready to hunt and we began along a flowing creek, lined by harvested soy bean fields on both sides.  We were soon into the first covey, Rooster hard on point, and dropped two quail, the balance of the birds high tailing it into some thick cover on the other side of the field.  Dewayne, ever the gentleman, said, “I’ll go root those birds out of the cover.  Both you all want to come with me?”

Dwayne in the lead, we didn’t find the flushed covey, but clearing the thick cover, there standing before us and looking right at us, was a turkey.  No fall season in Georgia, so I yelled at Dewayne as I saw him raising his shotgun, “Dewayne, don’t sh,’ bam’, oot!  He had just dispatched a domestic, hen turkey
.
Happily, lifting up the bird, he exclaimed, “How about taking a picture for me?”  We declined explaining, “A picture of this illegal bird could really get you into trouble!”  Two weekends ago his twin brother Darrell had shot a rooster out of a tree and now Dewayne shoots this turkey.  As Dewayne was taking the turkey back to his old truck, we took this opportunity to end our hunt.

Tuesday morning I had put my turkey decoy out near an above ground water tank and as the sun came up, snapped this picture of the decoy.  As the morning passed, I saw a squirrel come up for a drink, but he was to far for a picture.

Noticing a branch move as a cardinal launched itself toward the ground, this fellow lit right next to me and surveyed his realm.

When all was deemed safe, his mate followed suit and both “posed” for this picture.

Still no turkey, but springtime in central Texas is really nice and just being out and seeing the beauty is plenty of reward!

On April 2, before turkey season opened on the 4th, dutifully doing my scouting, I called up this magnificent Rio Grande gobbler and snapped this picture when he was ten feet from me.

Saturday morning, high wind and all, I was in a good “hide”, had my decoy out, was calling and awaiting “big boy” to show up.  He didn’t show and I didn’t see a bird.  Same results the afternoon of the 7th.

Tuesday at 10:00 AM I was walking over to work in my garden when I saw movement in my field, about 400 yards away.  Getting my binocs and camera, sure enough it was a hen, turkey, strolling and nibbling across the plowed ground.  That black, dot, just below the cows, is the hen.

It figures, Layla and I both had doctor appointments Tuesday afternoon in Temple, so, no hunting.  I’ll be out tomorrow though!