Final Touches for Opening Day

In his book titled, Bowhunting Turkeys A to Z, Tim Knight recommends adding plastic garland and fake leave to the bow riser as camo. During the 2014 fall season I came across a strand of autumn colored grape leaf vines. After stripping the fabric leaves from the plastic vine, I added them to the bow.  In addition to hiding the bow, the leafy texture made the bow wider giving me something to hide behind too.The 3D leaf treatment made some of my hunting buddies laugh but it didn''t matter because it worked so well.  Several times I was able to draw on birds looking my way. Even after a miss there was always an opportunity to nock another arrow and try again.

 Makes sense. Some of the best camo is the Ghillie suit  and my leaf suit works well to help me blend into the surroundings. Some fear the bow will be loud or the garland will make the bow shoot just a tad different. No worries with either. The only caveat is being sure the leafy plastic doesn't contact the arrow or block the sights.

The naked Elite Energy E 35 ready to begin the makeover

A variety of artificial leaf and plant garland

All dolled up.

Youth Weekend Saterday Wrap-up

After warming up with breakfast we decided to just relax before heading back out sometime after 9. We have heard gobbling from down near the swamp between 9:45 and 10:00 each day during spring vacation. For this part of the day, Nate wanted to run and gun skipping and premeditated setups preferring to traverse the swamp calling and listening for a gobble response.

At best we covered half a mile in 30 minutes. Stopping to call every five laps of the second hand of my digital watch gave us the opportunity to play with a variety of calls. Nate ran the box while I ran a multitude of scratch boxes on multiple strikers.  I'd also take an occasional pass of a poplar striker on a maple topped tongue call. We just kept calling and moving, calling and moving. Eventually we left the swamp to take a peek into a stand of hadrwood; mostly maple and a few oaks. The sun had come out and the rocky knoll on the north side of the trees was warm. The early morning wake up had caught us low on energy so we sat down to take in some rays and drink a bit of water.

The woods were quiet except for the sound of the wind moving almost unobstructed through the bud tipped branches of the trees. Nate tipped the water bottle moving the water towards his mouth and was interrupted by an extremely loud and unexpected "gobble gobble gobble" from behind the knoll.  The peace shattering call of the love struck tom sent water all down his front. Surprised, I jumped clear out of my camo leaf suit too startled to laugh at Nate's unexpected shower. The gobbler could not have been further out then twenty yards and was separated from us by a mound of earth. We ducked in behind a small outcropping of rock.  I handed Nate a shell to load into the single shot Winchester and reminded him to verify the target had a beard and not to become target fixated and before pulling the trigger to check the back ground to be sure the entire shooting area was safe.

Nate taking a few pulls on the JL boxcall before getting an impromptu shower when a close gobble startled him.

Thirty seconds into the "just heard a close gobble" eternity had passed and not a sign of a bird. After a perceived minute (which might have been ten seconds or ten minutes) a few clucks were sent out with the tongue. The initial gobble startled me and the tongue call was the only thing I had hung on to; the rest of them were scattered around beneath the maple being pressed into service as a backrest. No response. Both Nate and I sat pie-eyed scanning the woods for the beast which had scattered my calls and sent water all down Nate's belly.

Our scrambling must have spooked the bird and when the adrenaline hit wore off we realized our mistakes, collected our things and began the walk up the hill to the old logging job hoping the more open terrain might yeild a result.

The first set of rootstocks was the next place we sent out a random call and immediately had a far off hit on a gobble. This time we gently positioned ourselves putting the upturned roots between us and the direction we expected the birds to travel from. A few more exchanges between the scratchbox and multiple toms gave us confidence we had a good bit of cover. Soon, six birds were seen skulking through the slash and leafless puckerbrush. I had a bead on them and Nate had the shotgun but no sighting. Two males were spotted in the group and hung up at 80 yards. After 30 minutes (by the actual watch and not my adrenalin addled brain) the birds gave us the middle feather and moved up the hill away from our setup. I'm confident we didn't get busted and the birds just grew bored of us playing hard to get.

Re-energized by these two encounters we began moving uphill. There was only an hour left to pull the trigger so the run and gun tactic had an element of scouting the terrain for the Sunday outing. After gaining 500 feet of elevation Nate hammered on the boxcall and immediately had a gobbler answering back. Nate took cover behind a moss covered and rotting stump while my spot was leaning up against a convenient log.  The spot was pretty ideal. Bright sun all around with us stashed under the shade of the small patch of hemlock. The gobbling grew louder and a bit more frantic. Nate saw the tom strutting in a small clearing of matted ferns. My view obstructed by low hanging branches and sticks.

Not a bad spot to hide

Each time I ran one of the calls the bird would take a step closer only to be pulled back when it reached the edge of the fern mat. The white headed tom was either wise to the hunters calls or chained to his place by a few unseen hens lurking off the other side of a stand of honeysuckle. for pride's sake lets just believe the guarantee of close hens trumped the potential for new hens to breed with over in the hemlocks. Soon the tom strutted off waving the middle feather in our direction. My watch toned noontime and opening day of Vermont youth season came to a close.

Getting Closer

With youth weekend only a few days away it was time to get in some site specific scouting.  While my preferred method of turkey hunting a a bow, at 11 years old,  my son Nate uses a 20 ga. shotgun. Eventually he'd like to hunt turkeys with a bow so until he can draw enough weight to make an arrow lethal, a good pattern of shot is the ethical way for him to hunt.

We spent the better part of an hour setting posts to support the patterning paper and revisiting basic firearm safety before breaking a single shot. Lecture over and Nate slid  round into the breech of his single shot 20 ga. Winchester. He took aim at the spray painted facsimile of a turkey head and neck , cocked the hammer and began squeezing the trigger. Boom, the report momentarily broke the silence of the late afternoon. Breaking the barrel kicked the spent shell in a tumbling arc terminating in my outstretched hand. The bras was warm and felt good on my cold hands.

The pattern was really nice at 20 yards and serviceable at 30. His aim was spot on so the remainder of the box was sent downrange from a variety of shooting positions. Nate has been shooting almost his entire life and must send a tin of pellets through his Beeman every week so he is a very good marksman. With shotgun testing finished, the time to head to the woods and locate some birds was next.

We are fortunate to have several neighbors who own large tracts of land and allow us free reign to hunt the parcels. Most of the land is a mixture of hardwoods (mostly maple, oak, ash, and beech) and softwoods (pine, hemlock, larch) set along hillsides with a few benches and wet areas. There are hayfields but nothing plowed. All together there are a few hundred acres. The cold temperatures and lack of sun have kept the snow until just recently. Most of the scouting has been going for early morning walks and listening for gobbles.

The local woods

When scouting I am very hesitant to use any call but a crow or owl as locators. Calling as a turkey might find birds but the paranoia of educating the toms or having them believe the "hens" they seek are just playing hard to get has me leave my calls at home. Several walks revealed three good locations for gobbling and evening roost walk have verified the locations.

This is one big oak tree. The 11 year old is for scale.

Never sounding a turkey call during the preseason isn't perfectly true. Part of the enjoyment of hunting turkeys is building my own calls My favorites are scratch boxes and the unusual vibrating tongue. I've never made a boxcall but did receive one as a gift. This call, padauk and cherry, was made by JL Custom Turkey Calls (http://www.jlcustomturkeycalls.com/index.html) and is kept in my car to be available for practicing while waiting to pick up my children from afterschool activities.

JL Custom Turkey Call box

Mud season has been so terrible this year.  To avoid driving on dirt roads, my car was left at a friend's house with close proximity to asphalt roadways. Commuting to the car has necessitated transferring my belongings from one vehicle to another. The mud has become firm enough to warrant bringing the car back to the house. While transferring my belongings from the truck to the car, the JL boxcall slipped out of my hands and onto the driveway. Just for fun I ran a few clucks, purrs and yelps before placing the call into the car.

Thirty minutes later while sitting at my computer the faint sound of gobbling comes through the walls. "No way." must be the perceveration on the upcoming season making me hear things. The sound is heard again but louder. My daughter is on the couch and mentions the gobbling. Sure enough, gobbles from three birds emanate from the woods. My best guess is they were less then 150 yards from the house doing their best to locate the "hen" yelping from the driveway. In all the years making calls and practicing, tuning, and experimenting outside there has never been such vocalization from the birds in the woods living near the house. The call is most definately heading into the woods with me this season.

Just some random scratchings in the woods

Youth weekend starts in seven hours so it's off to bed for the 4:00AM start to the day.

They will disappear once the season opens but it is so nice to dream

Youth Weekend Saturday Update

Nate and I were out the door at 4:15 to begin the 15 minute walk to the setup we scouted yesterday. The walk helped us warm up and store some heat to combat the 28degree pre-dawn. At 5:20 we heard the far off gobble of a bird we know is roosted on the edge of a horse pasture  not available for hunting.

There were other gobbles emanating from posted land and our hope was to call something to the gun. By 5:45 all gobbling had stopped. At 6:30 we were cold and broke the set up to begin the walk back to the house for a hot breakfast. The plan is to head out at 9:30 to a spot we've heard mid morning gobbles.

Scouting and Prepping Arrows

Scouting while there is still snow on the ground always feels a bit desperate and slightly futile. There are no dusting holes; wing drag marks; water is everywhere; and only the occasional track which disappear with rising temperatures. The season opens in sixteen days and youth weekend in nine.

The woods will transform quite a bit in the next few weeks. Temps are predicted to be in the high 60s. Bright sun and wind will melt the last vestiges of snow at an alarming rate and soon the bloodsucking insects will hatch and begin their hunt for food. The melting snow will reveal  caches of food for the birds and the north facing shaded areas will keep bugs in hibernation for another couple of weeks. Plants will not start growing new shoots and seeds dropped last autumn will not sprout in the still frozen ground. The turkey foodstuff locations will be quite different opening day so why even begin to scout?

Simple answer is scouting beats sitting around inside wondering about the happenings in the woods. Early morning walks chart the progress of the thaw and which edges of field are warm enough to begin providing nourishment for the animals of the forest. This time of year is a good time to become reacquainted with the sounds and rhythms of the dawn.

The quiet of the morning’s walk is broken by a far off gobble and recalibrated my ear to the sweet sound of hunting season. Soon there is another and another as toms awoke and begin searching for a mate.  When the sun reaches the base of the trees bordering the flat cornfields, a tom sounds off a few hundred yards away. Leaving the calls at home was a good thing as the temptation to lure in a bird might have been too great to resist. Why take a chance of educating the birds a ten minute walk from the back door? Save it for opening day.

After breakfast and delivering the kids to school, the next order of business preparing for the season can take place when domestic chores and duties have been completed. My goal as a bowhunter is a quick and efficient kill. The head and neck shot are the most effective way to either make the kill or miss clean. The head shot isn’t so much for humane reasons as much as the demonstration of skill required to make the shot. For me, the kill is about style over substance. Last season I was able to fire about a dozen arrows and only connected once. Using a mechanical broadhead required a solid hit to expand the blades and put the bird down for good.

It pains me to admit it publicly, but I’m not quite that good of a shot so this spring the first bird tagged will be taken using a guillotine style fixed broadhead. The Magnus Bullhead is well regarded by bowhunters so I had Kevin, owner of the local bowshop (Kevin’s Custom Arrows in Vershire, VT) order me a three-pack while I waited for the new Muzzy M.O.R.E. heads to arrive at the shop. The Muzzy will collapse for transport before opening up to a fixed blade head. In theory this seems easier to travel with but we’ll see.

There is a story I remember from studying the American Revolution when in grade school about the Colonists melting a statue of King George and returning the metal to the Redcoats as musket balls. Not sure of the story is true but the idea of returning a gift by propelling it with a weapon is pretty fun. What can I return to the turkeys? Feathers, used to stabilize my arrows on the path to the side of a tom’s head.

Taking a wing feather from the bird to the arrow is quite an undertaking. Below is a photo essay of the process. I'll shoot them tomorrow and report how they fly.

The raw materials

Splitting the feathers along the quill.

The basic grinding jig. The split feather is clamped between the metal plates holding it straight so the drum sander can remove most of the quill. The washer on the base of the sander limits the depth of the grind.

The setup on the drill press. The shop vac grabs most of the feather dust,

The ground feather in the cutting jig. The jig will finish to a 4" shield cut.

A quick rap with a hammer and the feather is cut and ready to be fletched or colored.

A small mason jar with soapy water removes the oils from the feather allowing the coloring to penetrate. A similar mason jar filled with dye from an Easter egg coloring kit adds color in about 15 minutes.

The red and blue feathers were dyed by me. The red and orange stripes are factory coloring

Four feathers fletched onto an Easton 2315 aluminum arrow. If these fly well my hope is to polish a few aluminum arrows to bright silver. Camo is too difficult o find after a miss.

The 125grain Bullhead.

On my palm just for scale.

The large diameter head requires a much longer arrow to remain clear of the bowsight and more importantly, my fingers. Here the guillotine arrow siting besides the arrow used with the NAP Gobble Getter mechanical head.

Getting Ready for Spring 2015

The spring season  is drawing near. Opening day is three weeks ahead and just like my inability to buy holiday gifts with time to spare, I'm not at all prepared for the big day. My license has yet to be purchased; my hunting arrows have yet to be sighted in; my calls, well, they are all set. Been making them up for months and have at least one short box, scratch box, diaphragm, and  tongue call in my car and truck.

My freestyle calling and rhythm accompaniments to modern pop songs is getting pretty good. We'll see if the gobblers respond to the refrain from "Uptown Funk" and the monotony of Maroon 5 or Taylor Swift. Not great music but fun to accent with clucks and purrs with a yelp or kee kee run in transitions from one chorus to another.

Hunting stories are starting to fill the internet turkey forums. Hearing tales of misfortune and good luck is beginning to put a bit of urgency into my preparation. The edges of fields and the areas below the evergreens which remain somewhat sheltered from the snowfalls have begun to melt. Seeing the flocks of turkeys scratching about looking for something to eat is becoming more common. Axel deep ruts on many of the dirt roads hinder the ability to keep an eye out for birds. Occasionally a south facing field has melted off and the Toms are puffed up and strutting for the hens which are too busy looking for food to notice the display. Seeing this makes me happy. Birds survived the winter giving me hope for an eventful spring season.

Strutting Toms and hens ignoring them. Soon the flocks will break up and the season will get underway

The woods roads are melting out and with any luck, gobblers will replace skiers.

Looking for something to eat.

Weather is the wildcard. This past winter in Vermont was colder then usual. Each month from November through March there was at least one night with below zero F temperatures. February had a few hours where the thermometer read above freeing. The snow arrived  before Thanksgiving and most of the woods have at least a foot still to melt. Must be similar in most northern states. Right now the snow is falling at three inches an hour. In the morning some fortunate turkey hunters will be running a scratch box while I'm running a snowblower.  Not to worry; last winter we were skiing the local cross country trails until tax day and the hunting was fantastic.This year, despite the cold and current snowfall we put the skis away last week.The trails become the shooting lanes during the summer so it's time to prepare the bow.

Might still be able to ice fish after noon on opening day. Still three feet of ice on the lake.

People very often ask why hunt turkeys with a bow and not a shotgun. I wish there was a good sportsman's answer and there isn't even a bad sportsman's answer. The reason I enjoy hunting with a bow is the quiet. Not the stealth quiet of the silent arrow but the quiet of training. To be able to hit a turkey in the head with an arrow at twenty to thirty yards requires a lot of shooting. Shotguns are fantastic but loud. Shooting is a meditative activity for me and archery can be  practiced at any time of the day without bothering anyone.
My family is fortunate to have two dedicated ranges at the house plus the back porch to shoot from. There is a 50 meter International Biathlon Union legal biathlon lane and another 100 meter archery line. The archery line doubles as a rifle range when we feel like shooting a bit of 1/5 silhouette or plinking tin cans. Even the neighbors are not too close but close enough to hear the report of firearms.

There is also the experiment of seeing how difficult it might be to feed oneself using just a bow. Granted, modern equipment makes it a bit simpler and the ultimate goal is taking a turkey with a home built bow. In the meantime we'll practice up with the training wheels and rifle quality sighting gear. This season I've decided to try some guillotine style broadheads and will report on this in a future post.

Eighteen months ago I decided to go back to school and earn a masters degree in environmental law and policy. I began looking for a job six months ago and have had a few phone interviews but not much else. Feels like a gobbler responding to a yelp and then nothing; exciting at first but ultimately a letdown.

To stay busy and figure out some wood combinations for a kitchen cabinet retrofit I began making calls. What grabbed my fancy has been scratch boxes and vibrating tongue calls. The scratchers are made on a milling machine and the tongue call bodies are cut on the tablesaw. A jig guides a small router to separate the tongue from the top. It took a long time to learn to make and tune a simple scratch box and many fires were started with reject tongue calls. Eventually, the calls began to sound like turkeys and if I can't take a bird with a homebuilt bow I feel good about being able to take one with a homebuilt call.

A few vibrating tongue calls. These are a combination of bodies being some combination of cherry, maple, purpleheart,  and walnut. The playing surface is either walnut or beech. The bottoms are either curly maple, walnut or cedar.

These scratch boxes are made from a single piece of wood with a top cover to give the calls contrast. They play well on pegs made from walnut, beech, ipe, maple or slate. Each peg gives the same call a different sound.