For Puck...teaser

Holly A. Heyser
CSUS journalism instructor and hunter Holly A. Heyser with a prize bird.

Let's talk turkey
ShareThisBy Holly A. Heyser
Special to The Bee
Published: Thursday, Mar. 12, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1D
Last Modified: Thursday, Mar. 12, 2009 - 11:05 am
For most people, turkey season ended more than two months ago when they took down their holiday lights and slapped the last of the leftover Butterball between two slices of bread. In my house, it began last week with a message on Facebook from our friends who have a vineyard in Napa County:

"We heard gobbling this morning."

The reaction was immediate and visceral: It's time.

While almost every other form of hunting in California has ended by this time of year, March 28 heralds the arrival of California's encore season: the spring turkey hunt.

Any legal game at this time of year would get hunters a little wound up. Once you've become addicted to the challenge of putting meat on the table the hard way, going to the grocery store just isn't the same.

But there's something about turkeys that winds us even tighter. What is it?

"Call and response," said my friend Phillip Loughlin, a Bay Area hunting blogger and occasional turkey-hunting guide, invoking the metaphor of perhaps the most compelling style of sermon there is. And he's right.

The essence of spring turkey hunting is using calls to sound like a lonesome hen and lure gobblers away from their harems and into your range. You call. A tom gobbles in the distance. You call again. He responds again, this time a little closer, making the hair on your arms stand up. You keep at it until he struts into range, tail fanned out, chest puffed up, his coarse, hairy-looking beard jutting from his chest. And then you dispatch him.


Everywhere and nowhere

At least that's the fantasy we chase. The reality is that turkey hunting is not a slam-dunk. According to surveys by the state Department of Fish and Game, hunters bag only one turkey for every five days of hunting in the spring. While other game birds such as ducks, geese, pheasants and doves are harvested in the hundreds of thousands each year, California hunters bag only about 25,000 wild turkeys annually.

This might surprise the casual observer. Anyone who spends any time on the American River parkway has probably spotted wild turkeys. Although they are relatively recent transplants to the state – first introduced in 1877 on Santa Cruz Island – they have thrived in prime habitat all over California. They like places with open grass for feeding and trees for roosting.

"They're everywhere," said Neal Kolesar, assistant hunting manager and the resident turkey hunting expert at Sportsman's Warehouse in Rocklin. "But just because they're there doesn't mean you're going to get them."

For starters, turkeys have fantastic eyesight and can detect minor movements at a substantial distance. Kolesar recalled a hunt with his father once at the state-operated Spenceville Wildlife Area. When they saw turkeys 100 yards off, his dad moved his foot just a few inches to set up for the shot, and that was it – the birds took off.

Ryan Mathis, regional wildlife biologist for the National Wild Turkey Federation, says that turkeys' eyesight and hearing are their best defenses. "When I'm giving turkey-hunting seminars, I tell people the best camo is to sit still."

That, of course, is easier said than done – particularly if your gun isn't pointed in the right direction when the gobbler comes into sight, as I learned while hunting at our friends' Napa vineyard last spring.


Tension builds: Ready?

I sat with my back pressed against the trunk of a scrub oak, listened as the sounds of gobbling kept moving closer to me, and kept my shotgun raised and pointed where I thought the birds would appear. Finally I saw it - that gnarled red head bobbing through the grass out in front of me.

The turkey ambled closer, just 20 yards away – check! A perfect distance. He turned sideways and showed me the outline of his scraggly beard – check! It's got to have a beard to be legal game in the spring.

But my gun was not pointed in the right direction. My hair was in my eyes. The hood of my jacket had twisted and obscured my field of vision. And if I moved to fix any of that, he'd bolt and be out of range before I could shoot.

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Holly A. Heyser teaches journalism at Sacramento State and blogs about hunting at www.norcalcazadora.com.

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LOL thanks A LOT

as if I am not hearing enough about Turkey season already... now you have to TAUNT him :eek:

You don't think about the people you are hurting DO you



:D:D:D

Thanks Caseysmom!! :D

Good read and quite true. There are two reasons why of all the hunting I do, Spring Gobbler season is far and away my favorite. First is being out in nature in the Spring. Watching the world wake up at that time of year is just amazing. I say wake up because if you are setting up on roosted birds, you have to get there and set up a good half hour before BMNT (Before Morning Nautical Twilight). Second... The chase. You just have to know how to talk to them. It is a massive challenge. I've been a turkey hunter off and on for about 20 years and am not anywhere close to being an expert at it.

Its funny you posted this today... I stopped at Bass Pro Shops on the way home from a client today and picked up a few new diaphram calls, a striker call, some shells and a Owl Hooter call. (Owl Hooters are used as a locator call. Gobblers on the roost will gobble back to a Owl.) On the trip back I was practicing with the diaphram calls. I get to the office and still have the call in my mouth because I wanted to see how loud it really was, out of the car. So I fire off a decent Yelp run. A few seconds later, Mike (our help desk guy) comes running out and says to me... "What the hell was that?" LOL

I reckon it was a bit loud. LOL

Thanks again for the post.


Tanya... It only gets worse from now until April 25th. ;)

Not an hour after posting this I went out front to let the dogs go potty and down the street were two turkeys. Now we are pretty residential here so its pretty funny to see them running over the lawns.

Turkeys sound pretty smart, and difficult to hunt! (I bet they're good eating, too.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by smokey the elder

Turkeys sound pretty smart, and difficult to hunt! (I bet they're good eating, too.)

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They are. Turkeys have incredible eyesight and hearing. To be effective, you not only have to become and STAY invisible but you have to sound sexy, to them. LOL Head to toe camouflage is a must. Being silent (except for calling) and still is a must. THEN, after you are good and 'buried', the chase begins.... You have to call, which is a art all of its own, to sound like a hen who needs some loving. LOL The goal is, generally, to get the Gobbler within 40 yards. Once that happens, ya aim at the base of the neck, where it meets the feathers, and end the game.

They can be GREAT eating and they can be horrible. Its all about how well you dress the bird in the field and, IMHO, how you pluck and clean it once you get it home. Its all about getting the body temperature down as fast as possible. I try to have the bird fully field dressed within 30 minutues of the harvest. (My buddies make fun of me because I take a long pair of those yellow gloves for dish washing with me to do the dressing. LOL) Most people deep fry the whole bird, for two reasons. They have almost NO fat, WAY less than one you buy at the store and because there is no white meat on a wild bird. The breast is all dark meat.