At 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning last week,
the turkeys were happy and in the mood for love; there was gobbling
and yelping enough that I thought they were right outside our bedroom
window. I was excited to get out the next morning for my first
turkey hunting season.
The alarm clock roared to life with a
BBC reporter in some far off land. I leaped from bed - okay, I got
up anyway, and after some messing with the switches on the side,
silenced the dratted device (sorry Darlin'; one bad thing about
retirement is that you forget how to operate your alarm clock.)
Anyway, downstairs I turned on the coffee maker and got dressed.
Everything I needed besides my coffee cup and thermos was in the
truck already, so I got out of the house yard at 5:20. Up on the
ridge, there was a sliver of a waxing crescent moon lighting up the
road and fields along it. There were no stars, but the horizon to
the north and west was starting to show some dark blue with an
orangish haze along the skyline as I pulled into our back gate with
my headlights off.
I used the red light on my headlamp to
see to pour some more hot coffee. It was 39 degrees and dampish. I
got my Ghillie style netted camo pulled over my head and boots. With
my pack ready and Wilma (my 10 gauge turkey special) lying beside it
on the pickup bed, I was ready to stalk a gobbler; I stopped to
listen. The light got better. There was no wind to speak of. It
was perfect to hear - even for me. First were song birds cheeping
nearby. Far away, down in the river bottoms, I could hear geese
stirring and there was a train rumbling one way or the other on the
Burlington tracks. There was some traffic down in the coulee and an
occasional cow lowing. I heard some sandhill cranes start up with
their rusty swing set gronking and squawking. A couple ducks quacked
by overhead. Some crows went nuts way down in the hollow behind me,
apparently rounding up a hunting party or shaming a coyote maybe.
Maybe it was someone trying to sound like that though because a hoot
owl started up right after the crows went silent, most likely coming
from the crow caller. Some turkey hunters do this to get a gobbler
to show his cards with a shock gobble. It didn't work this morning
that I heard anyway.
After half-an-hour of coffee and
listening, I picked up my gun and gear and started a slow stroll to
the other end of our ridgetop fields. Nobody bothered to gobble. I
have a special spot I like to set up along the field, so I went there
and called a bit. Around 7 I saw something brown moving in a nearby
cornfield. A coyote? (That would be almost as good as getting a
tom.) It was a doe and fawn coming up out of the Grouse Hollow for
breakfast I guess. While I was watching them, I heard something
walking in the leaves behind me. I waited. I couldn't stand it and
finally, as slowly as I could, turned my head. There was a deer some
thirty yards off. I was made. The whitetail showed its namesake and
vaporized without a sound.
I waited on the doe and fawn, now in
the woods near me. I saw more deer following their path through the
corn. Some were cavorting about, kicking at each other and rearing
up like wild horses. I managed to slip my phone out of my pocket and
set it to camera mode. I took a few shots, and then switched to
video mode. Eventually, five deer were right in front of me, maybe
15 yards out. Several were obviously bucks, maybe all of them. Then
the largest buck did something that surprised me. There are several
buck scrapes left from last fall along this woods line, but this guy
started rubbing his antlerless head on the overhanging limbs and then
licking the limbs. It defecated and urinated in the scrape on the
ground, digging half-heartedly at it when he finished. It drove a
nosey younger deer away, but the young one came back and pushed on
the big one. Then the jig was up. I had been holding my camera up
shooting video of the entire show and the young buck must have seen
me. A slight breeze was blowing right at me, so I don't think it
winded me, but it led a white-tailed race away, bounding out into the
field, stopping for a second or two to look back and then the entire
assembly disappeared. I counted fifteen deer in all that morning.
That evening a tom gobbled up the hill behind the farm, so I figured
I'd hunt it the next morning.
Thursday went pretty much the same - no
gobbling and no deer this time. I did see a tom in the corn near the
truck when I walking back to go in for breakfast. Maybe the turkeys
will get hotter when the weather cools on Monday.
Speaking of birds, I got a call from
Trevor Thurin who lives outside of Liberty Pole on Friday. It seems
that this ruffed grouse has been following him around all spring when
he rides his four wheeler. He has taken some pictures of the bird by
his four wheeler. He said it won't let him feed it, but it comes
around whenever he has the four wheeler. He wonders if the bird
isn't attracted to his slow moving four wheeler as the idling engine
sounds a lot like a grouse drumming to attract a mate. If you have
been outside and heard someone in the distance trying to start a
small engine or a tractor engine over and over again, that's most
likely a drumming ruff. Pretty cool story, but that grouse is going
to be so disappointed.
 |
| Trevor Thurin's love struck ruffed grouse |
Until next time, get out - I was
elected (by default) to be a representative from Vernon County in the
Wisconsin Conservation Congress last week at the county Fish and
Wildlife hearing for a two-year term. This should be an adventure
for me, and no doubt I'll have some things to share in this space.
Finally, you might recall the spring of
1965 when the Mississippi River took the then big hit, “Born to be
Wild” to heart. I was in 8th grade, and boys could get
out of school to help fill sand bags. I remember being eager to help
(and get out of school), but after a day and night of sand bagging, I
have to admit that I was ready to be anywhere else. One night I
helped my granddad, dad, and uncle build a dike of bags down along
Jack Oak Slough at Fred and Eleanor Yokum's beautiful new home. A
diesel powered pump ran day and night keeping as much of the muddy
river out of their basement as possible. For some who lived in
uptown Cassville, the only way to get out of or to their homes was by
boat. After the river subsided, my main middle-school partners in
crime speared carp, billy gar, suckers, northerns and more trapped in
the ditch between the railroad tracks and airport. By summer it was
one foul smelling mess.
Ellen and I were on the river Friday
and I predict we won't have to worry about high water any time soon.
Oh, we are not having fresh fish dinner any time soon either. Enjoy.
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