The Spring Turkey Hunt is On



The spring turkey hunt is on and right now, I have not been able to get out due to the inclement weather we have had in southwest Iowa and eastern Nebraska.  There is one person that I know of that has had some of the finest sucess I have ever seen in this part of the country and that is 11 year old Chloe.  This is her second big tom she has shot, but this guy takes the blue ribbon.  A 32 pounder taken with an Remington 870-20 guage.  This young lady also hunts big game and has harvested some really nice deer.

The smile on this successful hunter is the best part of the picture.

The following article is a reprint from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website, and further information can be viewed at the following link.  (http://www.iowadnr.gov/)

The eastern wild turkey offers one of the most challenging hunting experiences available today and appeals only to the most dedicated outdoorsmen. Wild turkeys have extremely keen senses of sight and hearing and are normally able to avoid human contact so successfully that hunters often do not detect their presence. The instincts for survival are most highly developed among adult gobblers, making them among the most sought after trophies in North America today.

RedHead Reality Series Slate Friction Turkey Call

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Turkeys are hunted during two seasons – spring and fall – which are differentiated by styles of hunting and the primary quarry. Spring gobbler hunting is most widespread because shooting males has no impact on the future growth or dispersal of turkey populations, even at the new release sites. Turkeys are promiscuous, with only the largest, most dominant males obtaining harems of a dozen or more hens. Non-breeding males are thus available to hunters at no cost to the population. Even heavily hunted areas seldom sustain hunting losses of as many as 50% of the adult males.

Carry-Lite Pretty Boy Turkey Decoy Set

I use this combination, and it is dynamite.  The big toms come running to do battle.  Click on the link or the picture to price and buy from Bass Pro.

 The principal spring hunting method is to locate toms gobbling from the roost at daylight and attempt to call them to the hunter by imitating the yelps, clucks, cackles and whines of a hen ready to mate. Hunters wear camouflage clothing and sit completely motionless for as long as several hours to escape detection by keen-eyes gobblers. Success rates for spring hunters in most states average about 30-40%, but are in the 50-60% range in most of Iowa because of the excellent turkey densities found here. Because 10% of the hens also have beards (the hair-like appendage hanging from a tom’s breast), any bearded turkey is legal game in the spring.

Chloe with her big boy and decoy set in the background.

Fall turkey hunts usually are allowed only in states with well established turkey populations. In Iowa, the combination of excellent turkey populations and a decrease in fall hunting demand, has allowed a 3 bird bag limit, until the quota is filled. More young poults are produced than survive the rigors of winter and escape from predators to reach the breeding season, thus allowing limited fall hunting before much of this natural mortality takes place.

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I wear a leaf suit.  The turkeys eyesight is their best defense weapon.  You must hide well. Click on the link or the picture to price and buy from Bass Pro.

The most common fall hunting technique is to locate a flock of turkeys, scatter then as widely as possible, and call back broods by imitating the assembly yelps and clucks of the adult hen or kee-kee of lost poults. Gobblers are not particularly interested in finding hens in the fall, making them extremely difficult to call and shoot. Inexperienced young turkeys return readily to the hen and commonly make up 60% or more of fall harvests. Fall hunters also use complete camouflage. The results of Iowa’s hunting seasons can be found at:   http://www.iowadnr.com/wildlife/files/trkindex.html.

 
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Good hunting, good fishing and good luck. Hank.
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Turkey Season is Upon Us

Of all the game I hunt, my friends seem to really enjoy wild turkey.  It is now time to get at it, and the two most important things I do is to remind myself of the habitat they live in and where they roam.  Since I have access to four different farms, I scout them out ahead of the season and visit with the landowners to find out where they have seen turkey activity.  That has not happened yet this year.

The weather is eastern Nebraska and western Iowa has been miserable to say the least.  The cold keeps hanging on and with it comes the humidity.  Periodic snow showers and lots of wind have made this one of the worst springs I have ever seen.  Having said this cheery piece of news, there was only one thing to do.  Get out of town.  So my wife and I headed down to Savannah, Georgia for a little R&R and to warm up our cold bones.  I am a little behind on getting my scouting done, but it is supposed to warm up and clear off this week.  Therefore, I will be going farm to farm visiting with binoculars and coffee.

The information below is from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website, and it is an excellent source of information.  Reading all the DNR websites where a person hunts of fishes is a great way to gather information.  (http://www.iowadnr.gov/)

 Habitat

Wild turkeys are primarily birds of the forest. The eastern subspecies found in Iowa and most of the United States east of the Missouri River thrives in mature oak-hickory forests native to this region. Turkeys primarily eat nuts, seeds and berries (collectively called mast) produced in greatest abundance in middle-aged to mature stands of oak trees. Turkeys are large, strong-walking birds capable of covering a range of 1-2 square miles in a day, searching for suitable food items by scratching in leaf litter. These “scratching” – piles of leaves adjacent to a small plot of bare earth – are characteristic in good turkey habitat and indicate that turkeys have been feeding in the immediate area.

Carry-Lite Pretty Boy Turkey Decoy Set
Click on the link above to buy from Bass Pro.

I hunt this combination with great success.  A good decoy with a dominant Tom and some hens will make the big toms mad, and they will come running.  Click on the link above to price and buy from Bass Pro.

In winter, turkeys rely primarily on mast for food, although in Iowa and other agricultural states they are capable of substituting waste grain in harvested corn and soybean fields, where it is available adjacent to timber. When snow covers their native foods, or mast crops fail, corn fields supply an important supplemental food capable of carrying turkeys through winter stress periods in excellent condition. Turkeys are often seen in crop fields during the winter taking advantage of the waste grain in the fields in Iowa. Large flocks of turkeys observed in crop fields have raised concerns of crop depredation by agricultural producers. Wild turkeys are actually beneficial to crop fields, since they primarily consume insects out of fields during the spring and summer.

  RedHead Crow Call
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A couple of toots from a crow call will cause the toms to answer back.  Then you know where they are hiding.

In spring and summer, a turkey’s diet switches to a wide variety of seeds, insects and green leafy material. Protein derived from insects is especially important to rapidly growing poults during their first weeks after hatching and to adults replacing feathers after their annual summer molt. Hayfields, restored native grasses, and moderately grazed pastures are excellent producers of insects and are heavily utilized by turkey broods where they are interspersed with suitable forest stands. These grassy areas also provide suitable nesting sites. Turkeys roost at night in trees year around, except for hens sitting on a nest. Any tree larger than 4 inches in diameter at breast height may serve as a roost tree, but larger, mature trees are most often used. Eastern turkeys shift their nest sites almost daily, seldom roosting in the same tree two nights in succession. Certain areas of their home range (area a turkey occupies throughout a season) may be used more heavily than other locations (e.g. a ridge of large trees near a feeding area or a stand of large evergreen trees during very cold weather).

RedHead Enigma 5 Ground Blind
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A good ground blind is an essential as it is movement they sense.

 In Iowa, the abundance of food and nesting areas in non-forested habitats (corn fields, pastures, hayfields, restored native grasses) has allowed turkeys to survive in areas where forests are limited. In traditional turkey range, minimum timber requirements of 10,000 continuous acres of mature forests are commonly thought to be necessary for wild turkeys. Research indicates that areas with a 50:50 ratio of forest with properly managed non-forested habitats is ideal turkey range, and a minimum of 1,000 acres of timber is ideal to allow a turkey population to thrive. Since the restoration of wild turkeys to Iowa, turkeys have been found in small 2-3 acre woodlots, much to the surprise of wildlife managers.

  

Good hunting, good fishing, and good luck.    Hank

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To Hunt the Great Beast of the Plains

In the mountain states and the high fence hunting camps, I keep reading about hunting buffalo.  My wife said to me, "Why would you want to shoot one of those beautiful creatures?"  Well, my answer is that the Indians had no trouble hunting them, and as a food source there is very limited fat and cholesterol.  Plus they are high in protein.  This makes them a very desirable food source, plus you can hunt them in the wild or semi-wild. 

A personal friend had a severe heart attack a couple of years ago, and being from western Nebraska, beef was his main source of meat.  Not any more.  He switched to buffalo, and added chicken and fish.  If you haven't tried it, you will find it a little dry, but it has an excellent flavor. 

The first thing was where to go.  Surfing the net took me first to South Dakota, home of the Sioux and Mount Rushmore.  Plus, Custer State Park has a hunting opportunity.  The website is full of information, and I found this very inviting.  Licensing is available for both residents and non residents.  The tag costs range in price for a trophy bull at $5,000, a non trophy bull at $1,500 and a cow at $1,000.  South Dakota requires a guide and as I studied the website, it left me with the impression that the price includes the guide.  There is a preference point system and it is a limited draw.  If you do not draw, but apply next year, your odds go up on getting a tag.  Camping is available in the park, and there are motels outside the park a few miles away. 

The state of South Dakota uses hunting as a method to manage the herd.  Check at their website for more information. http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/big-game/custer.aspx

Besides the state area, there are several large scale ranches that have buffalo and provide a wide variety of services.  Since you would be hunting on private ground, there is no license requirement.  The hunting fees that include lodging, guide, and field dressing, range in price for a trophy bull to a cow.  This depends on just how first class you want to go to harvest an animal.  I like to be taken care of when I hunt buffalo. 

Checking Wyoming, I found the license to be $2,502 for a non resident.  Ouch! I did not even look further about hunting state land.  It should be noted that in Wyoming a license is obtained on a draw basis.  They also utilize a preference point system whereby you can purchase points to increase your chances of obtaining a license.

Just like South Dakota, Wyoming has some excellent opportunities to hunt private ranches and enjoy the comforts of an excellent hunting lodge and fine food.

I checked with High Adventure Ranch.  There was an opportunity to hunt Bison and just a few hundred miles from my home.  I failed to draw an Elk tag this year for Wyoming, and High Adventure Ranch offers Elk hunts.  With excellent guides, food, and lodging, plus I have been there before, my plan is hunt Elk with them.  While there, I can check out the Bison hunting.  http://www.highadventureranch.com/

After reading over the various websites, I found they recommended to use a minimum of a rifle with a 30-06 capability, and the preferred round by one site was a 300.  A muzzle velocity of 2,200 feet per second was advised as a minimum.   Besides being beautiful, these are really big animals and it takes a big bang to bring one down.

My friends in western Nebraska were paying around $9.00 per pound when they purchased it from a packing plant in South Dakota, and that was dressed out and processed.  Consider a 1,500 pound animal processed out at 40%.  That would be around 600 pounds of meat.  At $9.00 per pound, it would almost be the same as a hunt at a high fence ranch. 



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Turkeys, Fish, and Weather

The weather in SW Iowa and Eastern Nebraska just does not co-operate.  First there is the constant cold.  Well not really icy cold, it is a damp cold that just goes right to the bone.  The golf course lake we live near is frozen over one day and thawed the next.  We have been getting a few snows, but nothing like the east coast, that just seems to get one blizzard after another.  Then there is the constant wind.  We never have this much wind that I can remember, but we are getting it now, and with the cool temperatures it makes it that much worse.  This is western Iowa, not Florida, and you need to plan on it every year. 

My batteries are charged up on the boat, and I keep waiting for Lake Manawa just a couple of miles from my home to come up in depth and warm up.  The DNR has told me countless times this is great walleye lake, but my success has been nothing to brag about.  When it gets warmer, the plan is to fish the lake early in the morning and late in the evening.

When it come to fishing, the plan is to head to Stockton, Kansas and fish Webster Reservoir. This will be my first stop when the weather turns.  Kansas has some outstanding lakes developed for irrigation purposes.  The state has done an outstanding job of stocking and maintaining great populations of fish.  This is done by using a slot for the fish caught.  Below a certain length you throw it back, and also above a certain length you throw it back.  I really like this system.  It provides excellent fishing for as long as the lake exists and remains healthy providing there is a good spawn. 

When you come off the lake, there are people employed by the state of Kansas to inspect your catch.  They are taking measurements and keeping track of what is taken out.  Using a netting method, the wildlife division of the state nets the fish and determines the density and the sizes of the fish in a lake or reservoir.  Pulling into the lake there is a state office there with wardens.  Stopping to visit with them is really important.  They know daily what has been going on, and I have never been disappointed with the advice given.

The next stop will be up to Webster, South Dakota. I am hoping I can make it up there in May and June.   Right now it is a snow covered prairie, but when it warms up and the ice comes off the 30+ lakes, this area is a bonanza.  I have never fished all the lakes and I learn of a new one each time I head north.  Fishermen like to talk.

The lakes were all formed from the glaciers as they traveled south digging out low spots in the earth many thousands of years ago. The rains over the last few years filled up the low spots and formed amazing lakes.  With the state stocking walleye and other game fish, on a good day it can be the best you have ever experienced.  A few years ago a friend and I, over a 2.5 day period, caught a minimum of 150 walleye apiece each day throwing them back as fast as we caught them.  Catching a possession limit of nice size fish was no problem.  It hasn't happened to me lately, but I always have good luck. 

The important thing about fishing South Dakota is the weather.  I highly recommend if possible to plan your trip around days with high pressures and days with modest wind and southerly flow.  It does change up there frequently and you can really run into some rough days. 

The turkeys in SW Iowa and eastern Nebraska are in amazing abundance.  That is the good news.  The bad is you still have to hunt them in the usual fashion;  hiding, calling and waiting.  The farmer up at Fort Calhoun, Nebraska called me to make sure I was coming up.  He is seeing some really big toms, and the farm is mine to hunt.  Up north of Tekamah where I shot a 28 lb tom last year, the opportunity has really expanded.  This property is landlocked and full of timber and pastures and makes for excellent hunting with the abundance of birds.

In Iowa, just a few hundred yards from my home is a wooded pasture.  I have permission to hunt this field and have done really well late in Iowa's last season. Driving by the farm, the turkeys are thick.  

The weather will change, the winds will move to the south and beautiful weather will prevail.  I will be hunting and fishing as there are mouths to feed.



Good Hunting, good fishing, and good luck.  Hank
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