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New born elk calf with mother
I shot about 1500 photographs this holiday weekend and a few came out. Here is a sampling I’ll post more and some stories from my weekend in the very near future. For now enjoy the photos and I’m off to bed.
Photo & Story by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose
The board wasted no time in naming Rob Keck’s replacement shortly after his departure. George Thornton takes over the organization after the shake up that saw two executives forced out and the sudden resignation of Rob Keck in response to the shake up.
Thornton brings 36 years of agribusiness experience in a variety of positions and organizations. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University. A Georgia native, he has lived in five states, four countries in addition to visiting more than 50 other countries. He currently resides with his wife, Beth at Creekside Farm, Elberton, Ga. with plans to relocate to Edgefield, S.C.
Mr. Thornton takes over an organization that has pretty much accomplished it’s original mission of restoring the wild turkey and needs to redefine its mission to remain as a viable organization with many outdoorsmen. NWTF has never reveled what the audit showed that lead to the departure of the two executives so speculation persists in many circles. Many feel there has been lots of money has been spent to fund extravagant hunts for executives within the NWTF. Whether this is true or not I can’t say but I’ve certainly heard it many times when talking with people about the NWTF.
NWTF does a lot of great stuff, getting kids into hunting, women to join our ranks, as well as assistance to help those with handicaps to enjoy our sport. NWTF also works to restore habitat for turkeys as well as other wildlife. I’m sure that these things will continue and to work into the new mission of the NWTF under the leadership of George Thornton.
Story by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose
Joe Fuller from Holly Springs may have killed a new world record gobbler or at least a new North Carolina state record. The bird had 8 beards and scored a whopping 195.5 and is just waiting to be certified. The Thursday Outdoor section of the N&O had the story;
At first glance, Fuller thought the bird had two beards but when he got it back to his truck and laid it out on the tailgate, he and his hunting partner, Russ Zaft from Fuquay Varina, were amazed to find this bird had eight beards.
Each beard contributes to the total score along with weight and spur length by the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) scoring method. The total score of 195.5 points, when certified and registered with the NWTF would best the previous world record by one and a half points.
Turkeys have really taken off in North Carolina and this is great to have a potential new world record coming out of our state. Go check out the rest of the story and find out what part of the state this big boy came out of.
Story by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose
Every Thursday the News and Observer runs an outdoor section which is pretty good. In a day when many papers have long abandon the outdoors as a place to make cuts the N&O continues to run it weekly. I highlight articles from them often but I rarely point out how good it is to have a newspaper that still writes about hunting and fishing. Many times they pick up outdoor stories from other parts of the country like they did today with a turkey hunting story out of the Miami Herald.
They also feature local stories as well like this weeks story about NC State students learning how to shock fish to study the health of a lake.
If you have a local newspaper that devotes any type of coverage to the outdoor sports you should be grateful and supportive. So a tip of the hat to the N&O for writing about the great outdoors every week.
I was in the mountains this past weekend and witnessed a wide array of weather and the power of Mother Nature. Storm cells rolled through much of the state brining severe thunderstorms, hail ( some the size of baseballs), high winds and tornadoes. North Carolina was not hit as bad as some of the other states across the Midwest and the Southeast where deaths and injuries and major property destruction were reported.
Monday morning on the back end of this front the temperatures dropped, in some of the higher elevations snow squalls were reported overnight, where we were in Boone NC we witnessed many trees and branches down along with traffic signs bent over by the strong wind. Wind gusts were being reported in excesses of 60 mph in Boone yesterday morning.
We had planned to do go up on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Grandfather Mountain so I could do some photography work. The Blue Ridge Parkway was littered with limbs and shredded leaves not unlike what an area looks like after a hurricane rolls through. The wind was pretty strong and at times I had difficulty just standing up when some of the stronger gusts hit.
We stopped at one of the visitor centers on the parkway and the outside thermometer read 30’ a bit cool even for the mountains this time of the year. I’m sure the wind chill made it felt closer to 0’F.
We arrived at Grandfather Mountain to discover it was closed but hopefully parts of it would be opening latter in the day. Talking with Grandfather Mountain staff the conditions on the summit was bad with 100 mph wind and numerous trees down all over the mountain blocking roads, buildings and trails. With only the morning free we returned to the Blue Ridge Parkway and continued our exploring there. We did find some turkeys working a field that was blocked from the winds.
Once back in Boone we had a lunch meeting to attend and as we sat there I couldn’t help but notice as the clouds broke up and the sun beamed down how beautiful a day it was turning out to be. We had to return to Raleigh so I ride back was much like Saturdays ride with lots of sunshine. Hopefully I’ll get up on Grandfather Mountain one of these days when it’s not so crowded like it is in the height of the tourist season.
Story & Photos by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose
Saturday Morning, well before daybreak, I was slipping across a field to reach the blind I had set up the evening before where I had observed two gobblers hanging out. I set out two hen decoys and a jake decoy in front of the Ameristep blind and then I settled into the blind to wait for daylight. Daylight came rather uneventful, I didn’t hear any gobbling and nothing was responding to my calls.
About 8am I heard a gobbler off to my west he sounded like he was in the far field. He only sounded off a few times, with this tract of land being mostly agricultural fields with minimal woods it makes it hard for us to run and gun. There is 3 of us hunting this property which means we all need to stay in our spots so we don’t spook the birds off the property and on to neighboring lands or mess up each others hunts.
The wind picked up as the morning went on and I was regretting I didn’t use stakes to hold the blind down. Around 10 am or so one of the decoys blew over so I took the opportunity to stretch my legs a bit and fix the decoy. While standing amongst the decoys I caught movement off to the west and here comes a gobbler strutting on the other side of the farm road. I duck down and the slope of the land blocks both of our views and I hightailed it back to the blind. Shortly after that he came over the top of the hill but was angling across the field away from me. I tried calling to him with a glass call but it was not loud enough to reach him over the wind. I switched to a box call but to no avail as he walked away from me and into the small strip of woods on the far end of the field.
Shortly after that I succeed in reaching him with my box call and he gobbles at me. Over the next 3 hours he circles completely around me in the sliver of woods that surrounds the field. I never see him come out of the woods but he could have but with the wavy land it is possible he came out in places that were not visible.
A little after 2 pm I catch a glimpse of this turkey approaching from the same direction as he did earlier in the morning. This time I was ready and I caught his attention with my glass call. He started heading towards me. Once he caught sight of that hen that was making those sweet sounds he hit the accelerator and raced on in. He was doing a half strut as he came along and once he got close enough to catch sight of that Jake decoy he locked up about 55 yards out. What seemed like an eternity but was just a few minutes he hung in the high weeds with just his head sticking out. I switched to the opposite side of my Away Hunting Turkey Call that has a sweet slate call. Some soft purrs put him at ease and he came on in at a trot. Once he got up on the Jake decoy he ran around it and the stood off about 10 yards behind it. I had my gun up and was able to get the shot off dropping him where he stood.
I paced it off and it was 38 paces getting close to the end of the effective range of my turkey set up. I believe that the combination of the lateness of the turkey season as well as competition from other gobblers that made this guy so difficult to get to commit to my set up. He appears to be a rare 2 year bird given the bad couple of hatches we have had. 18 ½ lbs, 8 ½ inch beard and 1 inch spurs. It has been a few years since I filled all my turkey tags but my season is over with the tagging of a second bird. In my view if you want to be successful you need to adapt and consider using all legal methods to fill your tags. PS I was wearing my Lucky Moose Hat from Mace Sports
From my own experience and the anecdotal information from other hunters the season has been an odd one. Many hunters are reporting hearing a lot less gobbling then usual and seeing less gobblers. We know that the past two hatches have not been good and that is certainly contributing to the strange season. Of course even with the bad hatches the ever expanding turkey flock across the state has given more hunters opportunity to hunt turkeys.
In today’s N&O Outdoor Section Alex Webb had a great article about how the season has been going and some suggestions on tactics to bag a late season gobbler. What really caught my eye in this article was NCWRC information on the number of birds tagged in the first 6 days.
Evin Stanford, the surveys and research biologist for deer, turkey and boar with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, looked at harvest figures through the first six hunting days of the season and said there had been 4,268 gobblers shot compared to 3,950 in 2007 and 4,475 in 2006.
“It looks as though we are going to have a pretty strong season. Of course, if we have really rainy Saturdays from here on out, then that can affect harvest. But if we just have normal weather conditions, then it looks like we are going to have a pretty strong harvest this year, probably above last year,” Stanford said.
Well that’s great news and why we shouldn’t put much stock in anecdotal information because I would have bet the kill was way down. It appears that we are entering the second gobbling phase where the gobblers will gobble more and be more apt to seek out hens because many of the hens have gone to nest. Even with this phase it is not necessarily any easy because you got to factor the past two weeks of education on calls, decoys, and hunters the gobblers have gotten. I think late morning and early afternoon will be the best bet for finding a lonely gobbler so good luck.
Story & Photo by Dan McLaughlin (AKA Moose)
As turkey hunts go this was quick if you only look at today’s hunt but I had already spent a fair amount of time attempting to be in the right spot. Mistakes while turkey hunting are usually costly but today I was able to over come a big goof and still wreck Tom’s day.
The alarm clock going off at 3:30 this morning woke me up from my very short slumber as I got ready to go hunting. This was the second morning in a row I answered the bell so early and to think it’s my day off from work. Rick was waiting for me when I pulled into our Alamance County lease he hunted here yesterday and had some pretty good action while I hunted in Caswell County only seeing hens. We split up based on where the birds had been the day before so hopefully one of us would be in the right spot.
I was sitting in a blind on the edge of one of our food plots with a hen & Jake decoy set out. I hadn’t been in the blind long when the first gobbler in the woods behind me sounded off. As the light increased so did the gobbling and it appeared that the birds were basically in the same places they had been the morning before. All in all it seemed we had 4 or 5 gobblers all around us so the morning was looking pretty promising. I did some soft calling once I was sure the gobblers had hit the ground. I heard a number of hens calling and moving towards the gobblers and away from me and towards the front end of the property. I just hoped one of the gobblers would come to this field.
One gobbler in particular got my attention as he gobbled and gobbled getting closer and closer to my set up. As long as he seemed to be getting closer I just kept quiet and watched the woods line where I felt he would come out. After a few minutes he didn’t show and I hadn’t heard him I switched to the slate side of my Away Hunting Fatal Attraction call and did some soft purring. He then sounded off much further down in the woods headed to the creek bottom rather then the field I was set up in.
After another brief period of silence I started to purr again and that’s when I heard him drumming as he came through the brush behind the blind. Before I could really react he was in front of the blind headed for the Jake decoy. I picked my 12 gauge Mossberg off my lap but couldn’t bring it all the way up to a shooting position because he would of busted me. Tom goes into full strut and as he turns towards the Jake decoy with his tail towards me I bring the Mossberg up to the shooting position and I eased the safety off. As he clears the decoy and puts his head up I squeeze the trigger and hear the frightful sound of my firing pin “CLICK” but no boom. Tom is now looking at me and I don’t dare move despite my urge to chuck my gun at him.
Tom is nervous and I’m sure he is about to take flight at that moment a breeze catches the decoys and they move ever so slightly and Tom goes back into strut. My lucky day so I rack the pump ejecting the shell and putting a fresh one in. There is no hiding this noise and Tom starts trotting straight away I re acquire my target and yell “Hey” enough to get him to hesitate briefly and turn his head giving me a better target this time as I squeeze the trigger the boom of the shell going off drowns out the sound of the firing pin. Tom immediately flops and my hunt is over. I look at my watch and it is 6:57 for a brief moment I think if I hurry I could get to work and not use a vacation day.. Not.
After I notch my report card to make my kill legal I go back to the blind and pick up my shells and see why my first shell did not go off. There is a dent in the primer but on closer examination it is not as deep as the one on the empty shell.
My mind goes back to early in the morning as I loaded my gun and I tried to be as quiet as possible as I racked the shell into the chamber. I believe that I didn’t get it fully closed and that small fraction was enough to prevent the firing pin from striking the primer hard enough to fire the gun. That was almost a costly mistake and one I can assure you I’ll remember in the future.
This gobbler is the biggest one I have ever taken; 11 1/4 beard 1 1/2 spur on one leg and a 1 1/8 spur on the other one that appears to have been broken off at some point, it weighed just a shy over 19 lbs.
Not one that usually believes in luck I got to wonder if my new hat is lucky. A few months ago Linda from Mace Sports gave me a new camo cap with a moose on it. I hadn’t been wearing it hunting but after a day in the rain on Monday the hat I had been wearing was wet and who wants to wear a wet hat so today I wore the Moose Hat. This is the same hat I was wearing at a quail unlimited banquet last night when I won a rifle. So who knows maybe it is lucky.
With one tag left you know these next few weeks I’ll be wearing my “lucky moose hat”
Killing a gobbler with multiple beards is a rare feat but taking one with 7 beards is unbelievable.
Jerrell Keele knew his turkey had a pretty good beard on him when he shot him last month. He could see the black hairs hanging from the gobbler’s neck when he shot him from 37 yards away.
But the 67-year-old Burnsville resident didn’t realize that the 17.28-pound turkey actually had seven beards and scored enough points to make it a state record in the nontypical division.
There were so many beards that the registration form had to be altered.
“The form only has room to write in six beards for each turkey,” said Keele, whose turkey scored 151.155 points. “Jerry Hazlewood (the Northeast Region wildlife biologist) wrote in the seventh beard on the side of the form.”
Congratulations Jerrell that is a once in a lifetime trophy.
Over the years a legend has been born around the campfires of our turkey hunting camp about the gobbler hence known as Ol’ Huey. He got that name because he was considerable bigger then the other birds and when he took to flight he sounded like a helicopter taking off. Ol’ Huey lived on some land owned by the uncle of one of my hunting partners (Rick) and on occasion his Uncle would invite us to hunt this tract of land. Saturday was the opening of the turkey season and there were a number of guys hunting that land. Rick and I were hunting our lease that was some 15 miles away so neither of us was witnessed to what happened. Here is the story of what happened as posted by Rick;
Today was a BAD day for Ol’Huey and a VERY good day for Matt of Faison, NC. Matt shot the biggest, smartest bird I’ve ever hunted this am at 6:45 from my ground pop-up blind in Caswell County. I just talked to Matt’s cousin who verified that Ol’Huey is indeed dead. Matt’s bird measured 5 feet from the tip of his fan to his beak, weighed 24 lbs,, had 2 inch spurs on each leg, and had a beard that was worn off, but still measured slightly over 14 inches long. And he killed Ol’Huey without making a sound . Oh well, an ambush was the only way this king of gobblers would ever be taken anyway. Matt left before I could get there to take pic (and yes, even I would have taken 2 rolls of pictures alone of this one grand OF of a bird!!). A bird like this was a fine opponent and an even better teacher of turkey survival behavior for this OF. I feel honored to have been able to hunt him for the past 6 years. Ol’Huey was at least 8 years old and probably would not have survived too much longer. My sincerest congrats to Matt on taking this grand old gobbler. Ol’Huey, it won’t be the same without you–Rest In Peace in turkey heaven.
If these measurements are accurate, which I think they are not, but more close to guesstamates then this bird would be in contention to be one of the highest ranked and possible a new state record. The shame is that it appears that no one on this hunt had a camera to get any shots of this magnificent bird.
I’ve hunted this farm a number of times over the years and always am grateful for the invite no matter what we are hunting being deer, turkey, waterfowl or small game. I know there is a big bird running this property (or was) How Big? I can’t rightly say other then bigger then your average turkey. To me the difference in size between a good turkey and an excellent turkey are so slight that you can’t tell until you ground check the bird.
The bird I’ve seen on this property seemed to be about a foot or more taller then the other gobblers around him when I’ve seen them feeding in the fields.
I did not see this bird after it was killed either so who knows if it was Ol’ Huey or not. I’ll tell you this if I get an invite to hunt this land again I sure hope the bird I’ve seen in the past is still running about or maybe even some of his offspring.
The death of Ol’ Huey maybe like the death of Elvis who knows if it is real. Elvis sightings happen all the time so maybe O’ Huey somehow faked his death too. I’m sure as often as we gather to swap stories and lies Ol’ Huey will have his place. Who knows maybe this is the turkey season I’ll get Ol’ Huey myself. The legend continues…
The opening of turkey season was a bust for me but it appears others across the state did well. The front that came through on Saturday gave us a cloudy overcast day with a number of thunderstorms throughout the day.
I was at the hunt camp up in Caswell County with a couple of friends for the opener none of us had any luck. I had a plan of where I wanted to go because the week before we had heard gobblers in this particular area and it’s one of my favorite places to hunt so I decided to go in there. I hadn’t been in there in a while and there is a thick stand of pines to get through that is easy to get turned around in the dark. I normally go in every year just before deer season and re-blaze and re-mark the trail but being sick last summer I didn’t do it. I was confident that my memory and the old trail markings I could slip in well before daybreak and be in position to listen for gobbles. Besides if I got confused my GPS would back me up.
Well best laid plans don’t always work out. I got about halfway through the pines when I lost the trail and after moving the general direction I thought was right I realized that I was off the trail. There were a number of trees and branches down and I was trying to pick my way through quietly because turkeys often roost in this area. I had a clear view of the sky when I looked up and I fired up my GPS. After what seemed like an eternity but was really just a few minutes I got a lock on the satellites and I quickly hit the search for the nearest waypoint. My big mistake was not looking very closely at it because I knew it was the nearest point because of the deer stand. Latter I would remember that I had replaced my GPS and this particular deer stand was not in my new GPS but at that moment I headed off in the wrong direction. I went a little ways and knew I should be out of the thick cover but I wasn’t. At that point I knew something was wrong so I dug out my compass and got a bearing that should take me to the opening where I wanted to set up if I missed it I knew I would hit the creek and I could set up there. Well I hit the creek having missed the opening by only 200 yards or so. Once I hit the creek I knew exactly where I was and I could back track to the opening but given I hadn’t busted any turkeys with my roundabout trek in that I didn’t dare push my luck by doubling back up the ridge to the opening. I set up on the creek bottom and waited for daybreak.
Daybreak came and went with out the first gobbler sounding off. There was plenty of noise to entice a shock gobble between the crows and the geese not to mention the occasional roll of thunder. With no turkey noise at all I settled in on the creek bottom knowing the gobblers often use it as a travel route. I did the occasional calling hoping to have a gobbler check me out. I heard some noise behind me coming from the area I had originally wanted to hunt so I started to turn around slowly. A few minutes latter a fat grey squirrel came bounding off the ridge. I started to turn back around when I heard him, a Jake looking for that hen he had heard. He circled above me and back into the pines without making a sound.
That was the only turkey I saw all day. The afternoon I sat in a blind on the field edge and never saw or heard anything. As the sun was setting the walk back to my truck was a lot easier then my morning walk in because I just had to cut across a couple of fields and up a field road to my truck. I can assure you I’ll re-blaze and re-mark the trail in the near future so I don’t get confused my GPS has already been updated.
Turkey season opens up in North Carolina on Saturday. This is a two part series I wrote about a plan on how to hunt gobblers. I hope you enjoy and I hope everyone has a successful morning.
In Part One I covered a little about Pre Season Scouting up to your initial set up on opening day. If you haven’t read that you may want to go back and look at that before reading Part Two.
Deciding to Move
Well morning has broken and the birds are off the roost and the woods are alive with excitement. As the morning wears on you begin to have doubts in your initial set up. How long should you stay with your initial set up? That is often the $64,000 question I’ll tell you there have been times I felt that I stayed in the initial place to long and other times I’ve been busted by getting up to move to a new location. My thought is that unless I have a really good plan on where and what I want to do next I tend to linger a bit at the setup till I develop a plan of action. Review what happened in your mind and try to learn from it. Where did the gobbler go? Did he bust you? If so how come? How many gobblers did you have in the area how many hens? Process the information you have gathered so far and use it to formulate your plan.
Some important things to think about first off every gobbler does not sound off in the morning. There is a good likelihood that if he is not the dominant gobbler that he’ll keep quiet to avoid getting his tail kicked. Many of hunters have been surprised by a silent gobbler coming in on them if your ready you maybe back to your coffee real soon if not you’ll be caught flat footed and busted as he runs or flies off.
Mid Morning
This is a good time to find a gobbler that is lonely so I’m apt to begin moving through the woods and trying to strike a hot gobbler. Enticing a shock gobble is a good sign but if that is your only strategy you maybe missing some good hunting opportunities. Using some hen calls can also be very effective but I would caution you to be in position whenever you use a turkey call because you may have one come right in. Any areas that you have previously identified as strut zones are good bets to try to sneak in on.
A word of caution about moving around the turkey woods in full camo and turkey calling; many of the turkey vests have orange flaps and you may want to expose them while moving. The expectation is always that a shooter will properly identify their target prior to pulling the trigger but after the fact it maybe to late. Always think about safety.
Midmorning you are apt to catch Jakes, or gobblers who never had or had a hen that gave him the slip. They are often a little bit easier to call in but don’t take it for granted because one mistake and they’ll be gone in a flash. Usually some soft calling and scratching in the leaves will bring them in. A turkey’s hearing is phenomenal and for the most part the day-to-day communications turkeys make are very much softer then one would think. If you’ve never experienced it listen next fall when your sitting on a deer stand as a turkey flock goes by. They are heavy footed and make a lot of sound that way but their vocalizations are fairly soft. I’m a firm believer in softening up the calls in most situations to match nature. That doesn’t mean you should never be loud but just look at what’s happening around you and try to match the woods milieu.
Should you come upon a group of turkeys attempting to call the gobbler to you is often futile because he has company. In that situation call the hens if they come your way you can bet the gobblers will follow.
Late Morning Early Afternoon
Early in the season this is the time that hens begin breaking away to take care of their nesting duties. Every day this will get earlier and earlier until the hen lays a clutch of eggs. This will give you more gobblers without hens and this is the time of day I seemed to have my best level of success. This is not the time to call it a day and head for lunch. I will often cruise the woods like I posted earlier using some of those tactics.
I often will slip back to the area where I started my day out and try to do some calling there. It’s not unusual for the gobbler to return to this area where he met all his lady friends seeing if he can find them again. This is a time of the day I’ll often utilize a blind on a field. If I’m tired and need to eat some lunch and get off my feet for a little bit and do some calling.
Other areas that can be productive are dusting areas I sometimes will prop a decoy in the bowl with some small rocks to make it look like one is in there dusting. I’ll admit that other then other hens coming in I’ve not had much luck with this tactic thus far.
Afternoon
I’ll admit to me the middle of the afternoon seems to be the least productive time to hunt but you got to be present to win so stick with it. I reflect on what has happened so far maybe try to figure out a game plan for the late afternoon evening hunt. I’ll decide whether I want to continue to blind hunt or to strike out for a stroll. One good thing is that for the most part you’ll often have the woods to yourself. If you can get one fired up this time of day the odds he’ll come to you are pretty good.
Late Afternoon / Evening
This is the time to set up near the area you expect the gobbler to roost and try to intercept him before he goes to roost. Obviously areas you’ve heard them in your pre season scouting and your early morning hunting are great places to set up. I like late afternoon / evening hunting because if you know the area they like to roost then your apt to have an encounter that will lead to you calling 1-800 I Got One.
This is my basic hunt plan; now grant it location, weather, hunting pressure and a variety of other factors will weigh in on how I approach a day of turkey hunting. Talk to other turkey hunters and they’ll have other ideas on what you need to do to bag your bird. Well good luck on Saturday and I hope everyone has a safe fun day afield.
