and a strong cup of coffee

There are a few less turkeys in Maine to hunt this year. A few months ago, Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation , captured and released more than 50 birds into East Texas with the hope of rebuilding their population.   “Eastern turkeys are where the restocking efforts originally began,” explained Shawn Roberts, Director of Field Operations for the National Wild Turkey Federation, “We tried in the 1920’s but it didn’t work.  We tried pen-raised birds and that didn’t work either. The only thing that was successful was to trap birds and relocate them to good habitat.” “We started this current effort in the early ‘80s and we had to begin looking outside the state to see if we could get them moved in. We didn’t want to violate The Lacey Act so we had to come up with a way to compensate the states that were giving up a resource either by trading other wildlife or paying them monetarily,” said Roberts. Texas is on the ve...

About an hour into my sit, I heard steps coming towards my stand.  It was a beautiful morning and my heart skipped a beat with the idea that a deer might finally be headed my way.  Trail camera photos showed my last remaining target buck during daylight at that stand, so I was hopeful. But as it got closer, I heard purrs, clucks and chirps. The steps turned into one big mass of noise and soon, like a movie, the woods were nothing by black blobs moving towards me.  They set up in a shooting lane, eating acorns and moving closer, essentially blocking me in my stand.  The flock would see me move and spook before I would have a chance to move my gun into a position to get a deer.  I was stuck and they were coming closer.  When they got bored there, they moved across three more shooting lanes and I counted them as they passed... 42. I was hearing leaves crunch everywhere around me.  But something sounded too close to be a rogue turkey.  I slowly turned...

Some women have the type of attitude that lets you know that they can and will accomplish anything that they set their mind to.  Lorri Nelson is one of those women... There is a shock factor that comes when you shoot the last animal needed for your grand slam.  After years of hard work, learning to hunt each animal and a little luck, Lorri Nelson  accomplished her grand slam when the cow moose dropped to the ground.  “It was only four hours into the hunt,” Lorri said, “We didn’t bring the trailer or 4-wheeler  because it was rattling so bad and we didn’t want to spook anything.” They had done some  scouting ahead of time and were now looking for a cow moose in Zone 6. “I saw her entire body  move in the woods as we drove past a strip of woods. But I couldn’t tell if it was a bull or cow,”  Lorri continued, “Charlie and I got out and started zig zagging back to see if we could tell for  sure if it was a cow. He confirmed that it was a cow a...

As I was driving to work today I had a thought; one of my biggest issues with transitioning to turkey hunting is the idea of aiming at the head and hoping enough pellets are close enough together to kill the bird.  What if I learned to bow hunt for turkey?  That would give me one arrow to aim (like one bullet) and I would have one target to hit instead of aiming in a general spot. For those of you avid turkey hunters, what is your thought on this?  I would not be able to do this until next year, but it is a tempting thought.  Will it work?