Unfounded Fall Turkeys

The turkey that was prowling about my wife’s office hasn’t been seen in more than a week. I think he must have read the blog. So instead I took to the woods for firearms season.

Many turkey hunters will tell you they only hunt in the spring, because they enjoy the process of calling in a gobbler and think fall season is too easy. I think most of these hunters probably share the bond of having attempted to fall turkey hunt, only to go home in frustration after failing to find turkeys.

Turkeys move around in groups in the fall. My parent’s farm is a mix of crop fields, open pasture and woods. While there on Saturday my father and I checked behind every bush. No turkeys. I shared this information with my father-in-law, who was planning on hunting there later in the week. “But,” I said so as not to discourage him, “…there could be turkeys there the next week. Shoot there could even be turkeys there the next day.”

Actually, there were turkeys there in the next few minutes. The next morning in church, one of my Dad’s neighbors told him he had to stop in the road to let six turkeys cross. We had seen him on the road. The turkeys were crossing from a neighbor’s property onto our farm, less than five minutes after we had walked through this very small patch of woods (that they crossed into) trying to stir something up. But we didn’t know that until the next day. So the next day we went back, but the woods were again vacant.

I also tried hunting on a conservation area down in that part of the state. I found a bow hunter, and a few deer, but no turkeys.

But turkey hunting is really only fun in the spring anyway.