Spring Gobbler Season: 9 Days and Counting

Alright Turkey hunters, this is it, the time of year we've all waited for, just 9 days from today the season will open up and we can start chasing them Toms again.

How will you spend your time?

Lots of hunters will continue scouting, and maybe even increase their scouting so that they can target specific birds on specific roosts. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact if you are really careful you can pattern the bird fairly accurately.

Me personally, I like to back off the final two weeks before any season opens, but particularly the spring turkey season. I have a rather tight hunting area, with limited spots where I can set up and have a real shot at success. So if I bust turkeys out of even one spot in the pre-season, well that's putting a serious damper on my odds.

Plus, whether or not you are still scouting, I would lay off the calls, and let your optics do the scouting. Turkey's visual acuity, is only rivalled by their hearing. Once in season, the name of the game is calling that bird to you, so you're calling is the "voice" of another turkey. If the turkeys you hunt constantly hear that "voice," but never see that turkey, I think they'll be less inclined to come to that "voice" once the season begins.

Now that's not to say that you shouldn't be perfecting your calling at home. Watch some turkey hunting DVDs, listen to turkey sounds on the Internet. Mimic the sounds you hear, and sharpen up your calling.

I find it relaxing to pack up my gear, and doing it a week or so before the season gives you plenty of time to discover what is lost or damaged, and replace it. If you are going to any kind of turkey camp, now's a good time to make a list and start shopping for that excursion.

Finally, if you have kept a journal of previous years, blow the dust off of it, and see what last minute lessons you can glean from those pages. Get out that photo album, and relive a couple of your successful hunts. Nothing will get you more in the spirit, then thinking about the ones your brought home, or the ones that got away.

Happy Hunting
Scott M

Spring Gobbler: To Blind, or not to Blind...

I cut my teeth hunting Spring Gobblers at eye level.  A low seat, a vest with some back padding, and maybe a deke or two out there.  However, after a rained out muzzleloader season, I invested in a ground blind. Nothing fancy, just a simple pop up, but now that I have it, the blind just begs the question: Do I hunt spring gobblers from a blind now?

There are obvious advantages to having a blind.  If it's raining it will keep you dry and more comfortable.  I'm a huge advocate of comfort.  The more comfortable you are, the longer you stay in the field.  The longer you stay in the field, the greater your chance of success. The blind will conceal movement. This is great when drawing a bow, or a gun on a feeding deer, but absolutely critical when hunting turkeys.  There's nothing more paranoid then a turkey, especially one that has been hunted. As my boys get older the blind will also come in handy because anyone with kids knows well how poorly they sit still.  The blind will give us an extra layer of protection from all those little fidgets. 

There are some big disadvantage as well though. The blind is one more piece of equipment to carry in the field.  The blind above folds down into a round pack with a diameter right around 2 feet. At about 8 inches thick, and 12 pounds, it's not awkward to carry, but it is one more thing to carry. All my hunting ground is rolling, so no matter where I choose to go, I'm hefting that thing up hill at some point.  Also once I'm set up I'm more committed to that location, then I would be if I was just carrying my low seat.  I've either got to fold up the tent, and pack it to the next location, or leave it and remember to go back and retrieve it, before I leave the woods.  You'll also notice in the picture above, all blinds need to be "brushed in" so to speak. The blind by itself looks like a building.  Completely out of place in the woods.  If you stack brush around it that will help to blend the hard edges into the background.

Probably the biggest disadvantage is just the fact that I've had success without using the blind.  Whenever you have success, you really want to replicate that success.  Changing something major about your setup, puts you at risk of starting over, so to speak, and learning how to be successful with that new tool.

It's a toss up to be sure. 6 weeks from now, with the Spring Gobbler season starts in PA, will I find myself in a blind?  Probably not for the opener, I'm too superstitious for that.  However, since I own a blind now, I'm sure I'll test it out later in the season.  Experimenting later in the season has worked out well for me in the past, so maybe by the 3rd Saturday, I'll pack that blind into the woods and give it a test run.

Happy Hunting
Scott M

Spring Gobbler: Preseason

In just over 2 months the Spring Gobbler season will open here in PA.  The 2012 season was spotty for many of us due to the extraordinarily mild winter, and the incredibly early green-up.

So how can you make your 2013 campaign better?  Start today with a few easy little activities that will get you ready, and will get you pumped up to chase them Toms!

It's two months out so you can be pretty aggressive with your scouting, so don't be afraid to go knock on their bedroom doors.  Even if you bust a turkey or two they've got a long time to forget and forgive.  This is particularly useful if you can get out after one of our late winter snowfalls, and find some tracks.  Tracks are easy to see in the snow, and are a tremendous indicator of the size of the flock.  Using their own trails you can uncover a pattern of use, which you may have missed before.  Depending on how harsh the winter has been, you'll probably still find mixed flocks.  The young of 2012 haven't been run off yet, and the Toms intermix with the Hens, in order to make foraging easier for everyone.  As the weeks progress, the flocks will break up into males and females, and both will set their pecking order for the upcoming mating season.  Large boss Toms will assert their authority and position by challenging and sparring with other Toms.  The winner of these skirmishes will get priority on breeding rights.

Next, dust off those calls.  Whether you choose mouth calls, box calls, pot n peg calls, or any of the wide variety of turkey calls on the market, they all need to be reconditioned for the season.  Then practice practice practice.  Look up one of the many recordings of live turkey calls, available online, then use them to perfect your calling techniques.  Do some calling outside so that you learn what volume you need to break through the woods.  One note of caution here: I'm a firm believer that turkeys can and do learn the sound of calls.  Your call is like a hen's voice.  Just like in the wild each call, and each caller, will sound unique.  So if my goal in the season is to pretend to be a hen ready to mate, I want to be cautious of how often I use that call in the woods during the preseason.  How many times will that Tom try to find that certain hen he hears, before he gives up?

Finally, turkey hunters are notorious gear hounds.  Manufacturers make vests with dozens of pockets to carry a myriad of gear into the woods.  In the next several weeks the large catalogs will begin to feature their turkey gear.  Make sure you check it out, and replenish your vest as necessary.

Happy Hunting,
Scott M

Turkey time is coming fast

As we get ready to turn the calendar from January to February, already my thoughts are leaping forward to April.  April 27th to be exact.  The PA Game Commission has the legal start time for that day listed as about 6:04am, so with any luck, and good weather, by about 5:15am I'll be hunkered under a thick Beech tree, with a stand of white pine along the ridge to my right that could be just thick with roosted turkeys.  This is Spring Gobbler season, and for me this is the season I enjoy more than any other. 

I love the Spring Gobbler season, for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I've had my fair share of success.  I didn't grow up chasing turkeys, in fact my very first Spring Gobbler opener was May of 2002.  However, in the 10 years that have followed, I've called in and shot 3 birds.  In PA you were only allowed one bird per season, until just recently, so starting out as a complete newb in the 2002 season, I'll take my 30% success rate.  In that time I've seen my best friend take a fine Tom that had wandered in dead silent.  And probably had conversations with a dozen other birds while in season.

Just being in the woods during the spring green-up is reason enough to love this season, so this ranks as a strong 2nd in my list.  Traditional hunting seasons tend to occur as fall changes to winter.  So if you hunt several different species, you witness mother nature going to sleep for the winter.  Tender green plants dry up and die back.  Trees change color then drop their leaves.  In the Spring Gobbler woods, hunters bare witness to the exact opposite.  Sprouts push up through the leave litter, and the trees sprout this season's leaves.

The picture of my 2010 Gobbler shows the green-up in all its glory.   Not my biggest bird, but just ask anyone that has chased the spooky Pennsylvania Eastern Turkey subspecies, and they'll let you know each one is a trophy.

This particular fella had answered my calls early, probably with the first hours of legal light, but had taken his time.  My guess was he was a 1-2 year old bird, who may have gotten thumped by an older Tom.  As a result he was cautious in answering my calls, and he took his time picking his way to my spot.  Just as he wandered through the thick underbrush, into the opening I was watching a crow took issue with his presence.  Giving several loud caws, this crow swooped in, trying to run off my Tom.  He spooked, and ducked into the underbrush near the edge of the opening, but I knew what to do.  Knowing if he got spooked, he'd assume the hen he was looking for got spooked too, I let the woods settle then gave a cautious yelp.  Like a teenage boy, thrilled a girl called him back, the Tom rushed back into the opening, still looking for his dream girl.  Knowing he was bearded, and knowing that crow could be back in a second, I didn't hesitate.  The Mossberg 835, sent the Winchester Turkey Load about 50 yds and this fine Tom was getting fitted for my tag.

With a newborn in the house and a new job for my wife, the 2011 and 2012 seasons were a bit light on time spent in the woods.  Now that life has settled down, the 2013 season shows plenty of promise.  It doesn't hurt that I saw anywhere from 3 to 12 turkeys on each of the 3 days I spent hunting in the PA firearm deer season.

Happy Hunting!
Scott M

Why Camping?

It's not always a direct question.  More often it's a look, but it always happens.  If I'm talking about a camping trip I just went on, or a camping trip that I'm currently planning, someone will give me the look. 

The "why camping?" Look.

As if it's fundamentally absurd to leave the comfort and amenities of your permanent residence, just to go to a non-permanent, even a movable residence, for a couple nights at a time.   A place where you have to work to just get along.  You have to gather wood, water, maintain a fire, safely handle and prepare food without refrigeration, or at least from a cooler, but again you have to manage that process as well. 

So why go through all that?  It's hard for me to explain without being a little rhetorical, but I go through all that in order to go through all that.  It's about surviving on simpler terms.  I don't need to worry myself with the ephemera of life.  I need to worry about keeping my food cold, my fire hot, and my head dry. End of list.

When camping there's always something to do, and those things have real implications.  If I'm at home and I leave food on the counter, fine, I've got more in the freezer.  If I'm camping and food spoils, well one meal is going to be a little thin.  The focus on survival, breaks you down to a very primitive self.  It wipes away the nonsense of the modern world.  I don't worry that I have 70 channels and nothing to watch because there's wood to be gathered, a fire to be tended, and a trail over there that I haven't walked down yet.

That unknown trail is the real other reason to go camping.  The ability to explore the unknown, and particularly the wild places of this Earth.  My family and I love to hop in the car and roadtrip to find a new park or diner, but just like being at home, if plans fail on the road, there's an easily accessible back up plan.

In the woods that is not always the case.  For me knowing that I'm a visitor in this wild place helps to ground me and make me more mindful of my surroundings and how I'm going to move through them.  I'm not going to blindly leap over that log or creek, because failure in the woods is often catastrophic.  Now, if I  re-read that last sentence it sounds overly dramatic and frankly a little pessimistic.  Injuries happen, and you do need to be mindful of your surroundings.  However, instead of allowing that anxiety to weigh you down, allow that mindfulness to lift your spirit, to focus your attention on the REAL. 

Mindfulness in the woods have lead to some of my greatest experiences.  A doe and two fawns within 20 feet. A flock of turkeys meticulously picking bugs while moving through the undergrowth 30 feet away. A fresh bear track within 50 feet of a fresh coyote track.

Now-a-days, I have the distinct pleasure of teaching two young boys these skills.  With time and patience I believe they too will appreciate wild places and the simplicity of life at a campsite.

Happy Camping

Scott M

It really is all about the brine.

In keeping with this week's theme of cooking particularly long and involved recipes, let's take a look at the smoked turkey breast I prepared for our Christmas feast. 

If you have never smoked a meat or are fairly new to the process, I would very strongly suggest getting comfortable with the idea of brining meat.  Brining meat is actually quite an old process, and can be done with any whole muscle cut of meat.  Not to be confused with marinading, where the goal is to infuse flavor directly into the meat, the goal of brining is to increase the moisture content of the meat.  The addition of flavor can be a natural by-product of this process, but doesn't really have to be.

I actually started off with a whole turkey because pre-Thanksgiving turkey prices are amazing.  Since we were already having quite a bit of meat I decided to cut the wings, legs and thighs off the body, and save those for chicken and biscuits later on.  Now this beast looks like any other plain turkey breast you would purchase at the store.

Time to prepare the brine.

Just as it sounds this should be a salty solution.  Aside from the salt you can add any number of fresh or dried herbs to the liquid.  Just remember that unlike a marinade these herbs will not necessarily add a noticeable flavor to the meat.  So what will the brine do?  The salty water will create an increase in the osmotic pressure on the meat cells.  In English?  Sure.  Remember 10th grade biology?  Bodies are collection of microscopic cells.  In this case turkey breast meat, cells.  Salty water causes the cells to expand, and in order to expand they have to draw in water from their surroundings.  In this case that water is your brining solution.  So what the brine is doing is forcing the cells of the breast meat to hold more fluid than they naturally would.  Therefore, once you begin the cooking, or in this case the smoking process, the meat will take much longer to dry out.  Leaving you with a fully cooked meat product that is succulent and juicy.

I like to keep my brining solution simple.  Approximately 1/2 cup of salt into about 1/2 quart of water.  Heat to boiling in order to dissolve all of the salt.  Don't worry about that being too salty, because in order to brine a turkey of that size you'll be adding at least another gallon of water to the vessel.  This time around I also added about 3 tbsp of lemon juice, one branch of rosemary and a dozen peppercorns.  This all fit nicely into a 3 gallon ceramic crock I own, and Erie's weather cooperated with a cool 33 degree night, so the whole mix sat on the back porch for 12 hours.

After the 12 hour soak, I removed the bird, and allowed it to rest while I got the smoker up to temp.  275 degrees over pecan wood would make for a nice low and slow smoking process.  Still looking for an internal temp of 165 like any poultry product and this time the bird road in the smoker for about 5 hours.

The smoked meat then rested in the refrigerator for another 18 hours before I sliced it off the bone and ran it through my meat slicer.  As you can see from the results above I was left with a delicious deli style sliced turkey breast, perfect to eat alone, or in a sandwich.

Brining is an extra step, but it will pay enormous dividends at the end.  And don't stop at smoked meats.  Next time you are going to oven roast a turkey, brine that bird as well.  Your guests will love you for it.

Happy Cooking
Scott M

Welcome Back!!!

Sorry for the break everyone, but I had a once in a lifetime opportunity last week to spend the week of Christmas at home with my boys, so the blog had to wait.  At 7 and 2 they are just two of the craziest people in my life right now.  Robert, the 7 year old, got video games and Legos, the latter of which were some of my favorite toys growing up.  Aiden, the 2 year old, got Thomas the train engines and tracks, plus several sock monkey themed gifts.  Both boys are still young enough that any kind of present is simply magical in their eyes.  So somehow in between making sure Aiden didn't lose any Lego pieces for Robert, and making sure Robert didn't break any Thomas gear for Aiden, I had my hands full.  Even still I found time for one of my passions in life:  Cooking.

On my mother's side of the family, the Christmas dinner has somehow managed to morph into a feast of nearly absurd proportions.  I'm not exaggerating now when I tell you we managed to have 7 different proteins on the buffet table before we sat down. 

For my contribution to this feast I smoked a turkey breast and made a German style Venison stew, called Hirschgulasch.  The recipe for the stew, is apparently so authentic, that half of the websites that contained the recipe were completely in German.  Thanks to Google translate, and some patient digging, I was able to re-create the recipe with amazing results.  Served with some scratch made Spaetzle the stew was phenomenal.

Stop back tomorrow for a complete breakdown of this recipe.

For the smoked turkey breast I chose a very straight forward process.  Whenever smoking meat I find myself lost in the process.  Since I had purchased a whole turkey at a pre-Thanksgiving discount price, I decided to remove the wings, legs and thighs, and save those for another meal.  After exercising my butchering skills I created a brine with salt, sugar, peppercorns, onion and garlic powder and lemon juice, then soaked the breast overnight in my 3 gal ceramic crock.  Thanks to Erie weather the crock stayed cold enough to be save, but never froze.  After drying the bird into the smoker he went over some lovely Pecan wood.  Five short hours later the bird was out, and rested, whole, in the fridge overnight.  My goal was to utilize my "new-used" meat slicer on the breast meat.  The results were outstanding.

In addition to both of these great dishes I utilized my new cookbook:  The German Cookbook by Mimi Sheraton to make 2 more fantastic dishes I'll be sharing with you over the next several days. I discovered this book while reading Hank Shaw's blog: Hunter Angler Gardner Cook. And after making just 2 of the recipes I'll say that I'm thrilled with the results.

Happy Cooking!
Scott M

I'm a sucker for a sunrise

Thumbing through my photos, particularly the quick ones I grab with my phone, I've come to realize I'm sort of a sucker for a sunrise.

This one just goes to show how distracted I get by a sunrise. I was taking this picture while standing over the doe I had just taken in 2009. It was the last day of the PA firearms season. We had been dumped on for the last 36 hours. As you can see even under the tree canopy there was a foot of snow. As a result, I decided to still hunt an east facing ridge. Sure enough 300 yards into the stalk I catch 2 doe feeding their way up the hill. I picked the bigger of the 2 and took my shot. As I got started field dressing her, I realized how beautiful the sunrise was and snapped off a picture.

This spot is my absolute favorite spot for spring gobbler. This view is at my favorite tree and shows why this spot has yielded more than a couple gobblers.  You see the roosting tree is over my shoulder. So if my calling is up to par, the birds will come in facing the sun. Giving me an extra layer of cover from their sharp eyes.

Finally a misty morning at my uncles cabin. This is mid July, but because the camp is near the top of the hill the fog is hanging thick in the trees. Just the perfect setting for a cup of coffee and a rock on the porch swing.

Happy Exploring
Scott M