April 18th, 2008
By Arthur

I’m honestly excited about this weekend.  It is the first one in awhile that just makes me stir with the anticipation of the hunt.  After the long nasty winter, and all of the cold and rain that we had, even just recently, I have been waiting for a weekend like this for quite some time.

Saturday, barring some rain that we might get, I am more than likely going to accompany Jeff while he helps to insure that our dad is sighted in for next week’s turkey opener.  It is his first time going after a gobbler so Jeff is going to aide in helping him get sighted in.  I’m sure it will not be that difficult.

On Sunday I am going back out once again to check the trail cam and see if another promising turkey spot produced any results.  I am also going to be setting up my pop-up blind in preparation for my opening morning turkey hunt that will be happening on Monday.

I can’t wait to see an early morning sunrise, be able to smell the fresh aroma of the woods again, and listen intently for the sound of a curious Tom piercing the silence with a big ‘ole gobble.  Then hopefully he will fall deeply in love with my calling, as well as my hen decoy, and let me have the honor of falling in love with the way he tastes.

Man I love the last few days before an opening morning of hunting.  There is just such anticipation.  I can not wait!

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April 15th, 2008
By Arthur

I’m not feeling very motivated to write a post at this point, but I did want to say that the weather forecast is finally looking very nice.  We are suppose to have some very pleasant weather over the next few days.  It is even going to be in the mid to high 60’s for the rest of this week.  Very nice.  I can even look past the forecast for rain on Friday and Saturday as long as the temperatures stays in the 60’s.

On another note, it is even suppose to be in the high 60’s for my turkey opener on Monday, the 21st.  Hopefully the weather stays like this and gives me a chance to enjoy a good warm non-rainy day in the woods next week.

I’m not holding my breath, because after all it is Michigan, but it is looking very good so far.

If only Spring will bring me a gobbler!!

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April 14th, 2008
By Arthur

I wasn’t quite sure if Spring was ever going to get here.  I know that it officially arrived a few weeks back, but here in Michigan it has been awfully hard to tell that fact.  Crazy weather, snow in April, and it still being a bit chilly made it feel more like Winter then Spring and now suddenly this week that is all changing.

The wife, my cousin from South Carolina, and myself all went out to the property that the wife and I can hunt to check the trail cam I put up about a week and a half ago and low and behold we actually had the quarry we were looking for on cam…….a turkey.

Granted that it was only one turkey, but hey that is better than nothing.  It is hard to tell in the picture, but I think that it is a jake.  I don’t see any evidence of a beard, but that red head is giving him up as a male of the species.  Since I haven’t shot my first turkey yet I will be the first to tell you that a jake is not safe anywhere near me.  I just have to get the first one under my belt and then I can be picky after that.

We also walked around the back side of the property, and as we did this at 2 in the afternoon, there was a gobbler on a property adjacent to us gobbling his head off.  He couldn’t of been 100yds away, but the property is so thick we wouldn’t be able to see him unless he was right on top of us. 

 After hearing that commotion I decided to drive around to the backside of the property and this is what we witnessed in a field.  The wife was steady and quick enough to take a picture, but you’ll have to forgive the quality.  She did an excellent job with the picture, but our older camera is not made to zoom that far.  It is evidence that they are in the area though and I am pumped for next Monday.

So I am starting to believe that Spring is really here and I can’t wait to get back in the woods next week.  It has been a long, nasty winter and I am soooo ready to hit the woods.

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March 24th, 2008
By Arthur

The other night the wife was going to be away from the house for a couple of hours. I knew this was a perfect opportunity to practice my turkey calling for this year. I’m not sure why, but she just can’t stand it when I call in the house. For whatever reason she thinks that the repetitive nature of the calling is annoying. Do you any of you guys out there understand this? I just don’t get it:)

I have a couple of different calls that I wanted to mess around with. Two are of the mouth call variety, and one is a push/pull call I bought made my Knight and Hale. I started last year using the mouth call and I’m moderately experienced with it, but I wanted something that was more solid and consistent on the calling part so I picked up this particular push/pull call. The one thing that drew me to it was that it has a volume adjustment. With this call I can also cut and purrrr more consistently then I can with my mouth call.

I pull out both calls and start messing around, and doing different sequences with them, and I have to say that the best overall sounding one was the push/pull. It sounds really good and I like the variety of different things you can do with it. The other call I liked was my Sonic Dome mouth call. I didn’t like this call at first, but once I got used to it I think the tone it produces is very cool and slightly different from most calls you hear and hopefully that helps me directly this year on a wary gobbler.

I will have you know that during the process of practicing I was very successful at calling animals in. Our White German Shepherd came in to each and every call I used and was very interested. Is there a White Shepherd season? I would tear it up during that time of the year if there was. You all know I’m kidding. You should have seen him cocking his head at me when I was calling. It was priceless!

I’ll keep practicing every chance I get, especially when the wife is out. Only a month and the season will be here.

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March 09th, 2008
By Arthur

We braved the cold and the wind today and managed to get Jeff’s turkey gun sighted in.  He bought a new red dot scope, so it took a little bit to get it dialed in, but once we did he was keeping right up with me.

I only shot two rounds to be honest.  I just have been shooting my gun so long, and I know it so well, that my first shot at 25yds was right on the money.  Once Jeff got his new gun sighted in we went to about 35yds, and although it doesn’t pattern quite as well as it does at 25yds, I am still confident enough with it to take a shot at that distance.

It will be hard for me to ever give up my 870.  I just love that gun.  I have to say that Jeff’s new setup is pretty cool as well.  Once we got her dialed in she patterned quite nicely at 25 and 35yds.

All in all was a very fun little outing.  We got the turkey guns sighted in, got to hang out for awhile, and the kids got to shoot the .22 and their bb guns too.  Despite the howling wind we still managed to bundle up and work on keeping that stinkin’ cabin fever at bay.

The target you see in the picture is my first shot.  Those turkeys are in trouble this year if they get close enough.  It’s hard to tell in the picture but I had about 20 pellets in the spine/vertebrae area.  Needless to say I was pretty pleased.

A good day all around and Spring is just around the corner.

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