Southern Sportsman

Welcome to Southern Sportsman. We are currently rebuilding the website, please check back with us soon for an entirely new look and feel.
Thank you

Opening Weekend 2009

Some things happened Sunday morning that were out of the ordinary and if they hadn’t of happened the way they did, I probably would not of had a hunt like I did. The hunt that took place opening weekend of 2009 will probably go down in “MY” history books as one of the best Turkey hunts ever.

Sunday morning started the same. Up at 5:15am and thanking technology for the inventor of the programmable coffee pot. I’m not exactly sure how much that guy got paid for inventing that, but I can tell you right now, it probably wasn’t enough! Have you ever started the morning, knowing you should spend a few minutes in the bathroom because if you don’t you are sure to need to later? Yep, that was me, I’m not sure if it was the Oatmeal or what, but I simply Didn’t need to go, but deep down, I knew I should spend a little quality time with the porcelain. Blame it on whatever but I decided against my better judgment and headed out the door, there’s gobblers to be heard dang it!

I jump into the “Red Headed Ho” (Red 1999 Chevy Tahoe) and down the road we go. I see we may need some gas. This is especially important, because if I don’t hear a bird, I’m going to drive around until I do. I quickly divert to the closest Gas station and start pumping a fast twenty dollars into the ole girl. It’s about this time I get the first indication that I should have paid better attention to my better judgment earlier. I think for a second, you’re at the Gas Station, use it. Quickly after that second was over, I jump into the Truck and head out to the Hunting grounds. The Coffee and Oatmeal are really starting to bond with each other and I’m starting to think how funny it would be to have my overalls down around my ankles while I hug a tree in the middle of the woods only to have a Gobbler thundering down on me. (How did you like that mental picture of me?)

We arrive at the spot where I need to drop dad off at and he asks me where I’m going. I told him the first thing I’m going to do is find a tree! He laughs and closes the door. I guess the safe speed on those trails we were on is somewhere in the 15mph range because at 55 it was getting very scary. There is a very large field where I hunt and I was planning on hunting at the North end of that field. When I arrive at the South end I look to my left and I see a flashlight. I think, no big deal, I’m hunting the North end and it’s basically two different set of woods, step on the gas even more. I finally reach my destination. Before I can even get the truck in park and the door open, I SEE the Tree in the wood line that I’m going to use. It’s perfect, just the right distance off the road, just the right diameter to grab a hold of, perfect I tell you.

I ask everyone this. Have you ever anticipated or how do I say it, expected doing the number two? If you have, you know what I’m talking about when I tell you it was poking it’s head out before I even reached the tree. I jump out of the vehicle and start running at this tree, like two lovers meeting each other for the first time since returning from the civil war (another good mental picture), and that is when I hear something. Was that a bird whistling? Couldn’t have been, it just didn’t sound like a Bird, well it did but it just wasn’t. There it was again. It was a person. There was a person standing just to the right of the tree I was running to whistling at me. He was obviously letting me know that he had arrived before me and this was HIS Spot. At this point, I’m like he can have these woods to hunt in, but please, god, please give me and that tree right there a few minutes of alone time. He whistles again, I think to myself $h!t, I Heard you! So I take off running back to my truck, start it up and take off.

What I haven’t mentioned, was the day before was opening morning and seeing how anxious Dad and I were to get to hunting, we arrived about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes too early. My cat like reflexes and quick Ranger thinking learned from that mistake and I adjusted our time so this wouldn’t happen again. What I didn’t adjust for was needing to stop for gas and someone being in my hunting spot. What I’m getting at here is the sun is coming up damn fast and I don’t have a spot to hunt. Being the skilled Turkey hunter I am, I was quickly able to think under diversity and duress. Not only did I need to find a new place to hunt, I had to do it while holding back thoughts of relieving myself. To give you an idea what kind of challenge it was. I must go back to my Airborne days. Imagine an Airborne Jumper going out the door of the Aircraft to the point of the Platform and something MAJOR went wrong and you MUST Retrieve that jumper back inside the aircraft. That my fellow Turkey hunters is as close to a description as I can get to what I went through. Only a person with skills can do this properly. After I retrieved the jumper back inside the aircraft, I calmly sat him down and explained what went wrong and continued on with my Airborne Ranger Mission.

I think, ok Mumpy, you didn’t expect to hear a Turkey at Day break anyway, so what was your plan if you didn’t hear one? I thought to myself, I would MOVE! I was planning on running and gunning this morning, so where was I going to Run and Gun too? I said to myself… just up the road where Dad and I went yesterday afternoon! All of this happened in just a matter of a couple of minutes.

Shortly after leaving my beloved tree, I arrive to my new hunting area. I get out of the truck and the time is about 7:15am, birds are chirping everywhere, owls are hooting and I’m sure if there is a Gobbler nearby he’s gobbling. I get all of my gear on and take off down the road. I know there are Turkeys in the area because the day prior Dad and I seen a hen run across the road. We believe if there is a Hen in the area there is also a Gobbler in the area. Needless to say, I had confidence in the area.

After walking and hooting on a Primos Owl Hooter for about 300 yards I stop once again to make another hoot when right as I got it to my lips, he gobbles. After not hearing any birds on Saturday (Opening Morning), this was music to my ears. Hearing a Gobbler at least gives you something to work with. When I don’t hear any gobbles in the woods, it kind of leaves me with the “What do I do now” thought. He sounded as though he was dead ahead in front of me for about ¼ of a mile or so. I take off running down the road, I’m running and running because I don’t have much time, I’m thinking. I stop and hoot, nothing. I hoot again, nothing. Then he Gobbles. He’s behind me about ¼ of a mile, I misjudged his first Gobble so I take off running back towards the direction I came from. After a good 5 minute jog in the woods, I come to a halt and make a cluck on my David Halloran Cacklin Crystal… YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I’m like Yes! Ok, now ease into the wood line here and get set up. I didn’t want to get too close to him and make an unusual noise to make him “Not” want to come this direction so I set up I guess about 300 or so yards away from where he was in the tree. I didn’t put the decoy too far out because there was this little knoll that would make a perfect little spot for her to show off her num-chuck skills later!

Ok, set up, camo mask down, gun in hand, striker sanded, box call out. I’m ready. Once again my call of choice for the moment is the Custom Call from David Holloran, I make just a couple of clucks, as Kenny Straits would say, to kindly introduce myself…. YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I’m thinking, I like this… I cluck again… YAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Yep, he knows I’m here and he LIKES ME! Then I hear one of the worst things you can hear while hunting a big ole Tom as he’s Gobbling at your every cluck, purr and yelp. A HEN! That No Good WHORE! Stay away from my man! I’m not sure if she’s doing it to win him over or doing it to show me she can hit a Slate call better than me but she did it, over and over and every time she did it he was letting her know that he really liked what he was hearing. Well, I am not giving up this easy, I worked damn hard for him and you are not going to take him away from me this easy! So, I’m like you wait until I get out of this tree and we’ll see who can cut up!

I pick up Scotts Cutter (Box call that is custom made by Jack Scott) and I do the perfect fly down cackle with it. YAHHHHHHHHHHH! YAHHHHHHHHH! I’m like oh yea big boy… but guess what? There’s more than one of us over here, and with that I FLY DOWN AGAIN! YAHHHHHHHHH! YAHHHHHHHH! YAHHHHH! He’s loving it and it wasn’t 2 minutes after that, he was on the ground.

So I nonchalantly start clucking, yea I heard you, but I’m hungry, so if you and your WHORE Don’t mind, I’m going to sit here and eat a bit… Thinking to myself this should get a Gobble out of him. Hmmm, Maybe he didn’t hear me, so I cluck again… Nothing, Now I’m thinking… That no good b!tc#! She took my man! So I grab my Cacklin Crystal and let him have an EAR FULL, I was cutting and yelping and purring and cutting and yelping and YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH about 30 yards to my RIGHT!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!! He’s here!!!

I turn my head to the right ever so slowly and I see him coming. I am at this moment thanking the dude whistling at me in the wood line this morning. He is closing in fast, 25 yards, 20 yards, that’s right, come on around that tree big boy and show momma that big ole paint brush sticking out your chest. He comes around the backside of the tree and displays the most beautiful 1 and ½ inch beard you’ve ever seen.

You’ve got to be kidding me? JAKE? Are you kidding me? A JAKE? He doesn’t stop at 20 yards, he keeps coming, but he isn’t going to the decoy, he’s heading straight for me, 10 yards, 5 yards, 10 feet, that Jake walks right up to my Blind and basically peers inside the blind like, HEY! Then the ole Jakes better judgment takes a hold and he is like HEY! You are not what I expected!!! He runs up behind me about 5 yards and starts making the alarm putt so about this time I think, it’s time to have some fun. I pick up the Cacklin Crystal and start cutting it hard and his Alarm Putts soon became Gobbles. It was truly awesome to have a Bird 5 yards from my back and Gobbling down my neck, he was spittin and poppin into struts and at one point he gobbled like 4 times in succession just one after another while I was cutting on that Crystal call.

I turn around and wave my arms up and down and the bird took about two steps and was in flight… WOW, what a morning.

My partner needs to hear about this. I start getting ready to move, Taking off my gloves, hat, leaned the gun up against the tree, standing up and pull out my phone to call Ron. It is about the time his voicemail answers I hear PUTT – PUTT – PUTT about 30 to 40 yards dead in front of me. I’m like holy cow! Seeing how I had no camo on my face or hands and I was standing up, I quickly dove down to the ground to get behind my blind. I did not want the bird to take off until I knew what it was, so I grabbed the Cacklin Cyrstal and started cutting very excited and YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, YAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, YAHHHHHHHHHHH, YAHHHHHHHHHHHH, YAHHHHHHHHHHHH, YAHHHHHHHHHHHHH My heart stopped beating for a good 3 seconds it seemed, Oh My Goodness that was unreal! I slowly reach behind me and grab my hat and pull my Camo net over my face, put my camo gloves on and slowly raise my head above the blind so I can see. I peer out to see 5 Birds displaying their Strutting fans about 30 yards in front of me. THIS is too good to be true. I start cluck purring cluck purring and they quickly took 30 yards and turned it into 15 and you aren’t going to believe it. Five Jakes with about 4 inch beards stood in front of me acting like they owned the woods.

A friend of mine, Shawn, called in 3 Jakes on opening morning. I told Shawn that if it were me, I would have taught two Jakes a very good lesson on opening morning. With that in mind, I decided at that moment I would teach 4 Jakes a lesson of Real or Memorex. The only problem was these guys were stuck to each other like glue. I couldn’t pick out a Bird to shoot because their heads were all too close together. I also want to point out a very good problem to have. Having to pick out the largest bird out of 5 is a damn good problem to have, but it’s not easy.

I decided I would try to use just my Vocals and see if I could get these young toms to gobble at me, Raw if you will. So with my sexiest voice, I let them have it. Yelp yelp yelp… I swear to you, I seen the What the HELL look in their eyes. They quickly answered a question I have had for a very long time. I have often wondered if I could possibly call a Tom in with just my natural voice. The Jakes answered with a resounding NO!

Remember that moment in this hunt where they were stuck to each other with glue and I couldn’t get a good shot on one? I have an answer to that problem if it should ever happen again because a sexy yelp from my natural voice quickly will scatter a group of birds!

I seen the one that I thought was the biggest Jake and beaded down on him with a 3 ½ Magnum 4×6 shot. The others took off and ran about 20 yards but to my surprise did not learn anything. They wheeled it around and ran right back to the Jake I shot and began whipping him real good, just in case the 3 ½ Magnum did not do enough damage. I couldn’t believe it. Now, after the fact, I have learned that I probably did kill the most dominant Jake of the bunch and the other birds were reclaiming dominance. Which is pretty darn cool!

See you guys on the 1st of April!
Shake n’ Bake

Papa Richard drew first blood on opening morning by bagging this Gobbler with 9″ Beard and 3/4″ Spurs.

Day Two prooved that there is more than one person that can kill a Tom!

Overall it was a great weekend. Any weekend spent with the ole man doing what we love is a good weekend.

See you boys on 1 April for Turkey Fest 2009!

Deer season has passed and now Turkey Season is just around the corner.

Are you ready?

Turkey Fest 2009 – 1 Apr to 5 apr

It’s never to early to begin scouting for the Upcoming turkey season. A key ingredient to successful turkey hunting is knowing the area which you are hunting. The other key is finding an area that provides the necessities that a wild turkey uses for it’s habitat.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a long beard coming in and something happen that could have been prevented by some early season scouting.

There was the time I called a bird within 60 yards, only to have him hang up on me because of a ditch that I had no idea was there.

Then there was the time I had a bird hot as a fire cracker, but I could not get him to come to me due to a creek and it seemed everything I did to get on his side of the creek failed. Come to find out there were fingers of creeks in the area and I was caught in between all of them.

The lay of the land is definitely something not to be overlooked. Other key things that make up a successful Hunting season due to scouting is finding areas of interest to the Turkeys. Finding roosting areas, feeding areas, strutting zones, even pattering their daily habits.

This time of year is the time to learn the Roosting areas, Feeding areas and the Lay of the Land. Later in the Month of February is a good time to go out before dawn and blow the locator calls to find your Gobblers. This is also a good time to try and determine where those birds are heading after they leave the Roosting trees.

If you can determine roosting areas, feeding areas and a pattern of the direction they head when they fly out of the roost, it’s a lot easier to get a Gobbler to come to you if you are where he is heading in the first place.

As bad as we all want to get a Tom to Gobble at our calling, please do not call to these birds during your Scouting ventures. It doesn’t take a Tom too many times of hearing a “So called Hen” and not finding her that he will pick up on it and become Call Shy. What’s worse is you calling and getting busted. Call in the Backyard, use Locator Calls in the woods before the season. As tempting as it is, don’t call pre-season.

Since this is the beginning of a New Year and Turkey Season is just around the Corner, each week I’ll write a little bit of what I know. Until then, please visit our Message boards, join and let’s begin this year by passing down any hot tips we may have.

See you next week!

Mumpy