Here’s hoping the turkeys haven’t been in communication with the white perch. If so, it may be a tough season ahead for Louisiana’s turkey hunters.
The white perch have been bunched up in deep water for weeks; yet, they have refused to bite. I hope they’re not telling the turkeys just to keep their lips zipped and they’ll live longer. If so, we turkey hunters are sunk.
It has been weeks and months of below normal temperatures and above normal rainfall that has been the undoing of perch fishermen. Turkey hunters are being faced with the same thing. Turkeys respond better when there is at least a hint of spring in the air, the crimson clover and dogwoods are trying to bloom and purple martins are starting to twitter overhead.
One thing is for sure, though. Saturday morning, March 20 can dawn crisp and clear and the woods will be full of turkey hunters. Saturday morning March 20 can dawn with cold rain and howling wind and the woods will still be full of turkey hunters. No matter the conditions, we who have been waiting since last April to get on the same turf as the turkeys in the areas where we hunt will be there.
I remember a hunt I made in South Dakota seven years ago when temperatures hovered around the freezing mark with the cold drizzle intermittently changing over to snow and back to rain. It was a day any sane person would be at home by the fire in his recliner, lap blanket in place nursing a hot mug of coffee.
Not me. I was in South Dakota in quest of a Merriam’s gobbler, the last of the four sub-species of wild turkey I needed to complete my Grand Slam. Sane I wasn’t; focused and zoned in I was on the task I faced.
I collected my Merriam’s finishing up my Grand Slam but I almost froze my rear end off in the process.
If Saturday morning dawns cold and nasty, I’ll run the risk of freezing it off again because if I can find a pulse and my name’s not in the obits, I’ll be somewhere out there Saturday morning. I’ll be listening for the sound I’ve waited months to hear, one I’ll wade across sloughs and through briar patches, climb hills, swat mosquitoes and side-step cottonmouths to hear.
To the untrained ear, the sound I’m longing to hear is not unlike taking a galvanized bucket, dropping in a handful of rusty bolts and shaking them around. The sound is dry and raspy with not one whit of musical quality – unless you’re a turkey hunter. To us, it’s the New York Philharmonic, sweet and tender to the ear.
That sound we crawl out of bed long before dawn day after day to hear is the raucous raspy gobble of a wild turkey. When he sounds off, we know the game is on and we’re about to go one-on-one with the wiliest creature the Good Lord ever put on the face of the Earth.
With spring weather nowhere to be found, at least into early March, it may be a tough go. Hunting success may not be realized until later in the season, which runs to April 18.
Let’s hope and pray the gobblers haven’t been communicating with the crappie or else we could be looking for a recipe for turkey tag soup.
RUSTON —
