"Second Chances"

**A quick word regarding Magellan and his travels - they will start back up next week.  It's turkey season after all!**

Many reading this will remember the bird I was hunting last year.  Many times over the first half of the season, I had the bird with in questionable shooting range or circumstances, never getting the bird to give me a decent shot.  At some point around the middle of the year, he just disappeared.  It seemed strange to me a bird that would gobble hundreds of times just stop all of a sudden.  It seemed strange until I found the boot prints.  I was literally heart-broken, because the bird was huge.  While stopping short of the hypocrisy of saying "I've never trespassed for a bird", I will say that helping my dad keep up our land as he gets older, has given me new appreciation for "one man's property" versus someone who writes a check in order to hunt.  I digress.

In any case, if you remember that bird and those circumstances, you probably remember the 2 year old turkey I shot as well thinking I had just shot a possible record book bird.  Never in my life have I been so disappointed in a bird that offered up so much fun.  I really had to take stock of what was important, and to be honest, I realized I had fallen into the trap that is the "numbers game."  I failed to appreciate that bird for what he was - a beautiful turkey that gobbled his head off and came in strutting to my calling.  I allowed my misunderstanding of what's important to the hunt to ruin my entire season. 

This year, I had the awful displeasure of having to work opening weekend.  I got to hear and read the accounts of my friends as they got to chase birds unfettered by work.  It almost drove me crazy.  But, all that was forgotten yesterday morning as I drove out to hunt.

The morning dawned as a picturesque springtime morning in the turkey woods.  Soft south wind, touch of fog, and a smell of mud after a rain.  There was no way a turkey could resist firing off at daylight...but, they did.  In fact, the first bird didn't gobble until 7:30 a.m.  When that first gobbler sounded, I was so far away from him, I couldn't tell exactly where he was on the property, so I just sat there hoping for another gobble. The second one didn't come until 30 minutes later, and when he gobbled, I knew he had come closer.  There were also 2 gobblers running together.

In no time, turkeys were all around me.  Jakes and hens were milling about, but the 2 big boys had hung up some 100 yards away.  After several minutes, the turkeys had fed off through the pine timber.   Given the numbness I was experiencing in my rear end, I shifted my weight slightly to allow a bit of blood flow.  The hen that spotted me was literally breathing down my neck, and her "putt" almost knocked my hat off - she was that close.  How I didn't hear her is beyond me.  But at her "putting" the rest of the flock started the same.  Off the hill to the east, a peacock that's gone wild with the turkeys started it's unnerving calling as well (long story for another day).  All this "putting" and "yeehawing" from the peacock would normally spook most birds, but the 2 toms just started gobbling.  I did the only thing I could think of, and that was fall in with the hens, and start calling myself. 

Gobble after gobble seemed to calm the other turkeys down, and make me a little nervous.  After a few minutes, the turkeys broke camp and started moving through the timber.

I am a firm believer in the fact that there's fewer things a hunter can experience more awesome than a strutting turkey.  The fact I had 2 strutter's coming my way did nothing but "up the ante".  They fell in step with each other in single file formation, stopping to strut and drum at about 30 yards dead in front of me, but behind a large pine tree.  For about 5 minutes, I did nothing but watch 2 fans blowing in the breeze and listened to drumming.

 Turkey call by John Eddleman, the single notch from 

a bird he killed.  It's now in my possession

and, I'll be adding a notch soon.

Stay tuned for an upcoming story on the Eddleman Calls.

At 8:25 the birds broke camp for the last time, one coming around the tree to my right, the other to my left.  Both were great birds, one being equal to the next.  Only one lived to see another day, hopefully to be hunted later this week as me and my friends have our annual "SuperHunt" weekend coming.

  
He was a beautiful bird, sporting a 10 inch beard, and 1 1/4 and 1 1/8 inch spurs.

My first hunt this year, and the pressures off.  I admit, it's a nice feeling.

If you've read this far, you may be asking yourself "why is this titled second chances"?  Well, I'll tell you.  Right before I shot, it dawned on me that I was a mere 10 yds from the tree I was sitting in front of when I shot the 2 year old that disappointed me so.  The turkeys themselves strutted and drummed behind the very tree the aforementioned 2 year old did, right before he died.  

In case you're wondering, when I walked up to the bird, I sat on a knee and THANKED GOD for the morning He gave...and, for second chances.  If you think about it, He gave us a second chance many years ago by way of His Son on the Cross.

Seemed appropriate this time of year.

Have a great week, check by often.

-Justin

"The Hunter's Dirty Word"

I had an interesting conversation last night, just as I was about to leave work.  A young physician knocked on my door to ask me a question regarding some medications.  No biggie, as this is my job.  As luck would have it, I had "8 Gauge" pulled up, checking some stats, and making sure the blog was in order.  This is something I typically do before heading home, as I have been at a computer all day, and just want to enjoy talking to Megan (and Lila if she is still awake).  I answered his questions, and he commented that he was enjoying reading the blog.  This came completely out of left field, but I came to find out he's a serious deer hunter who got the link to here through a mutual friend.

Being one to always want to know what I can do to make this place better, thus increasing "8 Gauge's" readership, I asked him his thoughts on the material he's read.  What he had to say really befuddled me.  So much so, I thought I'd write a bit about it today.  In a nutshell, the comments and thoughts he shared centered around the term "kill", it's derogative connotations, and that it may be used too much for attracting new readers - particularly those that don't hunt.

We talked about this a bit, offering up differing opinions and insight, which I appreciated.  Finally, he left to get some more work done, and I went home...and thought.  They say good ideas always start with a full glass, so that's just were I started - after everyone had gone to bed of course.

If you look around the internet or take an outdoors magazine, you quickly notice a few things.  We, as a society, have turned rivers and streams, fish and fowl into "resources".  We no longer shoot animals, we "harvest" or "collect" them.  We no longer kill anything, rather, we quickly and reverently "dispatch" of them.  Looking further, one may notice todays outdoor paintings glorify everything but the kill.  When is the last painting you've seen depicting men walking out of the field with a full strap or packing out an elk, laid over a horse, coming down the mountain?

We have taken a timeless chase which is something very raw and visceral, and watered it down into a bureaucratic, politically correct quagmire. 

I'm left asking when, and probably more importantly, why this happened?  I'm sure some of it is necessary, particularly in the case of one's dissertation he/she hopes to be printed.  Sadly, part of it has probably been a result of the need for advertising various hunting products.  The population at large simply doesn't like the term "kill", but "harvest" ties up the entire package and places a nice bow around it.  "Dispatching game" is more palatable for everyone...except, the hunter.

The hunter doesn't "harvest" anything, farmers do.  Is the freshly killed bobwhite, thunderous gobbler, princely whitetail, or regal greenheaded mallard really nothing more than a mere resource?  To make such a comparison, in my opinion, strips them of the study, skill, pursuit and ultimately, the killing to which they were initially created.  Moreover, those terms equate our wild game to nothing but a number, a simple statistic, a fleck of gold in a prospectors pan.

So, while I do consider wild game to be as valuable as gold, silver, oil or any other natural resource, they are still a hunter's quarry he stalks in hopes of a close encounter, a clean shot, a quick kill, and ultimately, a fine dining experience.  Bottom line.

To the physician that started all this.  I appreciate your thoughts and opinions...I just don't agree with them.

"Magellan on the David Spiars Memorial Hunt"

The notation at the top of the journal page reads "The Donation Hunt: David Spiars Memorial" and under that "The Band, the Black and the Snow".  Everyone at MSDUCKS lost a friend when we suddenly lost David.  At one point, he posted on just about every thread, always kept a level head, and was quickly promoted to a moderator.  I never had the pleasure to get to know him that well, but by all accounts from those that did, he was a great person.  When he passed away, the forum members jumped in and donated hunts, calls, and pretty much everything under the sun for an auction.  The money raised was then donated to an educational fund for David's children.  Here's one of those hunts, which took place on some of David Melton's duck hunting ground.

DATE: 12/12/2010
TEMPERATURE: 31 degrees and falling
LOCATION: the "Bull Pen" in Prichard, MS
WEATHER: WNW winds at 20 mph with snow flurries
KILLS: 19 malllards (10 drakes, 9 hens with one being banded), 1 BLACK DUCK, 1 Gadwall, 3 Greenwing Teal, 11 shovelers
FRIENDS: Jeff "GH22" Estes, Josh "Quackers" Ates, TJ "Dukbum" Penick, Chris Williams, Richard Williams, Chris Woods, David Melton
DOGS: HR Hunter, Bull

This was probably one of the top 3 coldest hunts that I've ever been on, and by for the best of them all.  We were getting hammered by birds some 10 minutes before shooting time.  Once shooting time arrived, it was "game on".  That 20+ mph wind was hitting us dead in the face, thus forcing the birds to work the outter edges of the spread.  We had to make longer shots, but we did pretty good.  We had 10 mallards in the first 20 minutes of shooting.  Somewhere during these vollies, we managed to kill a black duck without realizing it for almost 2 hours.  A solo greenhead comes over, and everyone but me cuts loose.  This allowed me to see who actually killed it.  TJ called the bird when he fell, but Bubba had the last shot and made it count.  Bull brought the bird back and the argument began, which I was able to quickly settle.  More fun began around 9 a.m., when the snow began to fall.  Killing mallards in a snow storm is a great site to see.  We ended the hunt by working on the shoveler population a bit, "breaking weak" trying to wait out for some more green.

photo below:

 

Photo courtesey of Jeff Estes

 

Photo courtesy of T.J. Penick



MANY THANKS to the MSDUCKS crew for a fine recount of a great hunt!

Keep checking back, we've got some great hunts and historical locations coming up!

-Justin