Pygmy

I have a photo taken a few years back of my turkey decoy in about 6 inches of snow on May 13th....

Scalloped potatoes and ham, for me and The Mermaid on Mother's Day....Damn good as leftovers tomorrow also... I can't ever seem to make a small batch...

I have only had the priveledge of eating morels once...A buddy of mine found a bunch and shared them with me....I simply sautéed them in butter and they were awesome !!

I have had a pair of robins trying to build a nest on top of a light within inches of the door we use as our main entrance... No deal, because I don't want the bird droppings on my doorstep....They worked a couple of days last week and I tore it down as soon as they started to build it..I thought they had given up, but this morning when The Mermaid and I got back from breakfast, they had a pretty good start again... I tore it down..About a half hour later, I opened the door to see if they were still trying, and had a robin about six inches from my nose.. The trauma to the poor bird may have clinched it....No more nest building attempts since then..

I hate you...I have yet to see a morel in New York State.....<< GRIN>>…...

I hope you all remember your mothers, or other significant Moms in your lives, tomorrow.. My Mom passed away ten years ago, at the age of 84....She was a pistol !! I'm no fighter, but if you want to get INTO one, just say something bad about my Mom....

My toilet paper is like American Express...I never leave home without it...

Bigfoot...

If it is idiot proof, it's for me !!!

In my vocabulary, passing up means you had the chance to take a good shot and chose not to, for whatever reason... What Bill did, was chose not to take a marginal shot, which is to his credit...

I am planning to drive up to Ontario May 17th, and come back on the 23rd...That will give me six days of hunting... I Gotta remember to pick up some fuel for my thermacell...Skeeters are brutal up there later in the month... Last time I hunted up there in mid May I forgot the thermacell and damn near got eaten alive...

I have seen perhaps 7 or 8 over the years, but then again I am almost as old as dirt... One of my closest friends shot about a half white piebald 8 point on my property a few years back....The deer weighed just 100 pounds dressed....I had never seen it before he killed it...Moog saw the full body mount when he was down here turkey hunting last spring.....

The Tenth Legion is one of my all time favorite books...I bought my signed copy from Tom Kelly himself at a NWTF convention in Nashville. He is a fine old gentleman.... Kudos on your persistence, Bill...I used to hunt every single day as long as I had a valid tag...Now that I am older I have to take an occasional day off to recharge my batteries, but I am still out there most of the days...You have to be IN it, to WIN it....

This bird had been roosting on an oak ridge about 100 yards off a field....He would gobble a few times on the roost, fly down and walk out into the field to gobble and strut to attract hens...I set my pop up blind on the edge of the field and set out two hen decoys.. He gobbled on the roost at 5:30 AM, about 100 yards into the woods behind me....He gobbled on the roost a half dozen times and I was listening for him to fly down before I called...I never heard him fly down, but suddenly he gobbled on the ground behind the blind and he was CLOSE...He gobbled one more time and I could tell he was coming out of the woods to my right, so I got set up to shoot out of that window... He stepped into the field, took one look at Esmerelda and Henrietta and went into strut...Then he folded up and started walking toward the decoys....I shot him at 38 of my Pygmy paces from the blind...I looked at my watch and it was 5:48...I never even took the rubber band off my box call.....18 3/4 pounds, 9 3/4" beard and 7/8" spurs....He could have been a brother to the one I killed 100 yards away from that spot Sunday morning.. Now it's off to Canada, EH ?.....

Bingo !!….Tagged out in NY at 5:48 AM ...Good bird and textbook hunt..Story to come....

I will be there well before daylight and set up a popup blind....I can work in the dark... When I was younger I used to do some of my BEST work in the dark..Hehehe... I can no longer sit for long periods of time against a tree without fidgeting, cramping, etc... Inside a blind I can sit on a comfortable chair, run my box call, fart, scratch my nutz, and still not spook birds...

Where do you put the turkey ?

I have a plan for tomorrow....One corner of the field was VERY busy today..If I had been set up there I could have killed any one of four gobblers...I will be set up there tomorrow morning...

It was Gobbler Central on the property this morning Seven longbeard sightings..A couple may have come by twice, but I know for sure there were five separate gobblers.. And with all that, I couldn't coax ONE within gun range...<<sigh>>…. Oh well... With that many birds around, one is sure to make a mistake sooner or later....Or not....Hehehe....

I spent this morning on the property....Hear and saw NOTHING ! Since I had a few chores to tend to, I pulled the plug at 11:30... I decided to hunt another property tomorrow, for a change of scenery... Just as I was pulling out of the gate, three BIG longbeards were crossing the road onto our property... I guess I'll be hunting there again tomorrow.... Hehehe....

An issue with the new, super tight patterning loads is that if you get a really close shot, or even a 20 or 30 yard shot, you must be dead steady and right on, or you may miss..... Some of us old farts, who are not quite as steady as we once were ESPECIALLY when high adrenaline levels are involved, can be at a disadvantage with such loads... I have hunted gobblers for 50 years...I still get REAL nervous, when a bird gets in real close...If a gobbler commits, you should have a shot at 45 yards or less....I'll settle for a load that is still sure kill to 45 yards or so, but due to a bigger pattern, will give me more room for error if the bird gets in close...For me, ideal range on a gobbler is 30-35 yards...Standard loads will riddle the head and neck at that range, but still provide enough pattern spread to allow for a margin of error...

I remember the first time I patterned Win XX buffered copper plated mags in my 2 34" 12 gauge back around 1976....I was amazed at the pattern at 40 yards compared to standard non buffered lead loads..... And technology has advanced a long way since then..... A couple of years ago I assessed the number of turkey loads I have in my cabinet...There are enough there for me to hunt the rest of my life, plus a few extra to check the zero on my scope...Many of them have been carried in my vest for months and put in and out of the gun so many times that I can no longer read the shot size stampings...However, the great majority of the turkey loads I have bought over the last 30 years were either Federal or Win XX, buffered, copper loads in either #4 or #6 shot...I know from experience that any of them will throw a sure kill pattern at 45 yards out of the two guns that I use for turkeys, and that is good enough for me..

I finally found a dumb one..Or maybe just got lucky...After four days of hunting from pre-dawn until noon and hearing just a few gobbles and getting very little response... Set up this morning in my blind with a strutter and two hens out....No roost gobbling....After flydown I started doing some clucking, ,purring and soft yelps....No gobbling...About 7:00 am a hen came out, shortly followed by two others...I got the gun ready and sure enough, here comes the gobbler trotting after the hens Ba-da BOOM !!… 18.5 lb, nice heavy 9" beard and 7/8" spurs..... Not the most exciting hunt I have ever had, but after 4 slow days , he was more than welcome...

Congrats to your son...A straight at trap is much harder than a straight at skeet...Back in the day I shot a number of 25 straights and a couple of 50s at skeet, but I never shot one at trap ...My best trap round was either a 23 or a 24...

Yup...I've seen a couple spurless and one that had double spurs on both legs... I also once dated a girl with three boobs...The one on her back made it nice for slow dancing...