Jennifer

Yes-- they sure can. I've had them come into calls before, looking for a meal. One grabbed a decoy by the neck in the spring once too-- never even saw him until he had the decoy! Thankfully he realized something was wrong and dropped it before he ran off, otherwise I'd need a new one! Coyotes do a number on turkeys thoug, you are right. I've had them come in to my turkey calling more often than foxes. They seem a lot more aware /nervous of human presence than the foxes though, as I've only ever seen them for a split second before they do a 180 and tail it out of there.

Remington 870 Wingmaster with a slug barrel on it-- my dad's gun. I grew up shooting it and even though I can legally use a rifle here now, I am just so used to this shotgun that I feel more confident with it. The area I deer hunt is pretty thick so I rarely would have the chance to shoot >50 yards anyhow.

Many years ago I was fall turkey hunting in about 2-3' of snow with my dad. We came across some hot scratchings, and we played track and attack. I was smaller and got to be the 'hound' on the scratchings, while dad flanked me about 30 yards out in case we stumbled into them and one of us needed to break or jump shoot one. Those turkeys went into the thickest, nastiest snarl of treetops on a steep sidehill, full of berry brush and thorns. Dad and I met up and started to follow them when suddenly the woods exploded with turkeys in front of us! In order to safely swing on one, I had to point my barrel up and pivot my upper body-- well wouldn't you know it but I was standing on a bunch of downed branches and when I twisted, my feet went out from under me and the next thing I knew I was face down in the snow! I wear glasses and it was all packed in them and down my coat and just not a good time. By the time I got up and could see it was all over. My dad knocked down a bird, and then asked, "Jen! Why didn't you shoot?!" When he looked over and saw me making a snow angel, he looked even more incredulous: "What are you doing down there?" We tried to set up to call the broken flock back in, but I was so soaked that we had to head home within a few hours because I was freezing.

Turkey hunting in 9T again today, I came across at least two dozen well tended scrapes, and we saw 4 deer mid-morning (two didn't know we were there, 2 we bumped). One looked to be a buck, but I couldn't tell for sure in the fog, I didn't have time to get my binocs on him. Good luck out there!

Nicely done! Not much better than working a broken flock in the fall. I prefer it over gobblers in the spring, but I'm wierd like that.

Weird! Maybe you are onto something. Possibly an escaped domestic bird? A lot more people are getting into heritige breeds these last few years, and some of them look (in coloration) like a wild bird. I know sometimes people will also 'drop' unwanted toms off in the countryside if they have too many... like people do when they get unwanted roosters, but that's not usually with a more expensive heritige breed. Most people that get into them will raise them all and butcher unwanted/food birds. Hmm. It's also possible it's a wild bird that for whatever reason is okay with people. I've seen that around cities but not so much in rurual areas (I agree-- spookiest critters out there!).

I too have noticed a definate upswing in scrapes and rubs (as expected). I've been out turkey hunting a lot and use this time to scout as well. There was a LOT of feeding activity under oak trees that produced a good mast this year. I should note that many stands of oak did not seem to produce many acorns? But the few trees that did were fed under heavily by deer. I'm not sure what time of day.

I do this when turkey hunting (fall and spring), I sit against a tree so I am not silhouetted and make it so I can re-position without making a lot of noise in the leaf litter.

Not a drop story but-- Last weekend my husband and I were out turkey hunting with my dad, and we were hunting a ridge. We keep in touch via radio, he's getting a bit older and I want to make sure he's okay every few hours. We check in every hour or so, then turn the radio off to conserve batteries in-between. After he'd had enough, my dad walked down the (very steep!) sidehill to exit the woods, and we had our hourly check-in. My husband and I worked our way down the ridge so that we could drop down the hill to him and call it a day, when I saw something-- don't ask me how I saw it, nor how we just happened to walk by that exact spot (we weren't walking logging roads), but I looked over and there was my dad's camo hunting seat. We went to pick it up and next to it were his various expensive turkey calls! We would never have seen them if we hadn't walked by that exact spot and seen the seat somehow. Now, my dad is always ribbing us for minor stuff.. so we decided to get him back. We hit the seat and calls in my husband's pack and walked down the hill to find him flaming angry! "Why didn't you turn your radios on!? I left my calls back up in the woods, now we gotta climb this cliff! (it's really hard for him to do with two bad knees)", etc and so on. Well, we handed him his calls and he calmed down, and then we showed him the seat and then he was really embarassed-- he didn't even realize he'd forgotten it!! Now I can finally live down the time I left a camo jacket in the woods! He liked to remind me every time we go hunting of that incident (hey, I was 12 at the time..).

After scouting all of September and October, and finding no sign, we've finally got scratching going on! I was very excited to locate and bust a flock of 12+ birds this morning with my husband, to try and get him on his first bird. Unfortunately, the area we broke them in was very thick with no chance to pick a bird out, so we scattered them as best we could. Got one bird to come back in to us, and due to my own fault with mis-communicating, my husband took his shot too soon while the bird was out of his range (16 ga.). I told him to take his time, wait for a good shot, take it when he was ready, which he misunderstood. To be fair, the only other time we got into birds was a jump shot where I shot a flushing bird, so he was eager to get a shot off. We moved a short ways and set up to work other birds in as they started kee-keeing all around, and one flew in to us and was working in at about 70 yards, but the owners of the neighboring property started running utvs around and had some kids and dogs running around too, then started the chainsaws and target shooting up and down the roads. The property I hunt is sort of an island within their property so they were all around us. Not at all angry with them-- they probably had no idea we were there... just unfortunate timing! The birds shut right up and wouldn't peep the rest of the day. I'd love to go back in and try to group them off the roost but work calls.. alas! It was a lot of fun, and a learning experience for us both. I'm learning how to mentor and he's learning how tricky turkeys can be! Feeling very fortunate to have had fun with those birds today, even if it was short lived.

I've small game hunted the 9-mile state forest area a few times and it's been really quiet in there. It's big woods and I'd have to hike it quite a bit more to learn it up there... figure out food sources and where critters like to be. Saw some buck rubs but not much else. What are you after?

I'm too late to help you with this morning, but generally if I get a flock roosted, I get pretty excited. I will go back in when it is still DARK in the morning and set up as close to the roosting trees as I dare, and then sit tight, quiet, and as motionless as possible. Turkeys often work and scratch/feed a bit initially off of the roost. I have noticed that when they roost on a ridge, they will fly down onto the ridge itelf. When they roost on a sidehill, they tend to glide toward the uphill side, instead of the downhill side. This is not a guarantee, just a tendency. I don't like to bust them out of the roost, because they tend to all fly in the same direction and don't come back to a call (they don't need to re-group). If you want to bust them, I suggest doing it while they are in the ground, and create chaos for them so that they scatter in several directions. Then it's a lot of fun to call them back in as they want to re-group! Note that a bachelor group of mature toms generally won't call back in as easily, if at all. A flock of mixed birds generally will.

Fortunately, I haven't yet had to deal with this in a hunting situation, but after keeping chickens and having dog problems,you would not believe how crazy people can get over their dogs, even if they are 100% in the wrong. I love dogs and have had them in my life forever, I've only ever taken issue with their owners.

As much as I hate to say it, I'd personally caution against 'expressing concern' for his dogs. It's stupid and unfair, but if you mention that they might be unsafe ("gun season is coming! I am concerned about them getting caught in a trap! Someone might mistake them for a coyote!", etc), the first person that he might blame is YOU if something were to happen to the dogs, even if you didn't do anything. That's a headache. I've seen it happen with other people before, and it makes a crummy situation into an all out neighbor-feud. Just be polite but to the point: it's illegal to let dogs run at large.

It's been sunrise to sunset for deer in the SZ for the last 18 years I've been hunting. Spring turkey and waterfowl are the only non-furbearers that have slightly different times to the best of my knowledge.

That's true-- actually, now that I think of it, that might be where some of the language is borrowed from! For those wondering, the MBTA is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and is extremely strict in how one may deal with any birds listed as protected. It is on the Federal level, and fines are steep. Of interest is the wording: http://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/migtrea.html http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/RegulationsPolicies/mbta/mbtintro.html These laws are why we have special duck stamps, licencing, regulations, and the HIP Harvest Information Program, in order to hunt species on this list such as waterfowl, crows, woodcock. This is also why it is illegal to sell parts of or even entire mounts from legally harvested wild waterfowl, with exception of for the purpose of fly-tying.

Great photos! I know they had a good year for hatching, but I've been out scouting since October rolled around and haven't even found any sign yet. Good to know I've just been having bad luck!

I have read that black squirrels were more common back when our forests were mostly coniferous; the darker coloration made the less likely to be spotted therefore predated upon. Now that logging, fire, etc have created mostly deciduous forest, the greys are better camoflauged. The genetics for the blacks do indeed exist in pockets, that's true. We have quite a few of them here. My town takes a great deal of pride in them, of all things.

Yes, that can certainly be part of it! A deer drive does indeed harass deer, sometimes a great deal. However, it also relates to people that toss firecrackers down active animal dens (i.e. foxes), or allow their dogs (or children!!) to run through active nest sites of protected birds, or teenagers that think it's funny to mess with a deer fawn until it's so stressed out that it might perish. Those are just examples based on real things that have happened before. People, in general, are often unnecessarily cruel , or at least thoughtless/ignorant about wild animals. I was on a beach this summer where a local sandpiper colony was being nuked by people intentionally letting their dogs run through the nests, causing both egg loss and nest abandonment, and kids playing with the chicks, which sadly means that the chick is done for most of the time. This would fall under the 'harassing, worrying, and disturbing' umbrella (as well as MBTA laws, which are federal, and not part of this discussion). These activities aren't even related to hunting, but the people that did them could get busted for the law described above. My guess as to why it's vague: the moment you define exact situations that are illegal, it creates a slippery slope for anything not strictly defined (but common sense says falls under the vague umbrella of 'harassment'). I am not saying it's ideal, but it's just what I suspect.

I am sorry, then. It just seemed like a lot of the folks here were assuming what an ECO would think, without really having any idea. I was getting the vibe that a lot of people were getting a hate on for them without a solid reason. If you have family/know some ECOs and they've told you how they feel about this specific situation, then I do apologize. For what it's worth, I have asked two of the guys I worked with this specific situation, and they told me similarly to what was posted above-- as long as you're following all other local and state laws, they wouldn't bust someone based on having a loaded weapon alone. I unload anyhow, but that's just my choice. It's entirely possible that the ECOs from different regions have different tolerence levels-- where I live there is a pretty low population of people/hunters/ECOs. I've actually never seen an ECO in 20 years of hunting, other than at the office, funny enough. Good luck to you!

That's what I'm afraid of, too. I'm glad they are helping the duck, that's a miserable way to live no matter what sort of critter you are.

Right man, I hear you. Each officer is a bit different, and some probably do have a chip on their shoulder. They may have to deal with lot more BS from hunters in more populated areas and have less tolerence. All I was saying was that unless you know any officers, telling me how they view the law is sort of a moot point. Telling me how you view the law is okay and part of our discussion.

I understand that it's actually ideal to cape the deer out before you hang it, so that you don't damage the hide on the neck (if you are going to hang it that way). Taxidermests need quite a bit of the neck hide to make a nice mount, and even more if you want a shoulder mount. I know most of us never think of it until we have a bruiser on the ground, but if you think you might eve want a deer mounted (if you ever take one that you think needs to be on your wall), it pays to see what taxidermists are in your area that you might take the deer to, and ask them how they prefer to recieve a cape/head beforehand, so that you get the best mount that you possibly can. I do birds (not profesionally) and I know that I appreciate a well taken care of bird carcass enough that I do a much better job on them than something that has been 'abused' a little... Sorry for the tangent. Just some info I thought might be helpful.

Well, the last thing I want to do is to get into an argument here, but I just need to get this out. I have worked with ECOs in region 9 in the past and I will tell you that some of them have more common sense than that. Try not to paint with too big of a brush, there, unless you know all of NYS's ECOs personally... That's all I've got to say about it.

Really sad, irresponsible and disrespectful.