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The season is a few weeks off but it's time to tune up the fiddle for the dance
The Sun is getting warmer every day and the Cardinal is singing his springtime song as the days get longer. Big flocks of turkeys seen in the fields will get smaller and the males will become solitary rather than the groups of 6 or so like I saw this week, strutting and gobbling wiil bring on the new year
This is a call that I tuned yesterday morning after being hewn and sitting since last winter after a request from a member here. She's a big girl 12 1/2 " long made of walnut and butternut. I call these big laminates Black&Tan both for thier colour and after the big old dogs we used when I was a kid night hunting coons. Deep voice that travels the distance and they don't stop till the job is done After shapeing and a bit of poly to seal the wood she got a few licks with a chisel and life comes to a brand new fiddle. Putfile is down so I'll have to upload some sound files later
Yup those were the first sounds that call made after I sat the chisel down beside the keyboard. There is also no chalk on the paddel but instead a dusting of rosin. Can't see the grain in the wood too well either as this is a scan from a 35mm and much is lost in the scanning. I didn't show the top of the call signed at the request of the new owner.
Couple more since I was using up the roll of film in the old Nikon
Top is what I call B&T Pup since it is smaller than the B&T although every bit as fiesty. Bottom is a "Big Red". It is Cherry and believe it or not WILLOW. Pot call is my own Curly Maple glass over slate with a breast feather out of my best ever bird glued in between the surface and the sound board
Sorry my only video camera at present is a tape job and I don't have an AV to USB cord. I asked the folks at The Source here in town and they gave me a funny look. I tried with my little Fugi camera before I smashed it turkey hunting last year but the quality was poor. When I did a gobble you couldn't see the hand movement. The gobble is sort of like shaking the dew off your daisy if you know what I mean with the paddle between your index and second finger . You just shake the paddle rapidly back and forth across both sides sort of like shakin the dew. Heck maybe that's why I make them there gobbling calls so long.
Get yourself a call then go over to NWTF's website and practice mimicking the calls you hear there. In no time you'll get the idea. Either that or you may catch a frying pan upside the noggin.. The files I made were more to test the range of the call than to mimic a sequence in the woods. Time under the tree will be the teacher of what to say and when and just as important when to shut up and sit tight.
A wise old Tom is ever bit a big game animal even though he's a bird. His lack of olfactory sences are more than made up for buy vison and hearing. A gobblers ability to get out of Dodge puts just about everything else to shame. Aint no slowing down when we get to a fence cuz he's already flying faster than anything can run and as for run he's and overgrown roadrunner. They'll circle just out of range in full display for the longest time then just take off in the other direction if they aren't comfortable leaving you wondering what you did wrong. Next morning that bird may just come straight in.
One of the boys I work with got hold of Adrian J Hare's dvd and said it is a good video for tips you need starting out. Slip him a PM and see if he has one for you. Good luck on a first season.
They'll circle just out of range in full display for the longest time then just take off in the other direction if they aren't comfortable leaving you wondering what you did wrong..
Yup 100 yrds is definately out of range. 40 is more like it and closer is even better. If you think it's too far it likely is. Lots of birds are killed at 60 but a lot more likely get wounded at that range. Usually when they hang up out there it's because they have hens with them and it's the hen you need to interest at that time to see if she'll come to check you out drag Thomas along with here. Yup her eyes are everybit as sharp as the gobblers. I have had hens attack my decoy more than once. Even had a young hen acompanied by two jakes go into a strut as she knocked my decoy off the peg. She was likely less than twenty feet from when she did it. Quite a morning but I didn't shoot one of the young gobblers. Got my second mature bird of the season the next morning as IRC.
Little teaser for ya
