Hunting squeakers in the spring
May 28, 2010
By Hunter Mike
Kentucky’s spring squirrel season will be open June 5-18. This is a great time for hunters to get out and enjoy the woods. Hunters can also use this time to do some early scouting. June is a perfect time to hang tree cameras to monitor the antler growth on the bucks that are hanging around your property.
Hunting squirrels in the spring can be a challenge. Hunters that face that challenge will improve their skills by having many obstacles to overcome while stalking spring tree rats. Instead of hearing that too familiar rick-a-dee-rick of a squirrel cutting on a hickory nut, hunters will have to rely on sight to locate squeakers. With the summer foliage, this is a challenge in itself.
Calling
Calling is one of the most effective ways to locate squirrels in the spring, according to C&C Outdoorsman Keith Sutton. Some calls bark, some chatter and some imitate the distress call of a young squirrel. Most of these calls are not necessarily designed to bring the squirrel to you. They are designed to coax the squirrel into revealing its location. The calls make them move in the trees, or they might bark back at you. From personal experience, the distress call of a young squirrel is highly effective. I have bagged several gray, and fox squirrels that have come right to my position when I’ve used this call. When used properly, calls can help hunters see more squirrels than they would without calling.
Hunters should consider hunting aggressively during the first three hours after dawn. This is the coolest part of the day, and the time when squirrels will be most active. Truth be told, it’s more comfortable for us to be out there at this time as well.
Spring Food Sources
Squirrels won’t be munching on hickory nuts, walnuts or acorns at this time of the year. In the fall, finding these food sources is like finding a gold mine. In the spring, squirrels will thrive on leaf and flower buds, fungi and berries according to Sutton. Hunters must find these types of food sources if they want to find squirrels. Sutton suggests that mulberries are the X-factor for spring furry limb chickens. If you find a mulberry tree, you are likely to fill the daily bag limit.
Remember, squirrels like to forage on the ground to try and find leftovers from last fall’s nut crop. Don’t spend all of your time looking up in the trees. Scan the entire area. Many times during the deer season, we sit in our stands and watch squirrels come out of their tree dens. Keep in mind where these spots are and go straight to them on opening day.
Go to http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/ to check out the 2010 Spring Hunting Guide if you are uncertain of bag limits or any other regulations. Be safe and good luck!
Top-water lures can induce bass strikes – Outdoors – NewsObserver.com
May 28, 2010
BY JAVIER SERNA – Staff Writer
APEX — Not long after dawn Friday, Adam Petty was slinging top-water poppers toward the shore of Shearon Harris Lake from the deck of his bass boat.
The Four Oaks man is a member of the Raleigh Fire Department, and he also has a small landscaping business on the side.
“And then I fish,” Petty, 28, a sponsored tournament fisherman, said, joking. “I make time for fishing, and I find time for my work.”
And right now, before spring sizzles into summer, is when he makes extra time to fish for largemouth bass using top-water baits, that array of lures worked on water’s surface that can elicit some of the most exciting strikes in the sportfishing realm. This is one of the best times of the year to fish on top at Harris, Petty said.
Chris White, owner of The Tackle Box in Fuquay-Varina, set me up with Petty.
In bass fishing, there’s nothing like having a hefty largemouth ambush a surface lure, seeing a wake come up behind the lure and witnessing the fish leave the water completely. Click Link Below for Full Story!
via Top-water lures can induce bass strikes – Outdoors – NewsObserver.com.
Fishing book: ‘Practical Fishing Knots’ – Salt Lake Tribune
May 24, 2010
When I was about 8–years-old, my dad taught me how to tie a clinch knot because he got tired of having to do it for me while we were fishing. I have not learned another fishing knot since. It is not something I’m proud of, believe me. And, that’s not to say that I don’t tie knots other than the clinch knot. I can be found creating crazy contraptions and uttering a prayer hoping they will work on just about every trip. Every time I lose a fish to a poorly tied knot, which amazingly is not that often, I promise I’ll sit down and work on learning the knots. With large pictures using yacht rope instead of fishing line and actually helpful graphics, Geoffrey Budworth may have just made it easier for me. But I guess you should expect nothing less from the “father of forensic knotting” and co-founder of the International Guild of Knot Tyers back in 1982.
Brett Prettyman
via Fishing book: ‘Practical Fishing Knots’ – Salt Lake Tribune.
Elk management plan moving forward in Va. – BusinessWeek
May 24, 2010
By STEVE SZKOTAK
RICHMOND, Va.
An elk management plan for Virginia will offer wildlife regulators several options to manage its small population of the Rocky Mountain native that has wandered over from Kentucky.
The draft plan ranges from doing nothing to stocking elk for hunting and tourism in seven southwest counties. The plan is headed to a Game and Inland Fisheries committee on May 24 and to the full commission in June.
The director of the department's wildlife division said the plan is intended to offer several possibilities for commissioners to consider and the public to debate.
“We’re trying to make this whole thing more of a scoping document with options for restoration,” Bob Ellis said Friday of the report, which still needs some finishing touches. He said the final version could contain a preferred option.
Virginia’s native elk, a cousin of the bigger Rocky Mountain version, was hunted into extinction more than 150 years ago. A restoration plan involving the Rocky Mountain subspecies has been promoted by sportsmen’s groups and some officials in economically depressed southwest Virginia to encourage more tourism.
The farming community has spoken out against any additional elk in Virginia, which number 75-100. They fear crop damage and the spread of tuberculosis and brucellosis to domestic cattle.
In developing the management plan, Virginia wildlife biologists visited several states that have large numbers of elk, including Kentucky. More than 10,000 elk roam 16 counties in that state.
“Kentucky did it on the largest scale and they have seen some benefits after 12 years of having elk, not only for hunting but from viewing,” Ellis said.
The state, for instance, has developed viewing areas for visitors who want to look at the big, buff-colored deer. A lottery for a limited hunt attracts thousands of hunters. The lottery winners pay several hundred dollars each for a shot at an elk.
The management panel also looked at the experience of states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, which have smaller numbers of elk. Pennsylvania has approximately 600 to 700 of the animals and has had success with tourism and viewing areas.
“If you intend to have elk, you have to plan for that sort of thing,” Ellis said, citing traffic as an example.
The management group also talked to farm groups in southwest Virginia and coal interests, which own large tracts of land in the state’s southwest corner.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services took a stand against any expansion of the state's existing numbers when the proposal surfaced last year.
Virginia’s beef cattle industry, the state's No. 2 agricultural commodity by cash receipts, ships most of its animals to out-of-state feed lots. Infected herds must be quarantined.
Virginia has previously rejected moves to re-establish elk, with disease transmission a key concern.
Ellis expects the commission to take final action on a management plan in August.
via Elk management plan moving forward in Va. – BusinessWeek.
N.H. moose hunt lottery deadline is May 28 | SeacoastOnline.com
May 24, 2010
CONCORD — Want a chance to hunt moose in New Hampshire this fall? Then you better get moving! The deadline for entering the 2010 New Hampshire Moose Hunt Lottery is Friday, May 28, 2010. You may be one of 395 lucky hunters who will be drawn for New Hampshire moose hunting permits – a chance for the adventure of a lifetime.It’s easy to enter. Visit http://www.huntnh.com to apply online or print a mail-in application, or pick up a lottery application from any license agent. The entry fee is $15 for New Hampshire residents and $25 for nonresidents nonrefundable. Each applicant can enter the moose hunt lottery once each year. You don’t need a current hunting license to enter.Related Stories Wild turkey season gets under way in Maine N.H. opens moose hunt lotteryA word to the wise: If possible, do apply online; it greatly reduces the chance of leaving information off or making a mistake. Late or incomplete applications are not accepted. Don’t wait until the last minute to apply; every year we hear from disappointed people who missed out on the lottery because they ran into problems with their computer or Internet connection.Applications submitted by mail must be postmarked no later than midnight, May 28, 2010, to be eligible for the lottery. If submitting a paper application by mail on May 28, take it to the post office and try to have it postmarked while you are there; just dropping it in a mailbox does not ensure that it will be postmarked by the deadline.Take advantage of the bonus point system to improve your chance of winning. Unsuccessful applicants build up a point each year they apply. Don’t miss a year, or you’ll lose your points!New Hampshire continues to have some of the best odds in the nation for drawing a moose hunt permit. The overall odds of being selected in last year’s lottery were 1 in 22 for New Hampshire residents and 1 in 63 for nonresidents.Winners will be selected through a computerized random drawing on June 18, 2010.New Hampshire’s 2010 moose hunt runs from October 16 to 24. Find out more about moose hunting in New Hampshire, at http://www.huntnh.com/Hunting/Hunt_species/hunt_moose.htm.
via N.H. moose hunt lottery deadline is May 28 | SeacoastOnline.com.
Poached Ohio trophy buck costs Johnny Clay of Minford, Ohio record $23,572 in restitution | cleveland.com
May 11, 2010
By D’Arcy Egan, The Plain Dealer
Johnny Clay, 37, of Minford, Ohio is no stranger to southern Ohio wildlife officials, cited for 10 deer hunting violations over the years. The huge trophy deer he illegally killed in September, 2009, set a Buckeye standard when Clay was ordered Friday to pay $23,572 in restitution in Adams County Court.The deer’s trophy antlers measured 197 2/8 inches according to Boone & Crockett 
Club guidelines, the largest typical white-tailed deer harvested in North American in 2009. It would have ranked fourth in Ohio’s Buckeye Big Buck Club standings. It is now the property of the Division of Wildlife.Clay pled guilty to taking a deer out of season, hunting property without the landowner’s permission and a failure to have a valid hunting license or deer permit.A confidential informant contacted wildlife officers Chris Rice and Chris Gilkey last March, said district law enforcement supervisor Dave Brown. Clay had checked the Adams County deer in Kentucky, reporting it as a legal kill during the Kentucky archery season, but trail camera photos revealed it was killed in Ohio.”It was the largest amount of restitution we’d ever sought,” said Brown. Clay, who has served jail time for deer violations in the past, was also fined $1,500, forfeited his bow to the state and lost his hunting privileges for life. Ohio is a member of the 34-state Wildlife Violator’s Compact, which makes it illegal for Clay to hunt in all of those states.
The PGA Tour’s Best Fishing Holes – Forbes.com
May 6, 2010
Monte Burke, 05.04.10, 04:00 PM EDT
At some tournaments golfers hit the ponds between putts.
This week’s Players’ Championship at Pete Dye’s inimitable Sawgrass is unofficially known on the PGA tour as “the fifth major.” But for some tour players the event has become known for something else: as a place where they can score a trophy bass.
A few years ago, as he approached the Par 5, 16th hole at Sawgrass during the tournament’s first practice day, Briny Baird gazed at the three-acre pond that runs down its right-hand side. The sight proved irresistible. As other tour players worked out the kinks in their swings, Baird decided to take a few casts into the pond with a rod he stowed away in his bag for that purpose.
“I moved off the green because I saw a golfer coming,” says the 11-year tour veteran.
But Baird couldn’t resist a cast. And he happened to hook a big fish. The golfer behind him, Tim Petrovic, arrived at the green just in time to help Baird haul in a seven-pound largemouth bass.
Baird has also fished from the green on the 17th at Sawgrass, the island Par 3 that’s arguably the most famous hole in golf. “Fishing is a little harder to pull off there,” he says, “because you always have golfers waiting on the tee.”
To get around that Baird says he usually returns to the hole in the late afternoon, when most golfers have left the course. He slings casts right from the green. “There are some huge bass in that pond,” he says. And there’s plenty of room for your backcast. Click link below for full story!
via The PGA Tour’s Best Fishing Holes – Forbes.com.
Tips for a difficult time in the turkey-hunting season | savannahnow.com
May 6, 2010
It’s going to get a little harder in the woods as the hunting season comes to a close in South Carolina and Georgia.
Last week, the wild turkey was at the height of his breeding season. This comes to an abrupt halt in the next few days. The hens are pretty much on the nest getting ready to start with the hatch. The incubation period for the wild turkey egg is around 28 days, and they have pretty much stayed on schedule, which means poults will start to hit the ground during the first full week of May.
For the toms, this means they will start to wander. The toms are going to strut zones in an attempt to find one last girlfriend for the spring, and because of this, he is doing a lot of walking. He is going to be hitting large open areas or along ridges atop bottoms.
I will say that the best part of this time of year is that you can pattern a turkey. If you spot a bird in the open, and he’s walking in your direction, then some soft feeding purrs and clucks will probably get him to come within shooting range. If he is spotted walking away, let him go. He’s headed to a specific location and probably nothing you can do will change his mind.
Spend a day or two scouting. Try and pattern a bird by marking the time, place and direction of travel. If he continues to pattern himself, get set up the next day and basically ambush him while he’s making his rounds. Areas to look for are strut marks on the ground, where he blows up and drags his wing tips.
It’s not common for hens to do much talking this time of the year because they don’t have to. So some advice: leave most, if not all, of your calls at home.
I usually bring a good slate call and a couple of good hardwood strikers to the woods. Box calls are too loud and most glass calls are too raspy. All you want is to get a tom’s attention and a single hen decoy along with some soft calling could bring this old bird in for a close one-shot harvest.
Remember to not get over excited during the final weeks of turkey season. Plan for a long sit. I usually bring a couple of bottles of water, a good pair of binoculars and a comfortable cushion to sit on. This is a great time of the year to get into a pop-up blind. Most of them can be set up in a minute or two, and with a small camp stool, you can hunt for hours in comfort.
Keep in mind your surroundings and remember snakes and bugs are out looking for a meal. The snakes are short-tempered and the bugs are hungry.
Andy Taylor is a member of the National Wild Turkey Federation and employed in Bass Pro Shops hunting department.
Go to savannahnow. com/outdoors to read Andy Taylor’s blog. This week’s post is about other locations you can turkey hunt as the South Carolina and Georgia seasons come to a close.
via Tips for a difficult time in the turkey-hunting season | savannahnow.com.
Youth weekends introduce turkey hunting to new generation | Democrat and Chronicle
May 3, 2010
Nicholas Thomas, 13, brought in this 22-pound trophy tom with the help of his father, Frank, in Wayne County.Turkey callers vary in both technique and sound. At top right is a box call that reproduces with a slight stroke of the lid the sounds of the hen or gobbler. At center is a double slate call that uses a striking stick. At bottom is a mouth call made with two pieces of latex that produces a young spring hen's high-pitch sound.
Leo Roth • Staff writer
In 30 years of turkey hunting, rarely has a season passed without Frank Thomas filling out a leg tag.
As a former competitive caller who once took second place in the state calling championships, the Marion resident knows how to talk turkey.
“It was a great thing to do when I was single,” Thomas, 46, said.
What he has going on these days is even greater.
A time in life when Thomas’ most memorable hunts don’t involve him pulling the trigger but rather him pulling for his son, Nicholas, 13. A time when a love of the outdoors is passed down from one generation to the next.
The spring turkey season opened Saturday with prospects for another successful May — the state’s annual spring harvest is around 35,000 birds — fueling hunters’ dreams of bagging a trophy tom.
Like many fathers and sons, the Thomases got a head start last weekend by taking advantage of a two-day window in the woods designed specifically for youth turkey hunters and their adult mentors.
In an effort to reverse a steady decline in hunting participation over two decades, New York state began setting aside weekends where just youths ages 12 to 15 can hunt turkey, pheasant and waterfowl. Their adult supervisors can guide them but can’t carry a firearm or shoot one.
Last year’s spring turkey weekend attracted nearly 10,000 junior hunters who harvested 1,700 birds. The whole idea is for the adults to concentrate on the “teaching” and not the “getting.”
“And I’d bet 90 percent of adult hunters would rather see a kid shoot the turkey than shooting one himself,” said Thomas, an environmental consultant. “There’s just nothing like it.”
The Thomases can surely attest to that.
Consecutive days of 4 a.m. alarms and hard hunting in the Williamson and Marion area had produced plenty of gobbles but no opportunities when Frank and Nicholas found themselves back home around 9 a.m. last Sunday.
Nicholas was battling a bad cold and feeling worn down, so he decided to go rest.
But Jon Carnwath, 16, a family friend from church who was along to videotape and was battling a fever of his own — turkey fever — talked the elder Thomas into taking a quick scouting trip onto some property behind the family home.
The deal: get back in time for church and if they did locate a gobbler, run back and get Nicholas, the only one who could legally shoot.
“I let out some cuts and yelps and sure enough, one gobbled at 200 yards,” Frank Thomas said. “I gave it to him again and he double gobbled so I knew he was interested.”
Ten minutes later, they were picking up Nicholas and 10 minutes after that the trio was back in the woods, set up in a strut zone, Frank on the call, Nicholas on the gun and Jon on the camera, their collective heartbeats thumping like a one-count beat on a base drum.
This was a big bird. And they all knew it.
“I put Nick down right between my legs and said, ‘Point down this laneway because this is where he’s coming,’” Frank Thomas said. “Sure enough, he came all the way back, in full strut, gobbling at everything I gave him and Nick put a real nice shot on him.”
Using the 870 12-gauge his dad got for his high school graduation, Nicholas bagged the trophy tom from 20 yards. The 3-year-old bird weighed 22 pounds with a 9¼-inch beard and 1-inch spurs.
“I felt like a pro, like those guys you see on ESPN and the Outdoor Channel,” said Nicholas, who took a jake (1-year-old male) last spring and a hen during the previous fall season. “It was really something.”
It’s what youth weekend is about.
“I think it’s good they have things like this,” Nicholas said. “I think more kids should go out turkey hunting and get outside and enjoy nature. We saw deer the first day, a raccoon. I didn’t want to leave the woods. I wasn’t thinking about going home.”
Nor was he thinking about his X-Box.
Neither were the three teens that were part of a hunting party organized by Farmington’s Chris Davanzo, 27, owner/guide of Fish and Feathers Outfitters.
Davanzo treated Darren Molter, the son of a longtime client from the Binghamton area, his friend Scott Craver, and Michael McGinn of Macedon, to a morning of turkey hunting on land in Canandaigua. During his waterfowl hunts, Davanzo’s policy is that with two paying adults, kids younger than 16
“I want kids to get out and enjoy the outdoors because New York is losing hunters faster than we’re gaining them,” he said.
He helped gain a few last Saturday thanks to an eventful morning filled with a cacophony of gobbles and one harvested jake by Craver.
The most memorable bird was one Davanzo worked tirelessly for Darren Molter, with Darren’s dad, Denny, looking on. Nobody saw the tom as it hung up in the woods and refused to budge. But everyone sure heard it.
“That first bird gobbled 176 times on the roost,” Davanzo said. “I’ve hunted turkey in 10 different states and never heard a bird gobble like that — Osceolas, Merriams.
“It was great. Even if you don’t harvest a bird, your heart gets pumping when you hear that first thundering burst. You tend to forget about the cold and the mosquitoes.”
Their group worked two other toms later in the day, coaxing one to within 15 yards of a ridge.
“I was on the gun and I saw his head and then he just turned and walked back down,” Darren Molter said.
That’s turkey hunting, an oftentimes frustrating game of chess. But while Molter has yet to bag a bird in three youth hunts, he’s hooked on this most challenging game bird.
“It’s nice when everyone just wants us to get a bird and the woods aren’t filled with guys all calling,” he said. “They give us the first crack at one.”
Like Nicholas Thomas got. Eager to share his story with his grandfather, Frank “Jack” Thomas, Nicholas learned a day later that his grandpa had died.
Jack Thomas, the longtime manager at Oak Hill Country Club who taught his sons how to swing a club as well as a shotgun barrel, was 86.
“I want to dedicate the hunt to him,” Nicholas said.
Whenever he sees the fantail of his trophy gobbler on the wall, Nicholas will smile. He’ll think of his dad.
Record-setting turkey to be displayed at Plant City wildlife banquet- Tampa Tribune
May 3, 2010
DAVE NICHOLSON | The Tampa Tribune
PLANT CITY – Jared Howe knew he’d bagged a big one when he shot a wild turkey last year in southwest Georgia.
But after some phone calls, he learned that the 21-pound bird was one for the record books.
Howe, a firefighter who lives in Dover, bagged a turkey that ranked sixth in Georgia history and 66th in the world under a scoring system set up by the National Wild Turkey Federation. The two-inch hook on the bird was the fourth-largest ever recorded worldwide.
Howe, 22, had his record-setting turkey mounted by a taxidermist. On Friday, he’ll show it off at a banquet sponsored by a chapter of the wild turkey federation.
Howe said he’s killed nine turkeys in his life, all but one in either Georgia or Alabama. The turkey he bagged with his 12 gauge Remington shotgun in Clay County, Ga. was by far his biggest.
This will be the first time that Howe has displayed the turkey in a public setting. The 11th annual wildlife banquet sponsored by the East Hillsboro Limbhangers is at 6 p.m. at the John R. Trinkle Community Center on Hillsborough Community College’s Plant City campus, 1206 N. Park Road.
Chapter President Ron Gainey describes the banquet as a family oriented event featuring fellowship and a good meal. Tickets start at $60 and the chapter is also seeking sponsors. He’s hoping Howe’s turkey will generate more interest in the chapter’s annual event.
Last year’s banquet generated $24,644 for the national federation, an organization dedicated to conservation of the American wild turkey habitat and support for the sport of turkey hunting.
For information or tickets, call Gainey at (813) 752-4155; Carney Walden at Southside Farm Supply, (813) 752-2379; Russell or Gus Bailey at Bailey’s Outdoor Products, (813) 764-9798; or Jonathan Swindle at Arrowhead Archery, (813) 621-4279.
For those turkey-hunting enthusiasts out there, here’s some of the more technical information about Howe’s bird and his spring hunt: He killed the turkey in mid-morning March 23, 2009 after it “came gobbling’ toward his mouth-operated call in land near the Alabama line owned by friends. He dispatched it at a distance of about 15 yards.
It had nine beards that measured a combined total of 43 inches, the longest of which was 9 inches.
Howe said his turkey hunting friends have been “pretty impressed.”
via Record-setting turkey to be displayed at Plant City wildlife banquet.
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