Turkey hunting...success?
The day started out wet and chilly. I awoke, hearing the rain drip from the clogged gutters and proceeded to NOT go into the woods. I watched a show about pike fishing. I lazed on the couch. I didn't make coffee, I didn't do anything more than flip channels and wonder what I was going to do today.
After a couple minutes...I got bored. (Really, as thrilling as that all sounds.)
Then, the idea from last night accosted my thoughts. I shall grab a certain yellow lab and make my way into the wet, dreary woods to take the shotgun for a walk! Finally collecting all my gear..oh, and Lucca...we headed out. It was a perfect snatch-and-grab getting the dog...unlocking the door, waking her from what was probably a nice dream...I just said, "let's go!" She's the perfect companion and after trying to figure out if she needed to bring me a toy or not, she complied and ran straight to the truck. I told her that toys were not needed for a greeting nor for the trip. "We'll get into more interesting things out there" I assured her.
Now, turkey "hunting" with a Labrador is lucrative at best. But, it was good to get her and I out. Sarah was battling 50,000 people in Spokane running Bloomsday and had asked if I had the inkling...to take Lucca on a walk. Well, my walks with Lucca are never simple. I don't like having her on the leash and I don't really like walking her around town. Simple solution for both of us is to just go into the woods. She likes the sights and smells...I like looking for antlers, critters, and soon...morels. We always have a good time.
We got to the parking spot and headed up a place I deer hunt in late in the season. I say late in the season because it's one of the few spots that a road will actually get to without being snowed in. I had some camo on, I was carrying a shotgun, I had a call...but to tell you the truth, I know NOTHING about turkey hunting. So we'd walk along and I'd squeak out something on the call. Walk some more / repeat. Meanwhile, my exuberant companion would run around and sniff things and try desperately to locate any sort of water. There was a spot on the road that held a puddle the size of a lab...which was consequently ran through, then rolled in, then layed in...a huge grin crossing the face of the one who conquered the pesky drainage issue.
Topping the ridge, I idly called again for the elusive turkey and got nothing but replies! Gobbles, hen calls, you name it! Back from where I came we took off and shot down a finger ridge to try and intercept the birds. We got closer and hunkered down like a classic turkey-hunter photo would like you to do. My back against a tree, setting up and calling...the dog wandering around and THRILLED that I was sitting at her eye level! Every time I called to this tom, he'd reply in a hurry. About sixty yards out and I couldn't see him...so I moved a bit. Set up again with the same excited lab, but by this time she was getting into "sneak" mode. It's really something...she could recognize me calling and the reply, she could sense my interest in this noise down the hill, and she understood the importance of remaining calm and quiet. This dog is a gem! The final time I moved to try and be aggressive on getting into a spot, she waited (without being asked/told) until I gave her the signal to follow me! Being darn near bright yellow/white didn't help our situation out much. I looked back and saw the elusive tom in question fly down the hill. There was no responding to my calls after that.
So we left.
Went BACK up the way we came and just kept going. We walked around for a couple more hours with no situation like we had encountered at that spot. But it was alright. Lucca got to roll in some fresh elk crap after jumping and playing in an elk wallow. I figure that she knew she blew our stalk and wanted to smell natural as well as apply some camouflage. (She's a thinker!)
Well, it had been raining on us all morning, so we were hoofing it back to the truck. Walking down a road I noticed another hunter getting into his truck. I'm pretty sure we were on public ground, but wasn't sure how much we looped around so I really didn't want to encounter him personally. We hunkered until he took off, but he drove UP the hill to a dead end. Hmmm. So, walking along this road the way they guy had driven, I heard a car engine coming down. Lucca was at a nice heal and took a minute to follow me as I was diving off the road bank and careening down the slope into a nice patch of Douglas-fir regen. She piled into me and we both layed down in the wet brush. (Sometimes it's fun to be a kid again.) Proof of that was on the grin Lucca had on her face when we finally got up. It's fun to be spontaneous and goofy.
We made it to the truck and I tried to dry her off as best I could. I had half a thought to drop her off at HER house with a big streak of elk crap on her scruff, mud on her feet and belly, and general stink that accompanies dogs with that much hair. But, I'm a nice guy I guess. So we came back to my place and I filled the tub. She's a great pup and will just stand there while being anointed with baby soap and sloshed with water. The best fun was drying off on the deck. I really do think dogs like running around outside, in the middle of the day, naked. (I took her collar off)
I then returned my new turkey hunting companion to Sarah who had made it home just a bit before we got there. Everyone was happy, stinky, wet and tired...except Sarah's cat Loki/butters/butterman who looked like he felt a little left out and kept asking to go out.
I hope he got dirty.
After a couple minutes...I got bored. (Really, as thrilling as that all sounds.)
Then, the idea from last night accosted my thoughts. I shall grab a certain yellow lab and make my way into the wet, dreary woods to take the shotgun for a walk! Finally collecting all my gear..oh, and Lucca...we headed out. It was a perfect snatch-and-grab getting the dog...unlocking the door, waking her from what was probably a nice dream...I just said, "let's go!" She's the perfect companion and after trying to figure out if she needed to bring me a toy or not, she complied and ran straight to the truck. I told her that toys were not needed for a greeting nor for the trip. "We'll get into more interesting things out there" I assured her.
Now, turkey "hunting" with a Labrador is lucrative at best. But, it was good to get her and I out. Sarah was battling 50,000 people in Spokane running Bloomsday and had asked if I had the inkling...to take Lucca on a walk. Well, my walks with Lucca are never simple. I don't like having her on the leash and I don't really like walking her around town. Simple solution for both of us is to just go into the woods. She likes the sights and smells...I like looking for antlers, critters, and soon...morels. We always have a good time.
We got to the parking spot and headed up a place I deer hunt in late in the season. I say late in the season because it's one of the few spots that a road will actually get to without being snowed in. I had some camo on, I was carrying a shotgun, I had a call...but to tell you the truth, I know NOTHING about turkey hunting. So we'd walk along and I'd squeak out something on the call. Walk some more / repeat. Meanwhile, my exuberant companion would run around and sniff things and try desperately to locate any sort of water. There was a spot on the road that held a puddle the size of a lab...which was consequently ran through, then rolled in, then layed in...a huge grin crossing the face of the one who conquered the pesky drainage issue.
Topping the ridge, I idly called again for the elusive turkey and got nothing but replies! Gobbles, hen calls, you name it! Back from where I came we took off and shot down a finger ridge to try and intercept the birds. We got closer and hunkered down like a classic turkey-hunter photo would like you to do. My back against a tree, setting up and calling...the dog wandering around and THRILLED that I was sitting at her eye level! Every time I called to this tom, he'd reply in a hurry. About sixty yards out and I couldn't see him...so I moved a bit. Set up again with the same excited lab, but by this time she was getting into "sneak" mode. It's really something...she could recognize me calling and the reply, she could sense my interest in this noise down the hill, and she understood the importance of remaining calm and quiet. This dog is a gem! The final time I moved to try and be aggressive on getting into a spot, she waited (without being asked/told) until I gave her the signal to follow me! Being darn near bright yellow/white didn't help our situation out much. I looked back and saw the elusive tom in question fly down the hill. There was no responding to my calls after that.
So we left.
Went BACK up the way we came and just kept going. We walked around for a couple more hours with no situation like we had encountered at that spot. But it was alright. Lucca got to roll in some fresh elk crap after jumping and playing in an elk wallow. I figure that she knew she blew our stalk and wanted to smell natural as well as apply some camouflage. (She's a thinker!)
Well, it had been raining on us all morning, so we were hoofing it back to the truck. Walking down a road I noticed another hunter getting into his truck. I'm pretty sure we were on public ground, but wasn't sure how much we looped around so I really didn't want to encounter him personally. We hunkered until he took off, but he drove UP the hill to a dead end. Hmmm. So, walking along this road the way they guy had driven, I heard a car engine coming down. Lucca was at a nice heal and took a minute to follow me as I was diving off the road bank and careening down the slope into a nice patch of Douglas-fir regen. She piled into me and we both layed down in the wet brush. (Sometimes it's fun to be a kid again.) Proof of that was on the grin Lucca had on her face when we finally got up. It's fun to be spontaneous and goofy.
We made it to the truck and I tried to dry her off as best I could. I had half a thought to drop her off at HER house with a big streak of elk crap on her scruff, mud on her feet and belly, and general stink that accompanies dogs with that much hair. But, I'm a nice guy I guess. So we came back to my place and I filled the tub. She's a great pup and will just stand there while being anointed with baby soap and sloshed with water. The best fun was drying off on the deck. I really do think dogs like running around outside, in the middle of the day, naked. (I took her collar off)
I then returned my new turkey hunting companion to Sarah who had made it home just a bit before we got there. Everyone was happy, stinky, wet and tired...except Sarah's cat Loki/butters/butterman who looked like he felt a little left out and kept asking to go out.
I hope he got dirty.
posted by geotracker12 at 3:28 PM
3 Comments:
I love bird dogs and have had acquaintances who were overly restrictive about how their dogs were to act. This quote by Monty Montgomery perfectly voices my own feelings and apparently yours as well:
"A dog is the most easily bored creature in the world, excepting only queens of the Junior prom. If there are no woodcock, and there frequently aren't, dogs do all sorts of reasonable and, to me, mildly amusing things. They point white-throated sparrows and hop-toads. They go for long runs through open fields. They walk behind the hunters. The find something old and unpleasant and roll in it. They disappear for 10 or 20 minutes at a time, probably pointing wheelbarrows full of woodcock on some distant slope.
None of these things distresses me. It was, after all, our idea to go hunting in a place without woodcock, to go afield on a dry and dusty day, to hunt hillsides when we should be in the alder bottoms, to hunt the bottoms when we should be up among the brambles. It's not the dog's fault. Dog owners, on the whole, spend more time aplogizing than their dogs spend in harmless and frivolous disobedience.
When I go up a hill, I want to steal an apple and save it until lunch time and drink water from the pump and watch the sunlight on the ponds in the valley. I do not want to spnd the afternoon assuring the man that his dog is quite satisfactory. If I want to do things like that, I'll go to the first piano recital of a neighbor's child and get it out of my system all at once."
I like your attitude with Lucca.
I like it too! Tom..this was so much fun to read! Well done...
It sounds like things are looking up...welcome Spring and Summer!
I want you to have more weekends like this...
Hey now, I was queen of the Junior prom and I don't think I'm that easily bored....
Kelly pointed me your direction in honor of this particular story and I am cracking up. Glad to share in your adventure. Was laughing at the thought of this same trip with MY barking, hyper, wild beast of a pup. Would've been an entirely different post.
Happy "hunting"!
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