SCI begins Accepting Turkey as a Trophy Species

From My Inbox to you:

Dear SCI Member,

The Spring Turkey Season has come and gone and I trust that everyone had a successful turkey season. I wanted to take a moment of your time and remind you that SCI has begun accepting turkey entries for the future printing of a record book. A score sheet has been placed in the body of this email to avoid any spam programs from stopping delivery of this email. Please notice the "get Adobe Reader" located in the bottom right hand corner of this email enabling you to download a full version of the score sheet. Good luck on your future hunts, we look forward to receiving your record book entries in an effort in documenting the SCI hunting heritage.

R. Douglas Yajko
Trophy Records Chair

Decoys Anyone!!!!

Anybody have any really great stories about decoys?????

Here is one I found...

Outdoors: Decoys can be a hunter's best friend

Imitation turkey calls, plastic hens good for catching prey & laughter

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Sitting long enough in the woods waiting for deer or calling turkeys, hunters are likely to get surprised, even entertained.

We disappear into the landscape via camouflage and quiet well before dawn, see the woods come to life as night turns to day and hear the sounds of real turkeys responding to our imitation turkey sounds made with callers. Then the fun starts, especially if Henrietta's there.

Some hunters use decoys, hens that can divert and attract the attention of toms looking for a mate. They can attract more than gobblers. Craig Lemon, superintendent of the Hayford Fish Hatchery in Hackettstown, found that out opening Pennsylvania's turkey season.

He met his dad at their Pike county hunting camp at 4 a.m., hiked an hour up a mountain with him, then they separated for 20-minute walks in separate directions.

"I arrived at my annual turkey hunting spot, been hunting the same ridge for 30 years." Craig said. "I set my hard life-size plastic decoy about 10 yards away, found a nice big pine tree to rest against.

"At 5:30, I gave a nice soft series of yelps on my 30-year-old Lynch box call and sat down to relax," he added. "Within a minute I catch a flash out of the corner of my right eye and here comes a 30-pound coyote at full speed low to the ground and drills my decoy right square in the chest.

"Guess he got a surprise when he tried to sink his teeth into that hard plastic," Craig said. "He hit so hard that he bent the metal stake that supports Henrietta, my decoy, bounced back and vanished into the foggy morning."

Craig said it's surprising any turkeys respond to calls these days with coyotes hunting them, but he heard lots of gobbling in the first hour, thought it was his dad working birds a half-mile away, so he left them alone, walked a couple hundred yards from the coyote crash, set up Henrietta, gave a few yelps on the box call, got a response from a bird not far away, talked it in with a Quaker Boy Old Boss Hen mouth call.

The bird was just below a ridge line, so he aimed, not wanting the bird see him move the barrel, and when the turkey's white head popped up 25 yards away, he bagged the two-year-old 18-pounder at 7:30 on opening morning, the only time he'll be able to hunt Pennsylvania turkeys this spring because the fishing derby season was about to get busy. Hackettstown supplies fish for derbies around the state.

"I met up with my dad and we worked some birds after that, came out of the woods at quitting time with my bird only, but a lot of great stories," Craig said. "When we got back to the cabin, Henrietta's roll with the coyote was a bigger hit than my shooting the turkey. Another great day for me and my dad."

Full Story at the Daily Record

Turkey Hunting in Quantico

Last night I got off the plane from Cleveland and drove right to Quantico and camped out in the Hunter Parking until 4:15 this morning.

At 4:45 the window rolled up and I had the choice between 14A and 17B as I was the second person in line for the morning. Not sure where the other guy came from but he was headed to 14A and I did not want to have to think about it. I was talking with someone there and he gave me a suggestion to hunt a certain section of 17B that was inside of a large fence around it.

I headed right there, pulled inside the fence and pulled over. I sat in the truck for about 10 minutes and let the light rain shower pass over. I got out of my truck and pulled on my camo and walked 50 feet when I heard the very first gobble. For the next two hours we traded conversation. I would yelp and he would gobble! There were times he was 70 yards away just hammer gobbling and others he would be farther. It was cat and mouse and he won. At 8am he shut completely and I waited him out for an hour and with not a peep I headed out to check out the power lines running across the back of the area.

I did not hear a peep in the 30 minutes I was walking around and decided that I would head back, drive by a couple of other areas that I thought were worth looking at for deer season in the fall and head out.

As I came back the old boy was just inside the fence and I pulled in again and tried to circle wide around him and get in about 100 yards and then lightly yelped and chirped for the next 2 hours until noon. Nothing! All in all the greatest day of hunting I have had in Quantico. This bird is only going to be killed by someone who can remain dead quiet and ambush him and maybe someone pushing him by aggressively calling from the other side so he runs into a trap. This bird is one of the biggest turkeys that I have ever seen in the wild and ambushing him is still going to be a tremendous accomplishment. Hopefully he will be there on wednesday, and if I am really lucky I will get another shot at him!

Brandon and I are headed out to hunt with Dennis Campbell in Charlottesville at a little honey hole he has picked out. Hopefully Brandon will be able to score on his very first turkey! I will be filming the hunt to place up on the blog!

Saturday Turkey Hunting

Saturday morning found me up at 4:30 am headed to Quantico to get an archery pass for Camp Upshur in unit 17. I got the pass and headed out and was told I could only park in one of 3 parking areas. The first area was right along the river and I wanted to set the blind up along a field so I passed on that. The other two area according to the map were in areas where there were tons of Marines running around in field training. I decided that the Turkeys were not going to be very cooperative to all of these training marines so I drove back, handed in my pass and called it a day. I had a little girls soccer game to attend at noon and some things are more important then turkey hunting, although not very many!

Will be back at it again next Friday and will see how it goes!

Quick pictures from todays spring turkey hunt

This morning I hunted with the shotgun because I wanted to get into an area that I had not hunted and hear some birds. I did hear one gobbler 3 times at 6:30 am and then nothing! I moved closer called lightly till 8am and then moved to explore the area. I was hunting in unit 16A and it has some really nice little areas. I look forward to coming back in deer season and I am hoping to get back tomorrow morning bright and early to get a little closer to where I think that gobbler was roosted.

I love Quantico, amazing area, filled with wildlife but I really really wish we could go in the evening and roost birds and not be hunting so blindly. I guess in time I will learn the areas much better! Today I was the only person in this entire area of at least 500 acres or more...Back at it tomorrow at 4:45am!

Virginia Dogwoods!


Unknown tree but I like them! I was told once by Richard Rose the name of this tree and how they are very prized in Japan for the wood and flowers. I understand they used to fly over areas and look for them in ultralights and then sweep in and if they were honest, buy them from the landowner and if they were dishonest steal them.

Where are the gobblers?

Well the beard on my face is getting thicker and the lack of gobbles in the woods has me perplexed. I walked all over 6C in Quantico and I never heard a bird gobble. For turkey season, getting an archery pass to hunt is very very easy! Those who were looking for shotgun areas were running out of good places to go!

This was my first attempts at hunting out of a blind and I am already learning a couple of lessons. First of all this blind is about 15 lbs and with my tripod, my video camera some turkey calls, my Mathews Switchback and a cold soda I hit the woods before dark and set about a third of a mile from the truck. Not a single gobble. I hung out and called sparingly and then aggressively and nothing! I headed out of the woods to hit the other side of 6C and found the edge of a trout stream and some steeper hills. I climbed up one and set up on the top of a hill and did some more calling until 11:15 and backed off the mountain. I stopped by to drop off my pass and got back on the road home. I did not ask how many turkeys were taken this fine Saturday but I am sure some folks got lucky.

This week my goal is to get in two good mornings of hunting and I am going to be bringing my shotgun to get in some run and gun time in so I can explore some new areas. I need to find a loud aggressive gobbler with a bit of luck on my side before 9am so I can get on the road to the office. If it takes longer, it takes longer so be it. I have never been a big run and gun hunter for spring gobblers but I am going to try and make it happen. Wish me luck and I am more then willing to take advise in the comments section!