Thursday, April 13, 2006
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Whole lot of gobbling going on
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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“Get a bird?”
That’s the greeting you’ll often hear when spring turkey hunters meet this time of the year. Most likely it comes out as a single, waste-no-words, blast: “GETABIRD?”
Boy, do Richard and Michael Pauley have an answer for that! In fact, you’d best not say “GETABIRD” around this father and son unless you have some time to spare.
They both killed fine toms Saturday, opening day of the season, and they repeated the feat on Monday. Add to that, they called a 20-pound, 14-ounce gobbler for Patrick Bennett on Youth Day, the Saturday before the regular season came in.
Hunting for the Pauleys has been a page out of the old days, 25 years or so ago, when you listened at daylight, heard several toms gobbling, decided which one to approach, then moved in and made a few yelps. Then the innocent old tom came in, puffed up, making hissing sounds, dragging his wings, his great chestnut-colored tail spread like a giant fan. BOOM! Done.
For the Pauleys, the young 2006 season hasn’t been one of those “they gobble one time then quit” affair that has been all too synonymous with recent spring seasons.
“If we heard one turkey we heard 40,” Richard said of their opening day hunt. In fact, on a pre-season scouting trip, when they opened the gate to their hunting area in Botetourt County, the hinge squeaked and several nearby gobblers sounded off.
I have threatened to sneak up to their property, saw the hinge off and use it as a turkey locator call.
The toms are “self starters,” Richard reported. By that he meant that they are eager to play the game. “It looks like the hens have left the gobblers,” he said. “They are doing their own gobbling; they are starting things.”
I have been in this outdoor writing business too long to believe that every hunter is enjoying the same kind of season that the Pauleys report. For every Richard and Michael, I’m guessing there are hundreds who have done poorly. But it does appear that the 2006 season is destined to be well above average, maybe a record.
The number of kills reported through the Got Game phone system on Youth Day was 85, three times what it was the previous season. The opening day take that was called in numbered about 130 birds above a year ago. Toms registered at the Hunter’s Den, a check station in Craig County, are running above last year, according to owner Ellen Horn. And stories like the Pauleys tell are bound to get people pumped up and out into the beauty of the spring woods before the season ends May 13.
“They literally gobbled all day long,” Richard said of the hunt that he and his son, Michael, were on opening day. Michael’s gobbler weighed 19 pounds, 3 ounces. About 20-minutes until noon, Richard killed one that had been gobbling near a clear cut. It weighed 21 pounds, 8 ounces.
On Monday, the morning broke cold and fewer toms were talking; even so, the Pauleys reported hearing eight gobblers. Michael killed one about 9 a.m. that weighed 19 pounds, 15 ounces.
Richard turned down a jake, then killed a mature tom that came strutting toward him about 10:20 a.m. It weighed 20 pounds, 8 ounces and was taken 75 yards from where he had made the Saturday kill.
“They wintered well,” Richard said of the turkeys. “They are fat. They are in good shape.”
That’s been the case at the Hunter’s Den. “I’ve got them 21-10, 21-8, 21-2 and lots of 20-pounders,” said Horn.
A footnote: Michael Pauley got excellent video of Patrick Bennett killing his big bird. Plans call for showing it at the Botetourt Longbeards National Wild Turkey Federation banquet April 29
