I don’t want anyone to get to thinking I have any money, because that
kind of thing gets you in trouble with the IRS, but last year I bought about 50
acres off in the middle of nowhere. It sits on a pretty little creek, with a
great little cabin on it, just made for someone like me who likes to pretend he
is living in some previous century with no one within 500 miles. Filled with
big timber, decorated with the howling of coyotes and bellowing of bullfrogs at
night and the gobbling of wild toms at dawn, it is a little paradise to me.
This purchase was a result of one of the finest men I ever knew, Gloria
Jean’s father, Frank Goedde. When he died he left enough money to buy it, and
he wanted something done with that money to benefit his granddaughters and
great-grandsons. So really, it is his place, and theirs, and I am enjoying it
as well.
A friend and I went there last weekend as the weather turned cold and it
actually felt like hunting season again. And I went by Walmart sporting goods’
counter and picked up a roll of landowner hunting permits big enough to choke a
buck deer. There must have been close to ten of them, and I was stupid enough
just to sign everything, some saying “turkey” and some saying “deer” and some
saying “firearm” and some saying “archery”. I commented to myself that if I
killed everything allowed on those tags I’d have to pray for a cold winter, or
by a new freezer. But I didn’t look as close as I should have.
To make a long story short, as I seldom do, my father-in-law’s new place
is full of turkeys. My friend and I got into them one afternoon, while he sat
on a timbered hillside and I sat down along the creek. I probably ought to
digress here to tell all you nature lovers that while I have seen black
squirrels in several Midwest towns, I have never seen one in the wild until
that evening. But there he was, a coal black gray squirrel. ‘Gray’ here refers
to species, not color.
A few times I have seen black fox squirrels in the wild, but never a
gray, and he was absolutely spectacular. There were a few gray hairs sticking
out the sides of his tail, but his white belly was black, and he looked like he
might be something made for Halloween. With a can of black spray paint, you
couldn’t have made him any blacker than he was.
In time he got up in a great big oak and I lost track of him because of
all those turkeys out in the opening before me. There were about a dozen or so
of them - some young turkeys, a couple of old hens and three big ground-raker
gobblers. Normally in the fall, it is the young of the year jakes I like to
shoot, and leave the old toms for next spring.
But across the little opening in the valley, sitting on the hillside, my
hunting friend got antsy and decided to try to move down a little closer, just
an hour before the sun set. There were too many turkey eyes watching for such a
maneuver and they all spooked and clucked and flew toward the creek. One nice
turkey came sailing past me, and if you think a turkey cannot fly very fast you
should have been with me. That gobbler was matching the flight of any rooster
pheasant or drake mallard that ever streaked by me, and I knew that I had to
lead him well. I got out in front of him and squeezed off a shot and he fell
dead in the creek.
A wild gobbler is a beautiful bird when he isn’t wet. When he floats for
a while in the creek while you try to figure out how to retrieve him, he just
looks awful when you get him out. To get an idea, just take the next turkey you
kill and throw him in the creek and see how awful it looks. Or take one of your
chickens out and throw it in the pond. You don’t take any photos of yourself
with a dead gobbler that fell in the creek.
The levity of the situation went away quickly when I dug out my
landowner tags and found that the only thing I had for a turkey was an archery
tag. They had left off the wild turkey gun tags, for cryin’ out loud. I had to
drive out a mile or so from the little cabin to find a place where a phone would
work, and call Walmart, where I learned that it wasn’t their fault either, and
if I would come in, they would give me the tags I was missing.
It worried me, driving about 30 miles with an untagged turkey in my
pickup, knowing how the conservation agents I criticize so much would like to
discover me in such a vulnerable situation, so I covered up my gobbler good and
hid him behind the seat of my pickup, and lit out for the Walmart store. At a
truck stop a few miles away, where I had to buy gas, I met another hunter who
had been hunting with his daughter that day and she had missed one. She had
never killed a turkey, and he hadn’t either.
I quickly came up with a plan that would allow me to go back to my cabin
and eat some beanie weenies and potato chips and sit on the porch calling owls
and telling hunting stories. I explained to her father what had happened and
asked if she would tag the gobbler I had, call it in and make it legal and take
it and give it a good home.
So that’s the story. I don’t know if I did something wrong or not, but I
have seen smiles on little kids faces that weren’t quite that big and happy as
her daddy drove off with her turkey that had once been mine. There are plenty
of turkeys left in my little wooded valley, and now I have some hunting tags.
But I’ll tell you what I would rather have than another turkey to eat. I’d
druther have a really good photo of that black squirrel.
A reader asked me how to control skunks and armadillos around his place,
knowing the difficulty created by shooting a skunk in the front lawn. The best
way to do that is with deadfalls, which are illegal. They will kill a skunk
quickly and they animal will not spray anything. They are illegal because they
also kill cats and dogs belonging to neighbors.
If you live out in the middle of nowhere
with no neighbors, you might use a deadfall, but don’t take the chance on
killing a cat or dog that means the world to someone. My grandfather and his
family used deadfalls to supplement his traplines, and each winter caught
skunks, possums and a few coons and weasels that way. You can see one my Uncle
Norten made years ago on my website. Without them you have two options for
eliminating skunks or armadillos. You may trap them with a steel trap or
conibear trap or sit out on your porch at night in the moonlight and shoot
them, or get out at the first hint of light and look for them.
We have a quantity of leftover summer magazines, which we would be
pleased to give away. Anyone who sends me two dollars worth of stamps can get
the summer issue of either the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal or the Journal
of the Ozarks. Specify which one you want. Email me at
lightninridge@windstream.net or write me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613. The
website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com
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