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I think I might get out Saturday morning.  I might as well, the landings will be full of tournament anglers…

Well, lately it hasn't been going at all!

I went turkey hunting with a friend of mine last Thursday morning.  We sat for two hours in a blind overlooking a nice field and didn't hear a bird.  So we decided to go run & gun for them, putting miles on, covering 800 acres of private land.

In all that time (and miles) we'd go a couple hundred yards, then call.  We never heard a bird!

Now, my friend Moe and his buddy Larry are down here visiting and wanting to fish, so I've been out on Kentucky Lake a bunch lately.

Yeah, I've been seeing snakes too lately.  Yesterday I was relaxing on Stanley's porch overlooking a large pond.  I saw two different snakes, one brownish and the other was either really dark green or black.

Then, the day before, while coming home, I saw what I originally thought was a broken belt lying on the side of the road.  As I got closer, I realized it was a snake, this one black with a greenish tinge to it.  Thinking it might be a cottonmouth, I tried to run it over, but being so close to the edge of the ditch, it got away before I could run it over.

Well, it felt really good just to relax and take the day off.  Hopefull tomorrow I'll be hunting again, this time with my friend Bill.  From what I gather, we'll be hunting in Buchanan.  I hope that we have the same luck that Bill did today.  He guided his daughter to a tom with an eleven inch beard!

I decided to take the day off from hunting, I'm pooped!  This getting up in the wee hours of the morning is literally for the birds.  But yesterday I did get up and go.  I had moved the blind to a different spot thinking I'd catch the birds coming off the roost.  I was in the blind and all set up by 5:00 a.m., only to find out that the birds changed their roost location!  I hunted all day and didn't see or hear a single bird…

I walked quite a bit of the property yesterday as well, stopping to call periodically and never heard a bird answer me.

Well, it's once again springtime in Tennessee, and my first thoughts turned to "where in the heck can I hunt turkeys down here?"  Well, ask and ye shall receive.  One phone call later and I had not only permission to hunt 50 acres all by myself, but I also now have a place to hunt turkey and whitetail deer on a 90 acre farm.  And I'll be the only one hunting the place.

So Friday I headed down to Stanley's place near Halladay, TN and we did some scouting, setting up my ground blind on the edge of a nice foodplot, surrounded by woods.  There have been plenty of turkey sightings in the area, so I knew my chances were good.  With the blind all set up, chairs in place, I was ready for Saturday morning's opener.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that stuff.  Mr. Murphy had a real chuckle at our expense that morning.  Waking up to the alarm at 3:30 a.m., I was out the door and on the road to Halladay with high expectations. 

As I approached Camden TN, a light rain began to fall.  By the time I got through Camden and was on the way to Stanley's farm, it was a real gully washer!  So I arrived, ran through the rain to the house and Stanley and I drank coffee and swapped lies until 10:00 when the rain finally stopped.

The day turned out to be beautiful, in the upper 70's and sunny when I hit the blind.  I sat until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and never saw or heard a single bird.  Leaving the driveway, a hen turkey was standing across the road playing peek a boo with me behind a pine tree.  Not being able to grow a beard on the bird, I went home and crashed…

Now today, after church, I came home and changed, grabbed the camera and shotgun and headed to Halladay once again.  Sitting on the porch with Stanley is always enjoyable and about 4:00 I jumped on the four wheeler and headed for the stand.

As I crossed a creek and started to climb the embankment, I saw something running through the woods; two tom turkeys!!  Facing away from me, all fanned out and puffed up was the boss tom himself, wondering "Hey, where are you guys going?"  Finally it occurred to him that there was a reason they were running and he took off in their vapor trail!

Meanwhile, I climbed from the ATV and securing my gear, took off at my version of a dead run, hoping to get into the blind before the birds showed up.  Gasping for air, I quickly put out Henrietta, my stuffed turkey decoy, jumped into the blind and zippered it up.

With the camera on the tripod, the shotgun loaded and ready, I cautiously yelped a few times.  Nothing.  I waited and gave a couple more.  Success as three toms thundered in response, just over the ridge!  A few more yelps and silence once again reigned in happy valley…

I'd yelp and cluck once in a while and only one other time did I get a distant response.

It was finally approaching 7:00 when I decided that I'd sit until about 7:15, 7:30, see if I could roost a couple birds and try again in the morning.  I wasn't watching out the window when it sounded like a plane crashing through the treetops, the sound of a turkey gracefully (?) roosting in a tree right across the plot from me, less than 100 yards away.  Crap, now I was committed to sitting until dark, then sneaking out of the blind.

By the time it was dark enough to go retrieve the decoy and slip away, there were at least 7 birds all roosted and settled in for the night.

Now all I can do is try to sneak in tomorrow morning, get the decoy out and see if any of those birds is a tom.  With the season being a month long and my limit being four bearded birds (one per day), I have high hopes of getting a tom turkey killed on video tape.

Wish me luck….