By Mitch Howard
Sports Writer
LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. —
Judging by word of mouth this has been a pretty sorry turkey hunting season. The few people I have talked to that had success hunted on private land where they know the bird’s pattern well.
Those of us hunting on public land never know if someone else will be in our spot. We do not know if someone else has already bumped the turkey out of the area when we get there.
Saturday I decided to try the opposite side of the Cane Creek Wildlife Management Area. I had been on some of these roads with my dad as a kid. We would take 5-gallon buckets and fill them with sand to take home to our sand pile. This was before Lowe’s or Wal-Mart started charging for sand. We would use a fishing rod to catch crawdads out of Cane Creek or eat a picnic lunch and watch the trout.
We never saw a turkey then, but turkeys aren’t that hard to find now unless you have a gun. I wasn’t sure what road to take until divine intervention led me to a forest service road with no signs of previous hunters.
Why divine intervention? As I puttered around looking for a place to hunt I was singing Willie Nelson songs. When I pulled into this Forest Service road, Willie’s Whiskey River came on the radio. Wild Turkey is a brand of whiskey, which meant I was where there were wild turkeys. Maybe it wasn’t divine, but it was a good enough coincidence for me.
I walked about a mile before I started to see heavy turkey sign, including turkey eggs that something had eaten for breakfast. I set up in a thicket for about 30 minutes patiently calling and listening. But the sun was hot and I decided I could just as easily sit in a cool valley and pass time.
There were still plenty of signs turkeys had passed through. I found a nice tall pine tree not far from a cool stream. Again I waited patiently. I waited longer this time because there was a breeze and plenty of shade.
I still wanted to see what was around the bend, so I walked a couple more miles. I really wanted to see where the road ended, but didn’t want to get so deep I was bushwhacking after dark.
I set up one more time. The road opened up into a small field that turkeys where apparently held their prom. I was so concealed under tree branches I couldn’t have found myself. I waited for what seemed like forever. And then finally . . . nothing. No sign of wildlife, not even a crow. So I headed back toward the truck not wanting to go home empty handed, but not willing to sleep there.
About a mile from the truck I noticed something shiny at the side of the trail. I’m not sure how a lawn chair ended up in the woods, but my guess would be it fell off a four-wheeler. This is the old-fashioned metal chair with vinyl strips to sit on. I flipped it open and sat down and listened.
So when I say this hunt was not futile, it did not mean I got a turkey. In my backyard you will find a lawn chair newly painted with silver spray paint. I washed the vinyl with an SOS Pad so it doesn’t look like something you found in the woods. Sunday I sat in my new chair, fixed the weed eater, and listen to the Reds game. Seems to me this hunt turned out pretty good.
mhoward@sentinel-echo.com
