The days are getting longer and the air is starting to feel like spring. For a brief moment I find myself in
in the middle of running down the list of spring activities - smelting, bullhead fishing, crappie fishing, turkey hunting.
As soon as I hit turkey hunting it feels like I just put my two front teeth in to the middle of an ice cream cone.
The hardest hunting activity to do in New York has to be turkey hunting. We all bitch and piss and moan about
the lack of places to hunt when chasing whitey bucks and rightfully so. But turkey hunting has to be worse.
With deer, we sit and wait. With gobblers we walk, listen, and run and we will run far. Until we hit a posted
sign that is.
If grew up in an area similar to where I did (Allegany County) you can remember the days when you would hear a bird the next ridge over
and bust your ass to get there. Nothing was posted and few people turkey hunted. God I miss the old days. Now all you can
do is sit where you are, as if you were hunting deer, and listen to the ole boss boom away. Most times these days it won't be
long before you here another boom with the amount of turkey hunters that there are.
I have lived in thid area (8N) for seven years now and in just that time I have lost hundreds of acres that I could hunt
when I moved here. Last year I had a tract cut in half on me. All I could do was sit back 400 yards and hope
the long beard that flew down in the field each morning came my way. I came close a couple times but it didn't
happen. Then he disappeared.
At least I did not have a hunter confrontation like I did the year before when some ass wipe and his friend harassed me at 5
AM about hunting on a piece of land that they did not have permission to be on nor did they know the land owner. I have
a good mind to believe that one hunter was guiding the other. This is also something that I believe is more popular than
one would think. Anyone can be a hunting guide. All you need is a place to hunt and someone who doesn't know any better.
If there is one thing that concerns me most of all it is hunter confrontations. Having permission doesn't mean shit.
Rest assured the neighbors have permission or think they do because they live there. Complaining to the landowner only
makes it worse. Anymore, I slam a bird and grab him by his legs and run to get out of there before anyone with a
loaded gun comes my way. It is sad but it is the way it is.
And then there is gas which may hit $4.00 by this spring as recent news would indicate.
So...... turkey hunting...... yeah. I Cannot wait.
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Rob Taylor, Founder, EmpireHunting.com
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