Vt Bird

[Dean Romig]

I took my grandson, Cam, with me to 'Turkey Camp' last weekend for his first turkey hunt. He didn't hunt because of a glitch in the NH (where he lives) rule that he has to be 15 to take the Hunter Education program.... but in Vt where he and I will be hunting, there is no age limit on buying a hunting license - only the requirement of a Hunters Education certificate.

Anyway, Saturday morning we had two gobblers on roost in the trees about 50 yards behind us but when they flew down they went the other way... They may have seen Cam fidgeting (kid can't sit still... )
So we moved and sat at two other places in the woods on the other side of the ridge.

Here comes a turkey (with a red head and wattles) sneaking in looking for the 'hot' hen he heard coming from my mouth diaphragn call... then I could see a fairly good beard... but then something spooked him and he turned and started back the way he had come. Now, all I could see over the little brow of the meadow was just his head forty yards away and I tapped the front trigger of my 1898 DH 12 with .036" and .036" chokes.

Cam said "What did you shoot at Grampy?!?"... he was looking the other way and never saw the turkey and probably fidgeting again and that's what spooked the turkey.

Anyway, it was a jake with a 6" beard and just buttons for spurs. Only weighed 13 lbs. But it sure excited Cam and that's exactly how I wanted it to end...


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[Dean Romig]

The neighboring dairy farmer, Roy, and his hunting pal, Bill, are avid turkey and deer hunters and I always check with Roy the night before I plan to hunt between camp and his farm.
He said that they had been watching two longbeards that hang together all the time... in fact, they are seldom more than fifteen feet apart at any time... and Roy and Bill call them the "Twins".
Roy told me that he and Bill would be hunting the edges of the woods and harvested cornfield where I shot my first longbeard back in '04 that I wrote about in "A Parker-Perfect Morning" in Parker Pages back then.
I wished them luck and told them I would be hunting the corner about 400 yards below them in the edge of the next cornfield.
After Cam and I had vacated the first blind and had gone back to camp to grab a bite and head out again, we were on our way to the next area to hunt when we heard a BLAM!.... I told Cam that Roy or Bill had got a Longbeard... (they don't shoot jakes) and I was delighted for their luck!

We found out a bit later when Roy walked up from the woods that the Twins had come in with about eight or ten hens and were feeding in the cut cornfield about fifty or sixty yards out. Roy had his sight on what looked like the bigger of the two, but they were so close together and in full-strut showing off to each other, Roy decided to wait a bit until their heads were lined up... Yup, you guessed it! Two longbeards with one fifty-yard shot with his pumpgun.



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[Mills]

Looks like your season is off to a good start up there.

[Dean Romig]

There's birds around!

The thing I am even more excited about is the number of grouse drumming as we sit there calling and watching for turkeys. Every place we sat we could hear at least five or six different drummers. in one place we heard two birds drumming very close to each other and at almost exactly the same cadence, beat for beat and roll for roll - but they were about 1/4 of a second different, but exactly the same number of warm-up beats (4) and a tiny pause, then the...

Thump, thump, thump, thump,thum-thum-thum-thum-thum-thrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrump,ump,ump.

I loved it!! Most drumming I've heard for years. If it doesn't rain too much on the chicks, we'll have a banner year!!





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[Steve Hodges]

Dean, you drumming story reminds me of a neighbor I had years ago who had just moved to NH from New York. That first summer after he moved in he asked my why he did not see all the "rabbits" that he had heard that spring "thumping" the ground I held back a smile and explained to him what he had heard

[birddogdoc]

Love it!

[charlie cleveland]

congratulations to the grandson and you dean on a good bird..the grandson will remember this hunt for many years hopefully he will learn to set still as time goes by...i had a brother his name was johney we hunted a lot together when we were kids and he could not set still as a boy and as a old man now he cannot set still...we expect some more good storeys....charlie

[Double Lab]

Nice shooting Dean! Gotta love those Parker chokes.