Larry A. Smail's Blog

The family Thanksgiving day and meal proved to be a great day. Laurie, Bob and I hiked about 2 1/2 miles along the road. We saw a great blue heron along the creek. Afterwards we set down for a traditional thanksgiving meal and later set around  wishing we could “wallow in the mud.”

Bob and I made plans to hunt for turkeys for a few hours.

This morning, I placed Bob about one-third of the way  up the hill. While hunting bear I had heard turkeys on the roost along this steep hollow and later saw the flock directly across on the other side of the hollow. I had hoped this might be a favored roosting site.

Red in the morning……..

The very early morning sky was red and orange. The western sky had clouds coming in fast! the breeze soon turned into noisy gusts.

I circled up and over and I couldn’t hear any roost talk. I continued moving about to no avail. The birds just were not in this area this morning. I did see two deer and heard two owls.

I picked Bob up on my descent and we drove up the road to where we would hunting deer. Here I tried to locate some birds. Eventually, I closed in on a large patch of brush and briars where I have kicked turkeys out on past woodland adventures.  I walked along and saw a turkey within range feeding. I moved in fast trying for a break up. You guessed it I tripped in the briars thus losing the momentum. I did see a few birds running and flying. (Yes Randy, I fell again!)

I wasn’t sure of how well I did with the break, but I located Bob and we returned to spend over an hour calling to no avail. The winds were strong, the rains were noisy on the dry leaves and the road noise was bad despite being the day after a holiday.  We quit about 11:00  and headed home.