Cabela's Trip

I love NY

Turkey Calling

Mouth calling on the day before the season opened...we were out fixing fence and I asked him to demonstrate for a video.

The kid has called in turkeys...coyotes looking for turkeys...other hunters looking for turkeys. Sometimes it is plumb scary. There is a certain culture of turkey calling on campus too...the guys find each other that way. Sometimes it does not make the professors particularly happy.....dunno exactly why....something about the way those calls echo in the stairwells. A professor recently accosted the perpetrator in this video, along with some of his friends...."Who has a turkey call?" And of course he could honestly answer, "I don't have a turkey call."

I think he learned to mouth call because he was constantly buying expensive calls and losing them. It is really not terribly hard to call turkeys without a call. Even I can get them to answer me. Give it a try if you live in their range. You might be surprised!

8 Point Buck

Here is Alan's first deer. As you can see he is a very proud boy. I am glad for the meat as we have been out of beef and pork for ages. Although many turn pale at the idea of killing deer, I can find no objection to hunting as we do it. Because we work hard to maintain the land, pay the taxes, and grow crops for them to feed upon the deer have a place to live and raise young...and they do, with many fawns born here each year. If we didn't do what we do to sustain this place as a working farm it would be developed virtually instantly. We are surrounded by towns and housing developments on all sides and have a prime location with village water available. What would the deer do then?

Once every year or so we take one deer and use it for our own food. It is as reasonable as the hunting that was done here by Native Americans who also liked to eat wild meat. I think the deer get a pretty fair shake from us. Besides I like venison.