Hard Decisions for the Outdoorsman

Fall turkey season… not such a good thing early in October when there are still a few copperheads in the woods, and spider webs across the trails. Early October is such a good time to catch bass on topwater lures, and it is hard to forget that and go packing the shotgun out into the woods in pursuit of a half grown turkey poult. But then again, I have eaten a lot of fish lately, and nothing is much better eating than a young jake that has grown to 12 or 14 pounds. The solution to this is something Dennis

Whiteside and I came up with years ago… you float the river with the shotgun on one side of you and your rod and reel on the other side.

If the bass are tearing up the topwater lures, you put the turkey hunting on the back burner, but if they aren’t, you get out and scan the likely-looking places and do some calling, early and late in the day. Every now and then you have one of those days when you catch lots of bass and call in a few turkeys as well.

Whiteside recalls his younger days, when he spent lots of hours in a tree stand bow-hunting.  “You know,” he recalls, “bowhunting involves a lot of patience, and hours spent watching and waiting and doing nothing but anticipating. As I get older I’m getting to where I am not so patient. Bass and turkeys provide action in October.”

He is right, you can’t do everything. I use to try, when I was younger. That’s why I am shorter now, I wore myself down so much. I hunted prairie chicken and ducks in Nebraska, geese in Manitoba, ruffed grouse in Ontario… and fished hard in Canada and the Ozarks. And I bow-hunted for deer. I did all of that during one October, many years back. Those days are the reason I’m not quite six feet tall anymore. Gloria Jean says I never was, but I think I had to be closer then than I am now.

Do we have a good wild turkey hatch this year? It is hard to say now.  You’ll be able to see in December and January what kind of hatch we had, but right now, when some expert tries to tell you what the hatch was, he is guessing, unless he is following several hens with radio transmitters as biologists often do. The success of the hatch is different each year as you go from one area to another. There might be a field where you see a hen with fifteen poults in October, but you don’t know if she hatched them all, some may be from other hens. Then in the next field edge, you may see a hen with only one or two poults. 

Where I live, we have, over the past few years, had much better production of young turkeys than in the Big Piney region where I grew up, and on to the south and east down toward the bootheel.  I can tell you in the dead of winter what the hatch was like this spring.  But it will be different from one region of the Ozarks to another.

Sometime in October, maybe a bit later when the leaves are brightly colored and the sunset comes earlier, I’ll call up some young turkeys that have lost their mama. But I will be there hoping for that rare occasion when I might position myself between a field and a roost area and call in a big old gobbler. During most of the Octobers past I have noticed how much dumber those five-month-old jakes are, the gawky ones with long skinny legs and cocklebur-sized beards. And I have noticed they are very good to eat when you smoke one whole. 

But to tell you the truth, I don’t think you will ever find me sitting in a tree-stand with a bow again in October. I once did a lot of that, and loved it, but there are things I find so much more attractive now, like seeing a big bass exploding the surface beneath a buzz-spin, rooster pheasants exploding to flight from corn stubble, or kicking a sharptail grouse out of a shortgrass thicket in the sandhills. The memories I have of ruffed grouse and geese in Canada make me wonder if I shouldn’t forget these turkeys as well. There is nothing like Canada in October, where fall is giving way to winter. It all makes me wonder why we couldn’t have a much much longer October. Surely there’s a place in heaven where it is October all the time.

In my October-November issue of the Lightnin’ Ridge outdoor magazine, you will find stories on fall turkey hunting and bow-hunting for deer and fishing in the Ozarks. But Colonel Calhoun Hedgerow has us all in trouble with his column questioning whether women are as smart as men when it comes to outdoor subjects. If you get the magazine, please don’t read his column! 

And you can get the magazine just by calling my executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins at 417-777- 5227. Or you can get a free copy by coming to our swap meet this coming Saturday, October 9th. We are going to have a bunch of antique guns and fishing lures, and outboard motors for sale. There will be an abundance of new and used hunting and fishing stuff there as well, but it is the old stuff that attracts me. That and the outdoor art and old magazines. We now have about forty tables spoken for, still a few left if you want to join us and sell your stuff. It is all free to the public. There will be a small fee for dinner if you eat with us.

We have some ladies coming with canned goods like pickles and relish, and baked goods, which may all be gone before noon, and one vendor is bringing assorted packets of seasonings and spices you can use to make your own venison summer sausage and jerky this fall.  If you have a canoe, or boat and motor you may bring it and display it outside. 

We will be there from 9 to 3, with the deer de-boning exhibition at 2 p.m.  This all takes place at the Brighton Assembly of God Church gymnasium, just off Highway 13 about 17 miles north of Springfield, about 7 miles south of Bolivar. Watch for the Highway 215 turn-off going to Brighton and Pleasant Hope, and we will have signs up directing you to the gymnasium, less than a quarter mile off the highway. I will be there, with all Lightnin’ Ridge help, Dorothy Loges and Sondra Gray and Gloria Jean. We have asked Colonel Hedgerow to not come, but my executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins, might make it because she would like to sell her 1986 Datsun pick-up if it is still running. And she wants to sell her manual typewriter and her coon-hound. 

I will be there to sign my books, and the proceeds from that will go toward buying coats and shoes this winter for needy grade school children in the Ozarks.

See the details to all this on my website, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com, or e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.com.  The address is Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 and Ms. Wiggins sometimes can be reached in our executive offices by calling 417-777-5227.