Professionals, Experts and Champions

On a calm spring morning, walk and listen and call, and you can be successful on your first hunt.  Success depends more on patience and persistence than on calling ability or gear.

"A wild gobbler is no respecter of persons" an old turkey hunter once told me.."sit me down in the woods with a king and I am his equal, in the eyes of an old tom."  Any beginner can call in a wild turkey on any given day, and any self-proclaimed professional or expert can fail.

I went to the National Wild Turkey Federation meeting in Nashville Tennessee two weeks ago. I wanted to hand out some of my magazines and show some people my book on wild turkey hunting I wrote a few years ago, “The Greatest Wild Gobblers”. And while there I met with some interesting folks, as there were lots of ordinary hunters like me, looking at all the booths and folks hawking their wares.

It was the last such trip for me… no more. What time I have I want to spend outdoors, not in some city so clogged with traffic you are risking your life when you drive. Besides, I can’t afford to buy the gas to get there! Shucks, I bought a new shirt at Wal-Mart, and shined my cowboy boots and when I got there, everyone else had on camouflaged hunting garb. In the middle of Nashville!

The place was filled with experts and professionals and team hunters and everywhere you looked was the words ‘trophy’ and ‘champion’. The silliness of grown men competing in a turkey calling championship astounds me. Experts and professionals serve as judges, sitting behind curtains listening to callers striving to gain fame and acclaim as “turkey calling champions”. Imagine the high point of your life being the accomplishment as a turkey-calling champion. Nowadays there are more turkey calling champions and professional turkey hunters than there are professional athletes. I am always amazed how many of them live in suburbs and are 50 pounds or so overweight. To tell the truth, interest in calling contests seems to be waning as the simplicity of turkey hunting begins to dawn on people.

Those judges must feel like the silliest people in the world. Who amongst those would-be champions sounds different than the others? If you went out into the woods on a still calm April morning and called like one of those champions, you might offend a turkey. You’d be as out of place as a woodpecker with a jack-hammer. I think if you snuck a real hen turkey in on one of those judges, it might finish last.

The NWTF exhibition hall hosted a ton of “game ranches” offering hunters shots at huge “trophy” deer and elk. A space there costs from 800 dollars up. But, those people have the money. A large number of those places charge thousands of dollars to line up a hunt for the wealthiest of hunters and their trophies are often raised in captivity, fed special meat product diets to produce the huge antlers.

I grew up around Ozark hunters who were nothing like what I see in those places. I see hunting, at least what I knew and grew up with, as something much different than hunting is going to become in the future. When you are actually talking about “scoring” wild turkeys, and trying to get in a record book, you aren’t going to be hunting with me, I have nothing in common with you. If you are teaching some little obese boy how to use an ATV to hunt from, I know little of your hunting world, and want nothing to do with it.

One large company, out to make millions from the sale of their products, advertises their team of professional hunters as “Turkey Thugs”. Do we really want to involve the word “thugs” in hunting today? Aren’t there enough anti-hunters without inciting more with such terms?

I am a hunter, not a thug. I will hunt wild gobblers dressed in hunting clothes that didn’t cost much more than a half-tank of gas, and I’ll get years of use out of them, with the help of a patch or two. My old shotgun is scratched and scarred from hundreds of days in the woods. I doubt if I could sell it for much, but you couldn’t buy it because of the memories it invokes. One box of shells will last several seasons, and I don’t save turkey beards or spurs. I quit that 20 years ago. I will walk when I hunt turkeys, I don’t want to even be close to an ATV. I just pray I don’t get in the woods with someone who has one. I won’t be hunting trophies, and if somebody calls me a professional or expert, I will be offended just because I saw so many of them there at the wild turkey convention that I didn’t admire much.

I like to make the calls I hunt with, they only involve about ten minutes of work and they are a little bit crude, but they will compete with any of those calls I saw at that convention that costs thousands of dollars. And I am not kidding folks, they had calls there at that convention that cost hundreds of dollars, even thousands… and people were buying them. The economy must be improving.

I believe that hunting and fishing is a poor place for teaching youngsters competition. The woods and waters left in a semi-natural condition for us to use and enjoy, are sacred places. If you want to be a professional, do it legitimately. If you want to compete, do it on a sports field or in an arena or, the local pool hall! Let’s get back to being hunters and fishermen and conservationists, and not experts, professionals, and thugs. Because if we lose the right to hunt in the future, it won’t be because of what anti-hunters have done, it will be because of what we hunters have made of hunting.

There is nothing easier than calling up a wild gobbler when conditions are right, nothing harder to accomplish when conditions are wrong. Last year I was within 60 yards of an old tom that stayed in one little area for three hours while I watched him, and tried my best to call him to me with no luck. That day, I was the worst turkey caller in the world. The next day, miles away in different woods, I suddenly got good at it again.I called a wild gobbler about mid-morning that gobbled at me about 200 yards away, and ran to my call as hard as a wild turkey can run. He nearly went past me, running. His head was bobbing back and forth so fast it was like shooting at a rabbit. The second gobbler was a bigger, older tom than the one the previous day, judging from his spurs.

You can get one of my little wooden calls at the swap meet we are going to have March 19th. I will make a bunch of them and if I run out I will show you how to make your own. I don’t want too many of them out there in the woods though, the population of wild gobblers may suffer if they should fall into the hands of some experts and professionals. I don’t want those turkey thugs to get ahold of one.

There will be an Ozark turkey call maker at our swap meet with some really good, top quality box calls. If you want to reserve a table for yourself, do it soon, as we only have about ten tables left. See all the information about our swap meet on my website, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com. In a week or so I will write about all the things we expect to have there. It is going to be a great event, and lots of fun for all of us common everyday grizzled old veteran outdoorsmen. Best of all, we are going to raise some money to help people in need in the Ozarks.

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 or e-mail me at lightninridge@ windstream.net

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FLYFISHING AIN'T THAT HARD

Fly fishing is often thought of as a sophisticated sport that requires a complicated combination of tackle. Major tackle manufacturers and retailers have taken much of the mystery out of the selection.

With some basic education the novice fly angler can enjoy a great summer in the rivers and lakes. Many contain trout or have our usual game fish that will also take a fly if properly presented. Bass and sunfish are particularly active when it comes to taking a fly.

Most rods are made of either graphite or fiberglass. Some are constructed of bamboo but they are well out of the price range of the beginning anger. The graphite rods are lighter than fiberglass. They allow for a decrease in the wall and diameter size. To increase sensitivity the fibers are wrapped on a bias. Lighter rods allow us to use them longer with less arm fatigue.

Fiberglass rods are heavier with less sensitivity.

Fly rods come in lengths of six to 12 feet. The recommended lengths are eight and one half to 9 feet. Shorter lengths are used for special situations. In areas with open coves and a low over head tree canopy a shorter rods works better.

Rods are rated by weights. For trout and panfish a weight of 4, 5, or six is right. For bigger fish like bass a 7, 8, or nine weight rod will do well. Most fly anglers like the eight weight rod for bass and a five for trout. A compromise of a six weight rod works well for both species.

The selection of a fly line is where the confusion seems to greet most of us. Line on a fly-fishing reel is composed of four sections. Working out from the spool, the first part is the backing.
Backing attaches the fly line to the reel and allows the fly line to form larger coils. That reduces line memory and aids in winding the line more quickly when the fish is hooked. It also allows the fish to make longer runs.

The fly line itself is what is cast in fly fishing instead of the lure as in other fishing. Fly lines are rated to match the fly rod. The rating is printed on the spool and package.

The leader is a length of tapered monofilament that attaches the fly to the line. The thick part is closest to the reel and is called the butt. Next is the taper and finally the tippet. The tippet is the thinnest part of the fly line and attaches to the fly.

The fly has no appreciable weight. It is propelled by the lines movement. The rod is drawn back, called loading, and then cast forward, called unloading. The forward movement is also called “shooting the line.”

With a little basic instruction we can learn to be fly fisherman. Instruction can come from an instructor or from a video. There are a number of good ones on the market. DVD’s are particularly helpful because it is possible to move to a particular section that you want to concentrate upon with ease.

There are a number of ready-to-fish combos on the market now and available from mail order companies like Cablea’s and Bass Pro Shops. Some other sporting goods stores also carry them. The Concept line from 3M Scientific Anglers offers rod and reel, with the line already spooled with backing and tapered leader. Some packages include an instructional video and booklets. All the tackle selection is already completed by an expert.

Those who have never tried fly fishing owe it to themselves to add this equipment to their arsenal of fishing tackle. It is another element in angling and a very relaxing way to spend a day at the river, lake or pond near home.

                    Don Gasaway - The Ground Pounder
                    http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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Migrating Turkeys

Wild Turkey enthusiast Jim Spencer, on an Arkansas creek after a successful spring day.

Birds are singing again, spring must be on its way. But only a couple of weeks ago, I saw a big V-formation of geese heading south again, and there were three wild turkeys in with them…honest!

The grizzled old veteran turkey hunter, Jim Spencer, who is one of the best outdoor writers in the country, says he didn’t worry about the wild turkeys during the deep snow. “They just stay up in the trees he says, “and live off of the new maple and box elder buds.”

Spencer lives down in the woods next to the National Forest in Arkansas, and he says it is ice storms that kill the turkeys, not so much the snow and cold. If it gets so deep they can’t wade around in it and scratch through it, they just stay up in the trees and wait it out.

“I grew up over along the lower White River,” he said, “and in East Arkansas, where the rivers all come down and join the Mississippi, there is a wide flood plain with lots of turkeys. In the spring, near Clarendon, I have seen the water fill those bottoms for miles and miles, and the turkeys have no ground beneath them. They can stay up in the trees and survive for weeks if they have to. They are a tough bird.”

Spencer is a turkey-hunting nut. It has become an obsession with him, and he will start hunting them in mid-March in the deep south, and hunt them until the last day of the last season in the northern states. His new book, “Bad Birds” is something all turkey hunters will want to read.

I admire him because he does what he writes about, and has for many, many years. He doesn’t get it out of books. No one knows the outdoors better than my old friend Jim Spencer, but a lot of that is because of what I have taught him over the years. He won’t admit to that.

In the 1970’s he and I set up a camp in the Ouachita Mountains in early April, and hunted turkeys for a week. We had a bet on who would get a gobbler first. On opening morning, Jim set his box of shells out on the table as we ate breakfast before daylight. I found an old half brick there in a campfire ring left by deer hunters, and it fit perfectly in that shell box, being the same weight as his shells. So I removed the shells and put the brick in the box, and at daylight, high on a mountaintop, listening to an old gobbler sound off, Jim discovered the practical joke. Rather than just laugh about it and be a good sport, he had to get even, and on a float trip one afternoon a day or so later on the Fourche River, I opened up my tackle box to find it full of small rocks and pine cones where my lures had been.

We will see who can bag the wildest turkey this year, going by spur length and little else. I have the advantage because I make a little box call which is so effective some states have talked about outlawing it.

And the good news for any of our turkey hunting readers is… I will give away some of them, and sell some, at our spring swap meet. Anyone can make one in a matter of a few minutes, and I use nothing else.

We still have half of the tables available at our swap meet, March the 19th. We will limit it to 40 tables, but that is a lot of outdoor gear for sale, lures and calls and antiques and everything you can think of for the outdoorsman who can’t afford to buy from the big Sporting Goods Stores and is looking for bargains. If you have outdoor gear for sale, you need to contact me to reserve one of those tables. They are free, as is the admission.

I don’t know how it was where you live, but up here in the woods on Lightnin’ Ridge we had a record cold temperature a couple of weeks ago, thirteen degrees below zero. Then a week later we had a record high temperature for that date… seventy-two degrees! Isn’t that something? I haven’t got the slightest idea what is causing things like that. I don’t believe anyone else does either. Blame it on what you want, but if you laugh at the idea that huge, increasing populations of people and massive energy use is affecting our planet in ways that are a threat to mankind, you have your head in the sand, or somewhere similar.

Whatever is happening, I doubt we can figure it out, and I doubt we can stop the end result, but it will be something catastrophic in time. We can’t change it and we can’t stop it. Most of us may be gone by the time it all takes place, and then again, maybe we won’t. I talk to young people who have no idea what it was like to be able to drink out of an Ozark river. They have no worries about that kind of thing. I have seen creeks, even rivers flowing in the Ozarks which now are nothing but dry beds; for instance, the Little Piney River in Texas county. Only a few years back, I saw rivers in the Ozarks reach their lowest levels, and their highest levels within a year. Since then, that has become a regular occurrence. Hundreds of springs in the Ozarks which flowed constantly since men first began to settle here, have gone dry, and they say the water level below us is constantly dropping, down hundreds of feet from what it once was.

What happens, I wonder, when all the oil and natural gas is removed from huge cavities beneath the earth, leaving those places to dry up and collapse. Could that cause earthquakes, I wonder. Well, I don’t know any answers to anything, I just wonder. In time I guess we will know what we did wrong or right. But the biggest snowfall I have ever seen, and record low temperatures and record high temperatures within a week of each other just isn’t right.

Mine may be the last generation to mourn the fact that our rivers are what they are now, rather than what they use to be. We may be the last people who remember getting clean water free. If you don’t know what you missed, I guess you don’t miss it. I for one, do not understand how millions mass together with their daily lives devoted to accumulating more money and treasure that doesn’t last. I can’t understand traffic jams and pavement being that attractive, especially when you never hear wild birds or see the sun rise and set.

But I know it has to be that way. I am glad those masses are there in those huge cities instead of out here in the country. And where you are isn’t so much of importance as just being happy. You can easily see why those folks in Chicago and New York would be so happy, and I guess we are all envious of what they have in California. I have heard that Los Angeles and Hollywood is almost like heaven, and the people there are so much smarter than folks anywhere else! You can turn on TV and see that!

I guess there really isn’t anything to worry about, we can cleanse the water, dig deeper landfills, and there will always be plenty of oil, and wild turkeys.

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613, e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net or see my website at www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.net

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FLY FISHING FOR SPRING CATFISH

Silently drifting though the air, the line snakes it way across the water. Dawn is just breaking through the mists when the streamer drops delicately on the surface and sinks.

The line tightens as a forked-tail fish mouths the streamer and moves off to deeper water. Catfish like to eat their prize in the safety of deep water. Using a streamer to catch catfish? Streamers are for fly fishing. Catfish don’t bite a fly. Or do they?

Today’s fly angler has expanded his list of prey. Catfish are the most recent to join the list of the hardcore fly fisherman, and the most fun. The prolific catfish can be found in almost any body of water in the middle of the country.

Catfish prefer a drop off are as where a riffle meets a pool. In the evening they move up to the shallow eddies and flats where they feed through the cooler nighttime temperatures. It is during these feeding periods that they are most vulnerable.

For those interested in catching catfish with a fly rod, a good starting point in the choice of tackle. A long, rather stiff, rod with a weight forward line to match is the beginning. For the more bulky fly a bass taper weight forward line would be good. A good tackle shop can help with the choice.

If more than one line is to be used, store them on extra spools so that the lines can be changes in response to lure selection and changing water conditions.

Monofilament of about five-pound test works well in a length of three to four feet for the tippet. If being able to see the line is a problem, then a colored mono line is OK. A float indicator can help identify a light bite as would a small ultra light float.

The choice of fly tends to lean toward anything that imitates a crayfish, leech or night crawler. Channel catfish tend to be bottom feeders. To match the hatch one has to match what is swimming or crawling on the bottom.

Fishing time tends to be early morning hours, up until about an hour after sunup. This bite does not last a long time but it can be done for a while and then one can move on to other types of fishing.

Fly fishing for catfish can be done on just about any lake, river or pond. If one is wadding, do so with great care as holes in the bottom can cause serious problems for the unsuspecting angler who steps in them.
The catfish has been described as a muscle with whiskers on one end and a forked tail on the other. That is not too far from the truth. On the light tackle of a fly rod and line the catfish is a formidable challenge. And it is a fun way to begin the day.

                                               Don Gasaway - The Ground Pounder
                                               http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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There’s One, There’s Two..

Many years ago in the fall of the year, I pulled into Tinker Helseth’s lodge at Nestor Falls, Ontario, on Lake of the Woods, late at night. Choosing not to awaken anyone at that late hour, I parked near the lake, climbed over to the back seat of my pickup, into my sleeping bag and went to sleep. I had driven all day and I was tired. Rambunctious, my Labrador, slept soundly in the front seat. He was along to retrieve ducks and grouse. I had stopped in Minnesota and bought a twenty-pound bag of his favorite brand of dog food. It was in the open bed of the pickup with most of my other hunting and fishing gear.

I was awakened by old Ram’s low, ominous growl, which continued even after I told him to be quiet so I could sleep. Obviously he was upset with something. Could be some Canadian outlaw was eyeing up my gear in the bed of the pickup, so I reached down beside me and grasped the shotgun lying along the floor. It was then I felt the whole pickup lurch a little as a heavy body climbed into the bed behind me. Suddenly I was wide awake. A thief was only a few feet away, with only the back glass separating us. He was big, black and hairy… and scary in the middle of the night like that. But he came for only one thing, that bag of dog food. By the time I got over the seat and out the door, he was gone with it, heading toward the lake. He wasn’t the biggest black bear I have ever seen, but sometime that night he gained about 20 pounds by eating that whole bag of dog food.

The next morning at breakfast, Tinker, an experienced and knowledgeable outdoorsman, bush pilot and guide, told me that bear was becoming a real problem. He had learned how to get the lids off their garbage cans and break into sheds, and he wouldn’t leave. He was a young male, a threat of some proportions, as well as a nuisance. In time, he would have to be shot.

I asked Tinker if they would eat him eventually and he laughed. He said he’d just as soon eat old Rambunctious. Even local Indians wouldn’t eat bear meat, and he said he had never tasted any that didn’t ruin his appetite. He said Americans come to Canada to hunt bear for bear rugs mostly, not bear meat. Most talked about how good the meat was to justify getting a rug.

Just last year when I was fishing with Tinker, he showed me a couple of places where he and another guide were baiting for bears, where American hunters would take one in the fall. How else can you hunt a bear up there, by finding a trail and set up a tree stand? Black bears aren’t like deer. You won’t be successful without baiting them or hunting them with dogs, and if you bait them, getting one is pretty much a sure thing. Local dumps attract dozens. And there are so many of them, killing a few doesn’t hurt the population at all. Around Lake of the Woods, black bear are very abundant.

How many do we have in the Ozarks? Care to make a guess? The Missouri Department of Conservation wants to know, badly enough that they are spending about 885,000 dollars to get a close guess. According to Tim Ripperger, Assistant Director for the MDC, they feel they can figure out just about how many Missouri has by doing DNA testing on patches of hair left on barbed wire fences, and that type of thing. You can see why that would cost almost a million dollars. But the MDC only has to pay a quarter of that; the federal government is paying three-fourths of it. In this day when there is all this talk about the federal deficit of trillions of dollars, laying out a half million to try to figure out how many bears we have is no big expense! I asked Tim if I could get in on that, maybe get a few thousand for going down to the National Forestland and counting tracks or something. Because I am so skeptical, almost to a point of being amused by this, I don’t think I would qualify. They have, after all, some top flight, book-trained biologists who will come up with an accurate figure for only 885,000 dollars. Sure they will!

That figure needs to be better than 500 bears, and it will be, eventually, because the Missouri Department of Conservation badly wants to sell some bear tags and have a bear season. They have arrived at a figure of 500 to 600 bears necessary for a hunting season, and I would bet my boots that Missouri doesn’t come close to having that many, but how could you prove we don’t? I know a little bit about bears from spending so many years hunting the National Forestland in northwest and west Arkansas for more than twenty years, where I have seen several. They have a bear season in Arkansas, mostly for those hunters who would pay about anything to get a bear rug, even if they wouldn’t pay much for a freezer full of bear meat.

In those mountain forests, black bear are so elusive and wild that seeing them is unusual. Who knows how many there are! They are easier to see however if you bait them. One Jasper, Arkansas backwoodsman got friendly with one when he started taking the bear a daily offering of day-old donuts from a local bakery. Three months of that made the bear fairly tame, so he started taking pictures. One day he took pictures when he had forgotten the donuts, and the bear chewed on him a little bit. He had to have 120 stitches to atone for no donuts.

I can guarantee you that we won’t have 885,000 dollars spent counting bears without having five or six hundred counted when it is all over. In time we will have a limited bear season with some hundred dollar bear tags and some new non-resident hunters paying three times that to get a shot at a bear skin rug. But if you want one bad enough, come by and talk to Tinker Helseth at our swap meet this coming March, and he can help you get one easily, right there beside the bait bucket in northwest Ontario, with time to catch a limit of walleye during the afternoon.

Tinker will be giving away a free fishing vacation to his Lodge on Lake of the Woods, by drawing, on Saturday, March 19, during our daylong Grizzled Old Outdoorsman swap meet, held at the gymnasium of the Brighton Assembly of God Church, seventeen miles north of Springfield. He can tell you all about black bears and walleye and moose and the Canadian Wilderness. He has been guiding there since he was 11 years old, more than fifty years now. But he also is a master at chain-saw wood carving, and he will create a carving of a fish on that day, and give it away by drawing too. You can watch him give a demonstration from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. and learn how to do it yourself.

I will be there all day too, and am thinking about giving a seminar on how to count black bears in the Ozarks. You can use that knowledge perhaps to get a federal grant.

My website has all the information on the swap meet...www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com. You still can get a table there to sell outdoor gear, and everything is free. No charge for a table, no charge to get in. Write me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo.65613 or e-mail lightninridge@windstream.net

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VERSATILITY WITH SPINNERBAITS

Casting to the stick up, an angler can see a bass suspended just next to it. Why does he ignore the lure? The answer may be that this particular spinnerbait is the wrong color or has the wrong shaped blade for this fish at this time.

There are seemingly an endless variety of spinnerbait blades and skirts in an infinite variety of colors. All of them will produce if used in the right combinations and under the proper conditions. They can be used in clear as well as stained water. They work in cold water conditions and in the heat of summer.

The most popular colors are white, chartreuse, black and a combination of these colors. Both the blades and skirts can be in these colors.

Blades come in three basic shapes: Colorado, willow leaf and Indiana. The later is a kind of tear drop shape, while the Indiana is more oval and the willow leaf is more oblong. The less streamlined Indiana and Colorado have more resistance in the water and provide more vibration. The streamlined Willow leaf provides little vibration but gives off more flash.

When choosing a color the nickel or silver work well in clear to slightly stained waters. The gold or brass is used in the rest of the water spectrum, up to muddy water. The colored blades work well in most water when flash is not being attempted.

Fishing spinnerbaits is a skill that the beginning bass angler should master before going on to more sophisticated lure and patterns. There are such patterns as slow rolling or bush bumping or perhaps buzzing and dropping. These techniques are too numerous to further explore here.

As you can tell by the above, there are a variety of uses for the spinner bait. Many bass anglers will have a number of rods rigged up with different spinnerbait combinations of skirts and blades. In this way when they encounter different water conditions or structure, they can drop one rod and pick up another. The idea is to maximize the time one has a productive lure in the water. Time spent removing one spinnerbait and tying on another, is time not spent fishing.

The Speed Bead Terminator spinnerbait is a good example of how science has made the multiple spinnerbait use simple. They have the same wire spinnerbait shaft as the other baits in their line except there are two subtle differences.

Half way up the blade portion of the shaft is a small twisted wire on which the tandem blade can be attached. The difference between this and other spinnerbaits is that this one allows the blade to be twisted onto the shaft and it still spins free. Other baits would require the cutting of the section of the shaft that contains the blade in order to change blades. By allowing the shaft to be twisted on and off, blades can be changed in seconds instead of several minutes.

At the end of the same shaft, standard baits have a wire look that holds the other blade of tandem bait. In most baits, this loop has to be bent out in order to remove a blade, the blade changed, and then the loop bent back. The end result is a weakened shaft and lost fishing time. The new bait has a small bead that can be slid back for changing of the blade. Upon the completion of the change, the bead is slid back in place and the bait is ready for action.

Changes in spinnerbait construction allow for an angler to fish different sizes, colors and configurations of blades on the same bait shaft with little or no loss of fishing time. One can make a single blade spinner bait into a tandem and vice versa with little effort and time. Coupling that with the ability to change the rubber skirts make spinnerbaits popular. Anglers can fish deep or shallow, clear or stained water, under all weather conditions.

The spinnerbait is easy to fish and one of the most versatile baits in the angler’s tackle box.

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The Grim Reaper is White

      Light enough to travel on top of the snow when it crusts just a little, bobwhites have to find food above it, and they are easily picked up by the eye of any predator, especially a hawk.  It takes twice as much foodto keep their body heat at a constant level when the temperature is 10 degrees, compared to 40 degrees.

 Twenty inches of snow fell on this wooded ridgetop where I live. In all my life living in the Ozarks of southern Missouri or northern Arkansas, I never saw more than twelve inches of snow fall at one time. Even in Canada, and in the mountains out west, where snow accumulates to several feet over the course of a few winter weeks, I don’t know if they have twenty inches fall all at once.

I know this; a snow of that depth is tough on wildlife, even wild turkeys. I have noticed that in a deep snow, winter flocks of turkeys which have been using fields to feed in, forsake them and remain in woodlands. The reason for this has to be in part the inability to escape predators in deep snow. The wild turkey may fly when surprised by a hunter or a bobcat or fox, but he needs to run a little ways first. If he isn’t hard pressed, he will just run and never fly at all. This snow nearly eliminates that possibility. In the timber, a turkey, especially the young ones, can take to sudden flight and gain the protection of overhead branches where they can perch, and be out of reach of most ground predators. I have seen young turkeys do this often in the winter in snow.

But food is going to be tough to come by, because in a snow of this depth, it is tough to find places where turkeys can scratch through it. In a situation like this, all wildlife, including deer, depends on heavy thickets, and especially thick stands of cedar. For a covey of bobwhite quail, those cedar thickets may be the only chance. In the cedar thickets, the snow is much less deep. The berries on buckbrush and juniper, (what we refer to as red cedar) are not highly prized for food by anything but a few species of small birds, so they last all winter long, off the ground. But right now those small bitter, blue cedar berries can mean survival for quail, turkey and all kinds of small birds. Even deer and some predators like the fox will eat them.

But all birds need grit, and if quail are deprived of access to small gravel, they may die in less than a week. Surprisingly, they can live without water for weeks. In the winter, when severe cold freezes everything up, all wildlife species live for prolonged periods without water, even doves, the one bird species which seems to need water the most in the summer and fall. The grit which must be in the bird’s crop (which old time Ozarkians pronounced ‘craw’) is necessary to grind up and digest larger seeds and acorns. That’s why right now you will find quail and all other birds coming to roadways, both paved and gravel, where bare surface is created by man’s machinery.

Rabbits and small ground mammals are much more exposed to predation in this kind of snow, but again, they find the heavy cover and thickets and burrow in.  They too do without water, but they can find food in the bark of small woody growth and saplings.

Some small ground mammals, in mice and rat families, will not hibernate at all in the winter, but most will hibernate some. And there are others which hibernate the entire winter, a matter of months perhaps. Squirrels and raccoons, skunks and opossums will hibernate for only short periods, during times of extreme cold and heavy snow, and survive it that way.  Fox squirrels hibernate for a longer period of time, it seems to me, than do gray squirrels, but never more than just a few days.

For predators, it is not as hard to survive in a difficult stretch of winter, but when you have twenty inches of soft snow, foxes, coyotes and bobcats have to find it difficult to maneuver. The eagle, owls and hawks aren’t much affected by it. All three will eat carrion if they have to. But a hawk after a mouse or bird, plunging into a deep, soft drift, can struggle to get out of it and into flight.

I feel sorry though, for the quail more than anything else. Bobwhites have been declining in the Midwest for two decades to some extent, and each year it seems to more likely that someday there will be none at all in the Ozarks, or any state north of the Ozarks for that matter. If you feed them, you have to remember how vulnerable they are to predators and house cats when they become concentrated and depend on food provided by man in some regular place.  They need open patches of ground to find grit, and they need heavy cover close by to escape. Next time you think about clearing out a cedar thicket, think about what it is like right now for a covey of quail in an area with little protective cover.

I am amazed that wildlife survives the winters they seem to be able to survive. It seems so amazing that wild creatures can function without water… and if you are thinking they eat snow, they get almost no water that way. Have you ever once observed a wild bird or mammal in the wild eating snow? In all my time outdoors, I never did.

Somehow though, enough of any species survives the bottleneck of winter to keep that species going.  And I have observed that in almost all wild creatures, there are cycles. When a species seems hard hit by some disease or hard winter or flooding or whatever, it seems to have a strong comeback by increased production of young. Some may want to refer to it as ‘mother nature’, but as I watch and learn, I realize that a mind greater than men can comprehend must be behind this amazing plan of survival.

Once many years ago, when I was a Naturalist for the National Park Service on the Buffalo River in Arkansas, I and two other young men set out to float a long length of the river in johnboats with basic supplies. We intended to film and photograph the river in winter, to show at summer night programs to visitors from the city. It was in January, and we got our tent set up one evening just before a major ice storm which kept us there for three days and nights, hoping the tent would hold up. One night as we huddled in that tent listening to light freezing rain and sleet peppering our shelter, we wondered how wild creatures around us coped. I would have felt better sitting around a fire in a river bluff cave, but it made me think about some things. Survival suddenly became the only important thing. We didn’t have to worry about the teeth of a predator, we had guns. The only concern then, for three days, was enough to eat, and the ability to stay warm.

A wild creature’s life is nothing else but that, always. Stay sheltered, stay fed, and stay hidden. In twenty inches of snow, those simple things become the most complicated tasks, and more wild creatures will die of predation, starvation, freezing or disease in the next month than any other three months of the upcoming year.

Our February-March issue of the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Magazine is out. They are now in the magazine racks of 120 Wal-Mart stores in Missouri, north Arkansas and east Kansas. You can see the new magazine on my website… www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.   If you can’t find one any other way, call my executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins, at 417-777-5227 and she will tell you how to order one or get a subscription.  Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613, or e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net

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EARLY SPRING FISHING WITH SLIP BOBBERS

The versatility of slip-bobber fishing is made for early year action. It allows the angler to adapt to conditions and whatever species they seek.

Sitting on the shore and staring at a bobber dancing on the surface of the water may be food for the Zen consciousness, but it does nothing to put fish in the cooler. Staring at a bobber may be all that some people get to do early in the year.

Changing temperatures and winds make early spring fishing a challenge. Movements of fronts through the area cause changes in the feeding activities of fish as well as water temperatures. Because fish move to find their comfort zone, they are often in different locations at different times of the day. They will also move up and down the water column in response to water temperatures.

So where does one begin to seek out early spring fish?

A good location is in the backs of coves and other secluded bays. It is here that water begins to warm faster than in the deeper waters of the main body of the lake or river. A plain kitchen thermometer can be used to take water temperature readings in various areas. Tied to a line, it can be lowered and raised in the water to find temperatures at different depths.

Look for warming trends and begin to fish those areas first.

Warmer water is usually the water closest to shore in the spring. The sun shining on rocks or mud bottoms will warm them. In turn they hold the heat longer. The warmed structure helps tow arm the water surrounding it. It is important to approach such areas quietly. Fish in shallow water, especially clear water, spook easily.

In the spring, fish are generally interested in locating spawning sites. They will often be found near areas where such activity will later occur.

For walleye, areas of hard bottom structure are good places to begin. Also look to areas where creeks feed into a larger body of water. The water will be warmer there by a degree or two and that can mean fish will be present.

Rip rap is a good location as are most rocky areas in general. If the wind is blowing toward the rip rap, the warmer water will be blown there as well. This in turn attracts bait fish and the predator fish follow.

In rivers, look for eddies just off the current. The fish locate those areas and wait next to the faster current in hopes of a hapless bait fish passing by in the faster water.

Once an area is selected it is time to seek the depth at which to fish. All fish seek their comfort level when it comes to water temperature. On warmer early season days that will be near the surface or in more shallow waters.

The slip bobber allows the angler to place the lure or bait at precisely the same depth as the fish. Anglers can easily change fishing depths by moving the line stop up and down. In a boat with electronics, this is more easily accomplished as one can know precisely where the fish are suspended. For the ground pounder it involves a little more work. One has to experiment by changing the depth until a fish is caught. Then fish that depth.

The slip bobber gets the bait to the right depth. Slip bobber systems allow the angler to move back from the fish and cast to them in the targeted area.

The slip bobber rig consists of a line freely passing through the bobber with a hook and bait below and a slip know stop above. The line slides through the bobber and stops at the slip knot. The slip knot can pass through the rod guides during casting and retrieval.

The slip knot is set at the depth the angler wishes the bait to suspend. If the bait is not heavy enough, then a split shot can be added to the line beneath the bobber for additional weight.

A small hook suspended below the slip bobber can suspend a minnow or other live bait in the fish’s view. Simply cast the rig to the desired water area, allow it to sit for a bit and then retrieve it slowly. Slowly is the operational word. The fish are usually sluggish from the cold water temperatures.

It is a good idea to work the entire area, be it rip rap or culvert drainage. On rocky or sandy shorelines, try working the bait along the bottom. Allow it to just bump the bottom and then jig it along with a lifting motion. In warmer water or when fish are more active, try to suspend the bait about 9 inches off the bottom with the same rod motion.

For those using artificial lures, any small to medium size minnow imitation is probably a good selection. Twitch them on the surface or just beneath it. Some people get good results with rattling crankbaits in this situation. Floating crankbaits work well if you stop the retrieve periodically. They represent an easy meal to fish as they suspend in the water.

The two keys to remember are: Fish slowly, and look for water that is warmer than that around it. Early spring fishing is often a hit or miss prospect. But, with a slip bobber your chances are increased.

                        Don Gasaway - The Ground Pounder
                        http://www.dongasaway.wordpress.com/

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