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Swamp Thing
We were down to the last morning and the swamp was silent--again. John Coan and I were perched up against a big cypress, shaded and well camouflaged. The little clearing in front of us was exactly perfect, and our hen decoys looked right at home. I knew there were birds around; we'd seen turkeys the evening before and had backed off quickly, banking our last morning on this ideal dry spot deep in the cypress swamp.No plan for wild turkey is foolproof, but this seemed like a good one. Unfortunately the birds weren't cooperating.

Strutting Their Stuff
Ed Rinehart couldn't have been more correct when he explained that we would locate a gobbler along a small plateau by 9 a.m., smack-dab in the middle of an old strip-mined area of southern Indiana. Once there, he said, the bird would spend hours gobbling and strutting.After hunting for several days, Ed had unintentionally patterned and predicted the turkey's habits. The tom would occasionally gobble when he moved toward his favorite late-morning area, and Ed would tag along and offer sweet hen talk. The gobbler always had other ideas, however.

Doves, Dixie-Style
A longtime hunting buddy, Roy Turner, describes the opening day of dove season as Christmas in September. For those who enjoy challenging wingshooting, relish sporting camaraderie at its finest and revel in action aplenty, Turner's words are singularly apt. A "popcorn popper" style dove shoot, with birds constantly flying to provide nonstop action, certainly has a festive, holiday-like air to it. Much the same can be said of the timeless and deeply meaningful traditions associated with the sport.A dove shoot, particularly one on opening day, is a true time of celebration.

The Littlest Slam
Grand Slams are an All-American fascination. Baseball and Denny's dish out a couple of heart-stopping varieties, and in sport hunting the expression conjures images of wild sheep and turkeys. And though his prey is on the small side and easily overlooked, the quail hunter has been know to pull an ear or two with tales of his own august feat.

Wintertime Roosters
If you don't absolutely have to go outside, I'd highly recommend staying indoors. And if you do find it necessary to go out, take a cell phone and make sure you have emergency items such as extra blankets, a flashlight, chemical handwarmers..."The eastern Iowa weatherman continued to ramble on as I hit the off button and sat down to put another pair of thermal long underwear over the first pair.

Open Range Gobblers
South Dakota's Black Hills can be very cold at the end of April. But its more than 1 million public acres and hard-gobbling Merriam's can warm things up in a hurry. The Lakota Souix call it Paha Sapa ("hills that are black"), some 1.2 million acres running roughly from Spearfish south to Hot Springs and Edgemont, and from the Wyoming border east to I-90.President Grover Cleveland designated the lands in western South Dakota as a forest reserve in 1897 primarily to protect valuable timber resources. In 1950, control of the reserve was handed over to the U.S. Forest Service.

Lifting The Curse
They say the Merriam's turkey is the easiest to hunt of the four subspecies that make up the so-called grand slam. Yeah, well, "they" say a lot of things.My first Merriam's trip was spent in a Motel 6 in Rapid City, South Dakota. By that I don't mean we stayed there as our base of operations. We spent it there because a late spring blizzard drove us from our tents in the Black Hills and led the state to close all the roads. My brother chain-smoked cigarettes as we watched a "Once Upon A Time in the West" movie marathon.

Walk 'Em Up
Spring. Time to talk turkey. Honestly, I can't tell you anything about turkey calling that you haven't already read in myriad magazine articles on the same. There are videos and books on turkey hunting, too--all by people who have killed many more gobblers than I.But spring is also a time to stalk turkey. At least, it is for those willing to bear the wrath of purists for whom calling a tom into a hail of 6s is a religious rite. "Stalk turkeys? Is that legal?"That reaction hit me some years ago, on the tail of a week of fruitless calling.

On The Move
My mallard gunning education began before I was even old enough to hunt. I vividly remember my father, Mick, and his brother, Jim, returning from a December hunt near northeastern Ohio in the early '70s. It was the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, the traditional last-half of the Buckeye State's split waterfowl season. The two had taken advantage of the frozen conditions to hunt the only open water in a tri-county area--the Mahoning River.

Illinois Doves
Among other things, Illinois does doves well. Certainly, hunter/landowners can and do manage properties with the specific purpose of attracting and holding doves throughout the early September season, but what about the tens of thousands of public acres throughout the state?For years the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) has been managing many, if not the vast majority of its lands, for, among other user-groups, dove hunters.

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