Do everything right, and avoid Mr. Murphy, and you can shoot a bird

Hunt wild turkeys long enough and you're gonna make a blunder or two. That's bankable. photo Dave Richey ©2012

"Keep your powder dry" was the motto in the 1700 and 1800s when muzzleloading hunters and frontiersmen roamed parts of North America. Those who failed to follow that sage advice often went hungry or had their hair lifted and cut off below the roots.

My list of hunting mistakes with game, especially turkeys, is endless. Years ago, while hunting in a heavy rain with a muzzleloader, I forgot to cover the muzzle. I set my front-loader against a tree with the powder and shot charge in the barrel but the shotgun wasn't primed.

I set out my decoy, retreated to my chosen spot, and primed the muzzleloading shotgun. A large number of gobblers and hens came, and milled around in a tight circle near the decoy, and I couldn't shoot for fear of killing more than one bird. They eventually left, and I called again.

Make certain to learn the exact location of a roosted longbeard

A lone gobbler a half-mile away answered, and I sweet talked him with a soft yelp and some hen jabber with a push-pull call. He came running up. I saw him first at 30 yards, and then he dropped into a little dip in the ground, and popped up again at 20 yards and stopped. The shotgun was up, and when I pulled the trigger, the primer went off with a pop. The powder did not.

I'd forgotten to put a balloon or anything else over the muzzle to keep my powder dry. The Pyrodex was a black semi-liquid. It was a lesson well learned and never forgotten.

I took a guy out one day, late in the season, and spotted a jake 150 yards away. This guy wanted to shoot a gobbler, and beard length didn't matter. It took 30 minutes to bring the jake within 80 yards, and the guy was aiming at the bird.

"He's too far away," I whispered. "Don't shoot yet. Let him get to within 35 yards." He said the bird was only 35 yards away, aimed and shot.

The young gobbler hauled tail feathers into the woods. The man maintained the bird was only 35 yards away until I asked him to give me a prominent landmark where the bird had been standing. He said the bird was right near that little bush that stood three feet high.

He was urged to pace it off in approximately 36-inch steps as I walked beside him counting the paces. I got 80 steps and he got 77 steps, and then he realized the mistake he had made. It was the last gobbler we saw that day.

Pay attention to distance and don't take long shots

This didn't happen to me but to a friend. He knew, within 50 yards of where a gobbler had roosted the night before. He snuck in the next morning, and stopped well short of the roosting area to wait for the first gobbles of the morning. The sun came up and all was silent.

He gave a very soft tree yelp or two but nothing responded. He stuck with it, and finally with a great deal of impatience, he uncorked a loud yelp on his box call and something happened. A big gobbler bailed out of the tree he was sitting under, and it flew 75 yards, hit the ground a'runnin', and that was it. He had set up directly under the gobbler and missed his big chance.

Two friends, on their first gobbler hunt, went looking before dusk and spotted several dark birds on the ground. Just before dark they flew up into a tree. These guys knew about roosting birds and were happy.

Be positive roosted birds are wild turkeys

They returned the next morning well before dawn, set up about 100 yards away, and waited for the day to wake up. Tweety birds tweeted, crows cawed, and they yelped on box calls. They could see several dark forms in the trees, and called again and again.

Eventually the birds flew down, and went to where the hunters had seen them the previous night. No amount of calling seemed to work, so one of them slowly eased his binoculars from his backpack, and with infinite patience, eased them up to his face and studied the birds.

The birds they had roosted the night before were not real turkeys. They were turkey vultures, and they were feeding on carrion on the ground. They admitted it, and took their share of ribbing.

There is only one sure thing when turkey hunting. Murphy's Law always applies, and simply stated: If anything can go wrong, it will. Keep Mr. Murphy in mind, try to outguess him, and sometimes the gobblers react as you plan and the hunt is a success.

Of course, when we mess up, it's still good for a laugh even when we don't feel much like laughing at our silly mistakes. Trust me on this: if you hunt wild turkeys long enough, you too will make a blunder or two.

A big whitetail buck and a large Alaskan moose fell to a rifle and good optics

My vision, at best, is only fair in my right eye. I'm blind in the left eye, but when snow covers the tag alders, and a deer stands motionless back in this type of thick cover, they are very difficult to see.

There's no doubt in my mind that some deer sneak past me without being seen. I cherish what little vision I still have, and those deer that I do see.

Quality optics means everything to active deer hunter like me. The difference between good and bad optics is like the difference between a good apple and one filled with worms.

Spare no expense when buying binoculars and rifle scopes.

I've always believed in fine optics, and also believe that you get exactly what you pay for. I have a pair of Swarovski binoculars, and I'd rather leave home without my bow release than without my binoculars. I know that I can still shoot with my fingers and make a killing shot, but I don't have the same confidence in my vision without using quality glass.

A friend of mine returned to Michigan many years ago from a deer hunt in southern Alabama. He and his wife were hunting with some Louisiana Cajun shrimpers from the Mississippi River delta area, and they all carried big, heavy binoculars and big heavy high-powered scopes.

"What's up with the big binoculars," he asked one of the Gulf Coast shrimpers. He was quickly given a demonstation of the difference between his binoculars and theirs.

"Our binoculars give us another 15 minutes of quality hunting time once your binoculars no longer work," he said, once shooting time had ended. "Look yonder. Can you see that buck standing 10 yards inside the cover by that lightning-blasted pine stump?"

My buddy couldn't see the animal with his optics. The Cajun offered his Swarovski binoculars, and he quickly spotted the buck. That short demonstration offered him more light-gathering qualities, greater magnification and a much greater ability to see deeper into the brush.

Quality optics help when hunting cedar swamps, palmetto thickets, alders -- all thick cover.

Alabama is wrapped up in deer, but once they get into thick cover along the edge of the green fields, they are nearly invisible without great optics. People who hunt down in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, spend the extra money needed to buy quality binoculars and scopes.

My ability to see deer enables me to better plan on how to hunt them. In some cases, it means allowing the bucks to come to me; in other situations, it may allow the hunter to make tactical changes in how he tries to hunt that animal.

It goes without saying that seeing deer before they see you is of paramount importance, wherever you hunt. My wife and I each own Swarovski binoculars and scopes, and they've improved our hunting in Michigan and everywhere else we've hunted. Quality optics can help make that happen. For instance, the other day I saw some snow appear to fall off a tag alder in a dense thicket.

There was no wind that day, and I wondered why that happened. I studied the area from my stand, and it took several minutes but then the beam of one antler came into sharp focus. I kept studying the area, and the buck was bedded down inside the alders where he though he was invisible.

Buy the best glass that money can afford. It’s well worth it.

He wasn't, and he came my way and offered an easy shot. I didn't shoot because I was waiting for a bigger buck. The big guy didn't show up, and I proved to myself again why I shelled out a big chunk of hard-earned money for top-of-the-line gear.

Quality binoculars and scopes are important. Without them, you can have a $5,000 firearm that won't do squat because you don't have the optics needed that would allow you to see game.

Many binocular and rifle scope companies now build great glass that allow hunters to see better. I have excellent scopes made by Swarovski, Nikon, Leupold, Bushnell and others. You can make the difference.

It's easy to buy good glass. Compare a pair of $1,000 binoculars with a pair of cheap binoculars that sell for $79. Stick a scope on a good set of mounts, sight in your rifle, and chances are good that next season when you check out your rifle, you'll probably shoot the same holes as you did last year.

Switch to the cheap scope on a cheap rifle. You may go through a 20-round box of cartridges, and still not be satisfied. It's said that clothes make the man. If that's true, good binoculars and good scopes make the deer hunt.

There simply isn't an good alternative for quality optics.

Scout from a car or truck and stay inside to glass. Look for big gobblers like the one below.

Hunters have plenty of time to think about the upcoming spring turkey season. That time can be well spent looking around right now.

Turkeys are gathered together in large flocks, and some flocks number 60 to 100 birds. Occasionally a big gobbler will be with them, or will be found nearby, but many of these huge flocks are hens and last year's poults.

It's somewhat easy to do a bit of really early preseason scouting. We don't really try to single out an exceptional gobbler, but if one is seen, it pays to remember where it was found. Each time you go for a drive, and look for birds, keep a mental or physical written note on where birds are found, the time of day, and approximate size of the flock.

A short drive allowed us to find a large number of birds. Keep track of them.

My wife and I were driving home a week ago when a dozen gobblers scooted across the road and flew. When we were 100 yards away, we saw a large number of hens and poults cross the road and they studied us as we drove by. There were two or three really large Toms in the original group, and the group of hens and poults had some little jakes with their perky two-inch beards. They were casually noticed, and the location remembered. I know a guy that owns that land, and it's likely I can get permission to hunt it if the birds stick around that long.

Obviously, no one knows whether they will draw a first- or second-season tag this spring, but those that applied for the guaranteed last season will get a permit.

Another thing that we don't know is whether those big gobblers we saw will be within five miles of where they were seen last week. Winter birds hang pretty tight to areas where they are being fed, or where food is found, but they seldom stick around much after April Fool's Day. They may continue to be very close if there is a large number of hens, but if the hens split for another area, it's a sure bet the gobblers will follow.

This mid-winter scouting for turkeys is no more than an excuse to spend some time looking for birds. Most hunters know the birds will be scattered before the season opens, but it gives us a chance to pursue our sport without harming the birds.

Mid-winter scouting is easy but keep good notes on where gobblers are seen.

It's always a wise idea not to crowd the birds. I have a window-mount for my Bushnell spotting scope and also carry a good pair of Bushnell binoculars. I drive the back roads, and if birds are spotted, out comes the binoculars and spotting scope, and the turkeys are studied from a distance.

There is no need to get out of the car, and it's wise to keep conversations low. Turn off the car, sit still, don't talk with the window down, and study the birds. Draw a map of five or 10 square miles, and mark where birds are seen.

Note the number of gobblers seen and approximate beard length. Count the number of jakes seen, and note the locations and time of day. Turkeys often develop a pattern of feeding, moving, displaying, dusting and all the other things they do.

In due time, these maps showing date, time of day, number of gobblers seen, travel route etc. will form the basis of a pattern for these birds. As turkey hunting season gets closer, study maps and times to pin down where the birds are found at specific times of day.

If they are seen flying up to roost, note with specific detail where these roost trees are located. If it appears the birds will still be there when your hunting season opens, check with landowners for permission if the birds are roosting on private land.

Turkey scouts become quite adept at hiding their whereabouts. I know a guy that leaves one man in the car, and another outside (away from the birds sight) who appears to be getting ready to change a tire. Hunters who sit motionless, with two pair of binoculars trained on an open field or woodlot, will attract attention from passing motorists.

Do your best to avoid being seen glassing for gobblers. It doesn’t pay to advertise.

I've watched other turkey scouts lay down in the seat to avoid being seen by people in cars passing by. They don't want people to see them studying distant birds. Looking for birds is a fun way to pass the day, and doing some of it now and again just before the season opens, can be of great help when the season does open. Just make sure to do it often enough so you know where the birds will be on opening day.

And ... don't trespass without permission. Stay in your car, watch, make notes but leave your turkey calls at home. People who sit in a car with the window down, and call to visible birds simply educate them, and there is no sense in doing that because it will just hurt your hunting success.

Pileated woodpecker on suet. Ringneck pheasant below.

Bird watching is something I do year ‘round. It’s been a longtime habit, and this is particularly so during the winter months when forage is tough to find under the snow and ice.

Each day, without fair, I measure the snow depth on my deck railing. So far, we are at about 110 inches of snow. We have two bird feeders out, and they are refilled every two days. I deliberately pay little attention to the cost. If I knew the cost was high, I’d stil do it because watching winter bird life keeps me tuned in with winter.

It also helps me give something back to the birds that provide me with so much enjoyment all year. Food plots were planted, and they feed deer and other animals and birds from the first green-up until the winter snow flies.

Winter birds add a bright spot to winters.

The birds feed every day at my place. There are sunflower seeds and thistle seed feeders. The woodpeckers get a big chunk of suet, and some of the other birds peck at it a bit.

Seventy-five yards behind my house is one of my food plots. There's not much to it now that deep snow has covered the ground although deer occasionally paw through the snow and nibble at the old clover and purple-top turnips. It becomes a major source of nutrition during the spring, summer and fall months.

It satisfies all the rules that pertain to winter feeding. I no longer can distribute carrots, corn and sugar beets over the once-prescribed 10 X 10-foot area, and each day when I went out, there would be deer tracks everywhere but adding some corn to the winter deer diet is now illegal. supposedly because of the Chronic Wasting Disease scare three years ago.

So far there is very little sign of wild turkeys near us, and I seldom see them until the winter weather turns harsh. Right now, our area seems to be inhabited by a few does and young fawns from last spring although it's possible  a buck that has lost his antlers may be coming in, but in all honesty, since the no baiting, no-feeding law went into effect nearly three years ago, the deer have not been coming to my food plot with any regularity. It’s hard to compete with standing corn fields.

Mind you: before last night and today's snow and 15-degree temperatures, the snow has been too deep for easy deer travel. We seldom see deer once the snow gets knee-high to an adult human. The deer vacate such upland country and head for traditional low-lying deer yards where food usually isn’t any more plentiful.

In summer we have a bird bath and orange rinds nearby.

Frankly, I'm not 100 percent sure what comes to dine on the food plot behind the house.  Deer are common in early and late winter, and so too are rabbit and squirrels. On a warm sunny day we occasionally see a 'possum or raccoon track in the melting snow.

Turkeys might really get hungry this winter. We get some ground-feeding birds, amd whenever I fill the feeders, I sprinkle some sunflower and thistle seed on the ground for those birds that seldom fly up to the feeders.

At times we’ve had some turkey roosting near the house, but they seldom do that any more. I think with the open food plots that the land is a bit too open for nightime roosting now.

I enjoy watching the birds  all year, and the first several years we lived here, we tried to identify the differ birds that came to weed. Years agp, we had a pair of red-headed woodpecker but they eventually died out or moved on. We still have a passel of downy and hairy woodpeckers.

We see songbirds, game birds and even birds of prey.

The largest bird that visits our bird feeders (primarily the suet feeder) is an adult pileated woodpecker. We have both the male and female of that species, and see them almost every day. Flickers also visit, and they are a fairly large bird. We also get chickadees, goldfinches, grosbeaks, juncos, nuthatches, sparrows and a raft of the smaller downy and hairy woodpeckers. We quit counting the birds after we’d seen more than 100, but perhaps it’s time to start counting over again.

We feed to help give something back to the wildlife community. It can be a major expense, but I've found that it makes me feel good. And watching the birds as they feed is far more entertaining than watching television.

For more information, go to any book store or the National Geographic Online Bookstore. They have other bird books.

I recently received a copy of National Geographic’s Global Birding by Les Beletsky. It’s a big book, and perhaps more than most of us in Michigan need, but it’s an interesting read with wonderful color photos and great information.

Birds are a part of my life. While I may not go out with binoculars and a bird book in hand, I do enjoy my love affair with birds.

               

Paul Kerby of Mancelona with a big coyote. Notice his big scope.

My vision, at best, is only fair in my right eye. I'm blind in the left eye, but when snow covers the tag alders, and a deer stands motionless back in this type of thick cover, they are very difficult to see.

There's no doubt in my mind that some deer sneak past me without being seen. I cherish what little vision I still have, and those deer that I do see.

Quality optics means everything to active deer hunter like me. The difference between good and bad optics is like the difference between a good apple and one filled with worms.

Even people with wonderful vision should use quality optics for hunting.

I've always believed in fine optics, and also believe that you get exactly what you pay for. I have a pair of Swarovski binoculars, and I'd rather leave home without my bow release than without my binoculars. I know that I can still shoot with my fingers and make a killing shot, but I don't have the same confidence in my vision without using quality glass.

A friend of mine returned to Michigan many years ago from a deer hunt in southern Alabama. He and his wife were hunting with some Louisiana Cajun shrimpers from the Mississippi River delta area, and they all carried big, heavy binoculars and big heavy high-powered scopes.

"What's up with the big binoculars," he asked one of the Gulf Coast shrimpers. He was quickly given a demonstation of the difference between his binoculars and theirs.

"Our binoculars give us another 15 minutes of quality hunting time once your binoculars no longer work," he said, once shooting time had ended. "Look yonder. Can you see that buck standing 10 yards inside the cover by that lightning-blasted pine stump?"

My buddy couldn't see the animal with his optics. The Cajun offered his Swarovski binoculars, and he quickly spotted the buck. That short demonstration offered him more light-gathering qualities, greater magnification and a much greater ability to see deeper into the brush.

We use Swarovski binoculars and rifle scopes.

Alabama is wrapped up in deer, but once they get into thick cover along the edge of the green fields, they are nearly invisible without great optics. People who hunt down in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, spend the extra money needed to buy quality binoculars and scopes.

My ability to see deer enables me to better plan on how to hunt them. In some cases, it means allowing the bucks to come to me; in other situations, it may allow the hunter to make tactical changes in how he tries to hunt that animal.

It goes without saying that seeing deer before they see you is of paramount importance, wherever you hunt. My wife and I each own Swarovski binoculars and scopes, and they've improved our hunting in Michigan and everywhere else we've hunted. Quality optics can help make that happen. For instance, the other day I saw some snow appear to fall off a tag alder in a dense thicket.

There was no wind that day, and I wondered why that happened. I studied the area from my stand, and it took several minutes but then the beam of one antler came into sharp focus. I kept studying the area, and the buck was bedded down inside the alders where he though he was invisible.

Good optics are expensive, but with care, they will last a lifetime.

He wasn't, and he came my way and offered an easy shot. I didn't shoot because I was waiting for a bigger buck. He didn't show up, and I proved to myself again why I shelled out a big chunk of hard-earned money for top-of-the-line gear.

Quality binoculars and scopes are important. Without them, you can have a $5,000 firearm that won't do squat for you because you don't have the optics needed that would allow you to see game.

Locating trophy whitetail bucks requires several things: a spotting scope, good binoculars, a high vantage point, the ability to stay downwind of the animals, and perhaps some luck.

You'll notice I said nothing about a bow or firearm. Those may be needed when hunting two or three months from now, but locating a good buck means spending a good bit of time in the field with the above mentioned items.

It requires a good spotting scope to determine how good the anglers are on this buck.

One of my buddied locates Upper Peninsula bucks by sitting high on a rocky outcropping overlooking a crop field with close proximity to some heavy cedar swamps. He sits quietly, often 500 yards or more from where the deer are seen feeding in an open field, and studies them with binoculars or a spotting scope.

Another friend uses a tall free near a busy highway. He knows the deer won't be crossing the road during daylight hours, so he has constructed a safe and sturdy stand that sits 30 feet off the ground. He crawls into it, fastens his full-body safety harness, and studies the deer and how they approach the field in the early evening.

Sometimes he crawls into the same tree while it is still dark, waits for the dawn, and checks out how deer exit the feeding area. After several early morning or late afternoon visits, he knows where the deer are coming from and where they are going ... and which trails to hunt.

The savvy sportsman does this in several locations, and long before the bow season opens he knows where the deer travel. And best of all, he knows how he will set up on them once the season does open.

Locate travel routes, bedding areas and where deer feed during pre-season scouting.

Knowing where deer bed down, where they feed and their exact travel routes, can be pin-pointed during the late summer months. These areas will not change unless humans move into the area when deer are normally moving.

I used to have an elevated coop in the middle of an open field. I could see 250 yards to one end of the field, 350 yards to the other end, and the field was about 400 yards wide. Walking in to this elevated coop was a snap, and I'd do it long before the deer would start moving.

The coop had stood in place for 15 years, and deer had come to accept it as a permanent fixture. It had plexiglas windows on all four sides, and a flat floor that allowed the use of a tripod and my Bushnell spotting scope.

I dressed in camo clothing, and had two stools in the stand for use during the firearm and muzzleloader seasons. In mere seconds, a deer that was spotted was instantly brought into sharp focus. It was easy to tell where the buck had come from, and backtracking that animals trail wasn't important. I knew the swamp he bedded in, and the trails he used to enter the field to feed.

The value of my spotting scope was it allowed me the opportunity to zero in on the buck's rack, and determine his size. On many occasions, if I had a friend who really wanted to shoot a decent buck, I knew which stand would be the most productive, where the buck would come from, and when he would show up.

Keep a ledger of when and where bucks are seen and what time they arrive,

This pre-season scouting, and timing of when bucks arrived, became so skilled that I could predict within two or three minutes when the buck would walk in front of a particular stand. It paid off for many hunters, and if I told them the buck would arrive at 7:23 p.m., they came to realize that I had these bucks pegged. It led to a good number of hunters shooting their first buck.

What I've been able to do with pre-season scouting isn't difficult but it can be time consuming. What works for me can work for you, but getting out into the field, laying down some foot prints, and studying deer from afar requires a large investment in time.

Some hunters are willing to invest that time, and give themselves a better chance at scoring on a nice buck, and some are not. It's hot, dirty, dusty work, and the bugs can be bad. The results can be commensurate with the effort and work spent gaining in-depth knowledge of a deer and his travel routes.

Many hunters rely on luck to put them in the right spot at the right time, and other sportsmen make their own luck by knowing when to be at the right place at the right time. The big difference is skill will normally out-produce luck almost every time.

Me, I prefer making my own luck. It's more fun that way.

The old familiar buzz is back. My turkey season opens tomorrow morning, and I'm as geeked as a teenager on his date. It started in on me last night when I woke up, thought about gobblers and I've been buzzed ever sense.

Went to a birthday party earlier today for our great-grandson, and then began gatherining all the turkey hunting gear together. Got Peeping Tom and Pretty Pennie ready, loaded up my Knight muzzleloading shotgun shotgun with 150 grains of black powder and two grains of No. 5 shot. Got my raingear ready in case the monsoons stick around tonight and tomorrow morning. I've killed gobblers  in rain and snow storms but dislike getting wet if its cold enough to snow.

I tuned up my slate and aluminum calls tonight in the basement. Mt diaphragm call has just the right bend for me, and is gives forth a nice raspy hen yelp. A Quaker Boy box call is one of the best I've used for yelps and making those whiny little purrs and are what makes it easy to sucker an old longbeard in close enough to seal the deal.

A good man on a slate call can be deadly.

There's a Dean Stratton scratch box that sounds almost too good to be real. It puts the gobblers into a romantic mood, and I've call big Toms for several hundreds through the woods with that call. I favor a good choice of calls. If one doesn't work, I quickly switch to one that does.

Face mask? Yep, I've got it stuffed in one pocket of my hunting vest. A pair of brown Jersey cloth takes away the glaring white of  wrinkled hands. An old turkey wing is tucked in the back pf my  vest to bat against tree limbs to imitate a hen flying down from the roost.

Will our spot pay off tomorrow? Who knows what the morning will bring. Kay is hunting with a bow from a stand while  I carry the front-loading muzzleloader. Both of us prefer pretty close shots, but the choke in a muzzleloading shot is tight. I know I could easily shoot birds at a great distance but I have no intention of taking a Hail Mary shot at one of these grand game birds.

 A scope is perched atop the receiver, and I sighted in in a month or so ago. The thing, I'm told, will kill gobblers at 60 yards. That won't happen to me. I don't shoot turkeys beyond 40 yards, and if they keep coming, I'll let them get to 30 yards. I prefer to wait until after they go out of strut, stop moving and stick their head up to look around. It's a pretty easy shot then if they don't spook.

Take Your time, aim calmly and shoot straight.

So, if you'll excuse me now, I'll take my leave and try to get some sleep tonight to make up for what I lost last evening.

The three gobbler looked like litter mates. All had beards between nine and 10 inches, and all were within 40 yards of my parked car as they headed toward the road.

They were young birds, regardless of beard length, and they were full of themselves. They would stop,  spin like feathered tops in the field, fan and strut and gobble. They were lusty voiced, but they didn't have that deep timbre of a fully mature bird.

The birds dallied just short of the dirt road, and then took their time crossing. No cars came toward me, none came from behind, and I was the only person who saw them cross the road, which I considered a good thing. There's no sense in revealing a potential turkey hotspot, even if my opener is still two weeks away.

The birds didn't seem concerned  by my car unless I would step out or open the door, neither of which would happen. I'd been driving the opposite direction, saw them 150 yards away, strutting out in the field, and then drove down the road. I did a quick U-turn, creeped back up, and sat alongside the road with the motor turned off.

Inspect gobblers for good beards.

The gobblers came prancing over a hill, stopped, looked for a long moment at my car, pecked around in the gravel and eventually crossed the road and disappeared into the woods. My car windows were down, and there was no gobbling and no hens were within sight.

Our on-again, off-again, spring is doing some odd things with our local turkey flocks. It seems the birds are moving, as they usually do, but the only gobbling I hear is first thing in the morning. The birds, in this soggy and water-soaked fields of cold or warm mud, aren't gobbling very much.

I've got a basic idea where those Mesick-area birds roost. They've roosted in much the same locations as they used 20 years ago, but the area continues to build up. There's a bit of state land in that location, and if a hunter hits it right, they can take a bird.

What happens is the gobblers gobble a bit from the roost, fly down, gobble once or twice and then they shut up. They move through the strutting areas, and head for the woods. They aren't moving very much or very far.

Finding birds wiil become a bit easier as the weather stabilizes. Cool and crisp mornings are great times to locate birds. Two tools -- your ears and a car or truck -- are the two best scouting tools although binoculars can help. Here is what I told a guy who wasn't seeing birds.

The trick is to be out in your car an hour before daybreak. Drive to within a half-mile of where you think a bird will be found, stop the car, roll the windows down but don't turn on the interior light. Listen for any distant gobble of a bird sassing back at an owl.

Move on, and keep checking out trusted spots, and listen. If birds are heard, stay in the car with binoculars or spotting scope, and see if the birds can be found. If possible, try to locate them from the road by scanning the trees as it starts to lighten up.

Look for a limb-walker on a big limb. Don't call from the car but just study those beards. It's important that you are not heard or seen.

Try to find hotspots on state land. Private-land access is iffy.

Locate two or three key sites (more if you can find them) and see which way the birds head after flydown. They may move through thick woods, pine tree plantations, but they will soon be in an open field shortly after they pitch down from the roost with great crashing of limbs.

Note how they approach these early-morning strutting zones during scouting sessions prior to the hunt, and figure out how to set up on these birds so you will be between the roost trees and the strutting zones. Often this will put the birds fairly close to you.

Daytime scouting follows  once the hens and gobblers disperse. Some hens will have already be bred and will be sitting on their nests. The gobblers may poke around in the woods but a patient hunter who doesn't have any early morning success may find good fortune in the early afternoon as they sound off occasionally as they remember hearing a hen at dawn. They often come back, but here are some tips to follow later in the day once the season kicks off.

Hunters can check sandy places where birds come to dust on a warm spring day. Look for feathers on the ground or wing drag marks, and scraching in the oak woods where birds look for some good acorns from the previous fall.

Check the area two or three more times every day or two, but a hotspot may be found in one of those little areas where two people is one too many. I know where I can park and where I can't, and I often try to roost one or more gobblers just before dark.

I've got another spot where thick pine trees hold some birds. I'll check that out later this week, and see if I can spot some birds working the pines. It's a great place to hunt, but it's not for novices.

Here's a tip that many savvy turkey hunters never pass on. Given the opportunity, turkeys prefer to roost in an area where they are in hardwoods near water. It may be a stream, tiny bog pond, lake or a wet spot at the back-end of last year's corn field. Birds often will roost 100 to 200 yards from a field with a key strutting zone, but nearby water can be a key to your success.

Gobblers seldom sound off, or if they do gobble at dawn, it's one sound and then the birds shut up. I've seen birds come to the call in such situations, and almost every time they move in without making a sound. The area is empty of turkeys one moment, and suddenly a gobbler or two will be out in front of the hunter. A hunter must figure on a silent gobbler coming to the call ... that is, providing a bird comes at all.

Another spot is a mix of farmland and patchy woodlots, and these birds often gobble from the roost, and then shut up. They often circle the call, stopping at a distance to study the area for danger, and keep moving through fairly thick cover. However, birds steer clear of extremely thick cover because it's too difficult to run through or fly out of.

Find the food, like acorns, and you'll often find the birds.

On occasion I've had an excited jake reveal his presence as a gobbler and the youngster travel through an area, but it's not something that I plan on happening. One spot I hunt is quite hilly, and backs up to a thick swamp. Most of the birds roost along the swamp edges and fairly close to the creek that runs through it.

Once the season opens, hunters who get a gobble from a roosted bird should get within 100 yards of the bird without being seen or heard, and call sparingly. Take you cue from the gobblers.

If they gobble like crazy, keep working them hard. Vary calls, and degrees of loudness, and as long as the birds continue to gobble, a hunter can try calling although it frequently pays to shut up and let the gobbler hunt for you. This tactic is a knife that cuts both ways: some birds respond to excited calling, and others cue in on an occasional soft call. Don't be afraid to try both tactics if one appears not to work.

Hunters can try, if the gobblers appear henned-up or hang up near a fence or water, to work closer. Change direction a little bit, and keep moving slowly, and then stop to call. Sometimes a gobbler will move to the stationary call, and it's usually the hunters best bet. A moving bird, that seems to be approaching the gobbler, often makes those bearded birds sit tight and wait for the approaching hen. Moving and stopping can pay big dividends on a spring longbeard.

All of the calling stuff comes once a bird or birds have been located. I try not to call too much during the late season, and cue in on any gobbler that answers. It's my intention to be coy and fairly quiet, with minimum calling, and hopefully it will drag in a bird looking for a hen.

The trick now during scouting time is to cover some ground, and my travels may mean covering 60 miles every night to put gobblers to bed. Knowing where a gobbler is roosted in the morning can wind up being one of the major elements of a successful hunt.

Just remember: cruising the roads and listening at dawn can be the two best turkey scouting tactics of all.

One thing about turkey gobblers always holds true. There are far fewer big longbeards running around northern Michigan than jakes.

The other day I spotted a huge longbeard in a field 15 miles from Traverse City. The bird was wandering alone although two or three hens weren't very far away.

What struck me about this bird, besides his larger than normal size, was his beard. The beard was at least 10 inches long, and appeared to be as wide as a big paint brush. It hung ponderously off his chest, and swayed from side to side as he walked.

The beard doesn't show in this photo but it's there and it's big.

I noted the time of day, drove a half-mile down the road and out of sight of the gobbler, turned around and drove past him for another look. From this angle the bird looked even larger, and the beard was dragging the ground whenever he bent over to feed.

This was a gobbler of extraordinary proportions. Such birds are difficult to keep hid because he seemed bound and determined to stand out in the open where he could be seen by every vehicle that traveled the busy road.

We drove away, and the next day we went back looking for this Monarch of the open fields. Sure enough, he was in the same field, walking the edge of a wood lot, and about 100 yards off the paved road.

The question is how long will he stay there? If he keeps showing himself, every turkey hunter west of Interlochen and north of US-31 will be trying to hunt him. The bird is on private land, and seems enthralled with the area.

It's my assumption that the big gobbler and some hens are roosting nearby. I see him about two hours after sunrise, and the birds never stray too far from this spot.

Company came from Wisconsin and spent three days here, and I didn't have any chance to go out checking on the big gobbler. I know for certain that at least two other hunters know about him, and suspect he has been seen  by many more people.

Too much traffic will spook birds.

The burning question is whether he will still be around when turkey season opens. I spotted another car parked along the road, and figured he was watching the bird.

He had binoculars to his face when I pulled up. He turned, saw me and whispered "Big bird." I nodded in agreement.

The bird walked off into the woods, and he asked if I had known the bird was there. I told him I'd been watching the gobbler for a few days.

"Are you planning to hunt him?" he asked. I told him that I might if he sticks around.

The burning question about this gobbler.

"Do you think he will still be in this area when the season opens," he asked. "I just spotted him on my way home,  and I've never seen a beard like that before."

His was a valid question. Would this bird still be in the area when the turkey season opens? It's not very likely.

"I doubt if he will still be here then," I said, being honest with the guy. "A bird that big attracts a great deal of attention, and I suspect people pressure will force him to move on.

"How far he and the hens will move is just a guess. I'd expect him to breed those hens before the season opener, and then he will be off in search of other hens. He could be several miles away when the season kicks off."

Would I hunt him? Certainly, if I could get hunting permission for that land. However, my guess is he will be gone in a week or less because other people now know where he is, and if cars continue to stop and watch him, the pressure will force him to get on his way.

And, perhaps that is a good thing. Such big birds are tempting, and poachers often figure a way to shoot such birds out of season. That is one reason why I didn't say how far west of Interlochen Corners or how many miles north.

I may go looking for him again tomorrow, but it wouldn't surprise me if he is gone already. Perhaps I'll be lucky and find him again, and then, I may never see that gobbler again.

The next time I spot him, if there is a next time, there will not be any notations in my blog. The only reason I've written about the bird is because of his size and because I know he won't hang around there long.

He will shove off, move elsewhere, and it's likely he will take over the hens of a smaller gobbler, and soon he will be following the hens. They will keep him moving, and the more nearby eyes and ears there are, the safer that bird will be.