Free New Hampshire Blog

Today was the season opener for spring turkey hunting and I was out and about. I got up later than I’d wanted because I stayed up until almost 2 last night screwing around with mouth calls. About all I was able to do was wheeze out some goose type sounds but I had fun. I have a video on doing basic mouth calling so I’m going to try and get better.

Okay, so here’s what happened today:

1. I dropped by the spot I saw in Milford briefly.

2. Decided that Milford sucked and headed to a state park (the name of which must remain secret until after the season is over…DON’T YOU DARE SAY WHICH ONE IT IS BRUCE! DAMN YOU!).

3. I get to the state park and open my car door to get my shotgun out. I then realize that I had grabbed the wrong case as I’d brought my rifle with me not my shotgun! What a dumb ass! The shotgun and rifle are both in black cases so it’s easy to get confused if you are half-asleep like I was this morning. Yeah, yeah…I know it’s lame but it’s the best excuse I have. :D I’m going to buy a different color case for the rifle, I’m not going to go through this again!

At this point I’m severely pissed at myself because it’s already almost 8:30 and I just don’t have time to drive back to my house to get the shotgun.

Note to non-hunters: You need a shotgun for spring turkey season not a rifle.

4. Enter helpful park manager who lent me his 20 gauge shotgun and gave me good tips on where to find turkeys. So off I went!

5. I get going down a trail and I see a turkey walking off to my right, I turn and start watching him then a large deer suddenly breaks out of the woods and heads in the same direction as the turkey. Yes, it appears that the deer and turkey decided to make a break for it…together. I laughed and started following them.

6. The deer ends up racing up a hill and I lost sight of him. No idea what happened to the turkey. I could not find it anywhere.

7. I find a good place to sit down and chill, while getting ready to do some calling. I realize after a few minutes that my turkey calls suck dead donkey dicks and I should have practiced more. Instead of cool turkey calls, my calls sound like a dying goose with a bad case of the farts. Oh well, you do what you can right?

8. After a while I decide to stand up and go find another spot. I’m creeping around and I hear something odd coming from my right. Out of nowhere comes this funky porcupine that pretty much walked right up to me. I’m like “WTF, is this thing rabid or just stupid?”

9. The porcupine does a bit of a circle while staring at me. Note that I am dressed head to toe in camo so I can’t blame him for not knowing what the hell I was (here’s a shot of me in camo in my kitchen that’ll give you an idea…yes I had my camo boots on while I was out hunting today and not my white socks).

10. After regarding me for a couple of minutes, the porcupine seemed to think I was a potential threat and ambled up a tree. But he didn’t pick a very good one as it was quite easy to see him when he got to the top. I guess if you’re a porcupine though you don’t need to find the best tree, any old one will do. So up he went and I got some video of it below and I put a couple of photos of it in this blog entry.

11. After leaving my porcupine buddy I proceeded to head down some other trails. At this point I stopped hunting and was just walking around, getting the lay of the land. Yes, I know I should have scouted it out BEFORE the season but as noted above, I’m a dumbass. ;)

12. As I was going down a trail, I saw three or four deer go charging off through the woods off to my right. Very cool to see them. I had hoped to see a moose but deer are neat and welcome too.

13. Went down a few more trails and by this time it was nearly noon. So I decided to head back ( you can only hunt from sunrise until noon).

14. Realized I lost one of my camo gloves! OMFG! Do you know how hard it is to find a camo glove in the middle of the woods? Thankfully I did not panic and my glove crisis was soon resolved as I found it not too far when I started back tracking.

15. I returned the shotgun to the park ranger and headed home.

I had a lot of fun today. Seeing the critters was great and I got to do some walking in the woods with the sun shining overhead. It was just absolutely beautiful out there and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. :)

• 

Related posts:

1. Turkey Hunting Gear
2. The Mossberg 935 – My New Turkey Gun
3. Youth Turkey Hunt in New Hampshire
4. 2007 Spring Turkey Season Starts Today!
5. Turkey Hunting Land Suggestions