No, the kids weren’t in it!

Watson is ticked, and I don’t blame him. He’s offering a $200 reward for information that gets his boat back. Here’s his description:

“This Old Town Canoe was STOLEN on 5/16/13 from 1601 Roanoke Ave SW near Memorial Bridge along with two black and grey paddles. It’s missing the seat backs because they’re in my house; seats have notches to accommodate them. It also has a white, after-market drink holder screwed to the left of the rear cross bar. It’s a 2011 Guide 158. I live just upstream from Memorial Bridge and think the thief floated down to Wasena with it or took it upstream to Bridge Street in the Norwich neighborhood. Chain was cut. It’s under investigation. Contact me with any tips. Thanks! I hate a thief.”

Someone knows who stole this boat. If you have info, send it to me and I’ll forward to Watson.

The three hunters who scored were (left to right) Danny Balderson from Waynesboro, Tim Richey from Christiansburg and Chris Shelton from Richmond. Fifteen hunters participated in the hunt.

Wheelin’ Sportsmen provides people with disabilities the opportunity to participate in outdoors activities. Just as importantly, it helps friends and family learn about ways to help their loved ones get outdoors. Having participated as a volunteer in these events I can tell you that they are inspiring for EVERYONE involved.

Congrats to all the hunters, and thanks to the volunteers and generous landowners who allowed hunting for helping make this hunt, and those like it, happen!

“We watched this bird come 1,200 yards last Saturday, cross a creek and a woven wire fence before Wade killed him at 10 yards. When they’re ready to come, they come.”

I know this feeling.

I once killed a gobbler that had come about 400 yards across a field to where I was set up with my friend Carson Quarles. The bird took his sweet time and it’s a miracle my heart was able to take the hour-long wait for him to get within shotgun range.

Congrats to Wade and Walt for what had to be an amazing experience.

Among those doing their part were Carson and Norma Quarles of Roanoke, who killed their nice birds on family property in Botetourt County.

When I heard the tally through the weekend had already eclipsed last year’s total and was just about 1,000 birds from the record set in 2002 — sorry, but you’ll need to read the column to see the exact numbers — I admit I was a little surprised. Not that the kill is tracking above last year. It’s been tracking above all season. But the previous gap had been 16 percent, and I figured after the rainy and windy weather we’ve had lately that gap would have narrowed.

Thank goodness the DGIF was able to provide actual figures to keep me from putting my speculation in writing! I got out a couple mornings last week and it was slow. May get one or two more hunts in, than that’s it for me.

For this week’s feature I took a look at some  classic bass lures, including the Johnson’s Silver Minnow pictured here. You can read the story HERE.

I wouldn’t claim that my list is the definitive list, but I think it’s pretty solid.

Anyone care to disagree? What did I miss? What’s on the list that shouldn’t be.

One of the newest is the Great Bull Run, which is supposed to capture the excitement of actual bull runs. Except the race organizers assure us the bulls aren’t aggressive. When a PR rep called to pitch me the story she made sure to mention that, to which I replied, “What fun is that?” Total silence. It was pretty funny.

Anyway, in the column I pitch some ideas for some races that might be exciting AND dangerous. I’d love to hear other suggestions — just make sure the suggestions meet our submission criteria. (Several of my ideas that didn’t make the column certainly WOULDN’T!)

When I saw Ralph at the awards he said he had been catching some nice stripers while plugging after dark. “I was going to be fishing anyway so I figured I would go ahead and enter.”

The fatty (below) caught by Ralph’s girlfriend, Jan Wilson, didn’t meet the 37-inch tourney minimum, but sure was a nice fish, too!

My column in today’s Roanoke Times noted a few of the changes going on with the tourney, including the folks from the Challenger Little League Baseball group getting involved.

Sid Witt and the others at CLLB are interested in moving this event forward. They’ve already made some improvements to the event, which hasn’t changed a whole lot in its execution and production since its early days starting 45 years ago.

Some of you may have seen a comment below from reader/angler Chris Meyers regarding a desire to see published results that go deeper than the top four award-winners. The way results are currently tracked on paper, it would be pretty time-consuming to get those results together for publication. If tournament organizers can move to an electronic results system, like those used in most large fishing tournaments and derbies (and running races, etc.) these days, that would make publicizing the results much easier. In fact, it could relieve tournament organizers of work because anglers could track the leader board electronically rather than having to call for updates.

Along those same lines, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a tournament Web site? Or at least a Facebook page? That could also help keep anglers posted during the event, and also help get word out about the event.

Do you all have other suggestions about how that tournament could be improved?

As I wrote in my story in today’s Roanoke Times, the event featured some pretty impressive catches, including a 35.32-pound flathead catfish pulled in my Christee Ayers (picture here) of Union Hall. This wasn’t just a lucky catch for Ayers. She is a catfishing expert who has been at this a long time.

As for the disqualification, which you can read more about in my story, they used to be rare at this event. In recent years they have become a regular occurrence. Tournament organizers pulled a number of anglers in for polygraph tests and that delayed the awards by a bit. When one of the tournament officials made an announcement apologizing for the delay due to the desire to ensure the cleanest tournament possible, the crowd cheered. One man shouted, “That’s the way it should be.”

“After sending you a handful of nice photos in 2010 and 2011 I got skunked in 2012.  After a few weeks and poor decision making on a miss yesterday, this morning proved every bit as exciting as the last time!
This guy showed up on the opposite side of the field  about 500 yards away at 6:15. He stood like a statue and gobbled for 40 minutes.  I called at a medium volume a half a dozen time in the first 10 minutes and then just stayed quiet.  At 5 minutes to 7:00 he put his head down and headed straight for me.
The valley topography would leave us unable to see each other until he crested the hill in range.  When I guessed he was half way up the hill I purred and made soft clucks and “pits” He gobbled 8 times at about 40 yards and then crested the hill right in my scope at 30 yards.   He put his head down and kept coming.  24 paces to my first gobbler in 2 years. Pulaski Co. 9 inch beard 1 1/4 spurs. ”

Congratulations, Jason, and smart tactics of shutting up and forcing him to commit! Hey, let’s get some more details on that rig you’re shooting.

This is a long story, but as I tell my editors when they complain about my long stories, “It’s a quick read.” It’s that good!  I encourage you all, when you have a  couple minutes, to read it. If it doesn’t get you pumped for spring turkey hunting, nothing will.

“Well boys and girls, I finally have a story for you. I apologize in advance (but not really) for the length of this, but it is now my favorite story to tell, and possibly the most incredible experience of my life.

This is the first season that I have really gotten after the big birds. I killed one with a buddy a couple springs ago (my first turkey), and had only been out by myself twice last season while having no clue what I was doing. I have been prepping for this season for a couple months now, and finally learned how to use a diaphragm call. I even took an old big game vest and sewed pockets and modified it into a turkey vest. Spent a lot of time on the interweb learning everything I could about these birds and hunting them, including a bunch of time on here! Needless to say, I was pumped about opening day!

Well, the week before opening day I bottomed out my car and she got towed to the shop. I was hoping she would be fixed by the Friday prior to the opener so I could get out and scout, but she stayed at the docs until the following Monday. No opening weekend for me.

The following weekend, I went back to Richmond to get on a hunt with my father in Cumberland County. We heard a few but couldnt get set up on one. Heard a bird gobble at 8:30 and set up on him but no response to calls and never heard from him again for another 30 minutes. Walked to a logging trail and got stopped in our tracks by his fan and big ole white head strutting towards us. We were both able to get our guns up and were just praying he would close the distance and not see us. Here is where inexperience sent me packin the first time. I am a very poor judge of distance, and had NO IDEA he was at 30 yards… thought he was at 45 or 50 (first time I had seen a bird strutting within 100 yards). So I didn’t shoot, and should have. Had open shots when he stuck his head up at 30 yards, just didn’t shoot. Then he goes behind a couple trees and, like a darn fool, decide it would be a good idea to kneel down. DON’T EVER MOVE! EVER! Next thing I see is his back side as he is hauling tail the other way down the trail. I about died.

Back in Roanoke now, I planned on going into the Jefferson National Forest on Friday of this weekend (4/26) to a place I had never been before and give it a shot, scout, spend the night there, and hunt Saturday as well. All of last week was spent poring over maps and trying to figure out where to go at daylight. I have only been in the GW NF up by Deerfield hunting grouse a couple times, but other than that I have no experience with NF land. Picked a spot in the Jefferson that seemed a ways away from towns and had some flat looking land with decent aerials.

When I got to the spot on Friday morning, the full moon lit the beautiful open hardwoods like I had never seen before like daylight. At 5:15, the whippoorwills were talking from every direction. It was a tad chilly, but nothing a sweatshirt couldn’t fix. I had no idea what to expect in this brand-new-to-me setting, and could only hope. I geared up and stepped away from the truck about 30 yards and stood waiting for daylight. Light in the east yielded a couple of owl hoots, and my hopes rose for a gobble to follow. Nothing.

Then, a woodpecker cut the dawn and a thunder from some tree to my Southeast got my heart thumping! He was a huntable distance, so I made my way his direction. I stopped 100 yards from where I started, and he gobbled again, but this time had a few friends with him hammer at the same time. Also heard a bird closer to me on the other side of the truck, and decided to go after him instead, so I turned around and made tracks up the mountain. I got set up in a bottom with the birds 150 yards above me. The storm fallen tree to my back made great cover, and the nose of a bluff bottomed out 50 yards to my right and a saddle rose 60 yards in front of me. I sat, and waited.

Now, to tell you that birds were gobbling EVERYWHERE would be an understatement. What got me the most, was that they were in groups. I was set up on 3 birds who would gobble together. To the west was a group of 4 or 5 doing the same, and that to the Southeast where I heard the first bird of the morning was a flock of, to my best guess, 10 cutting the dawn every 30 seconds. This, I knew, was something special. Well, the birds in front of me stopped gobbling around 6:45, and I heard one bird on the other side of the saddle gobble on the ground. No response to a soft yelp. Never saw him or heard from him again.

At 7:00, I was thinking hard about heading Southeast to that won’t-shut-up big group of birds, but decided to give it 10 more minutes before doing so. At 7:08, I heard a gobble on the ridge to my right, close. I gave a soft yelp, and they (2) gobbled again a minute later at half the distance. I got myself turned that way, and the next gobble had them 100 yards away at the top of the bluff. And here they came straight down the nose of it, on a string! They ran, then stopped, and the one in the back would go into half strut then run to catch up with his buddy. If they go left at the base of the bluff, I have wide open shooting. If they go right, I have little space to turn and the tree top to cover their path.

Of course, they go right. at 20 yards, the lead bird was about to go behind the tree. Excitement, a pounding heart, and a bit of panic brought my finger down on the trigger, and the bird began trotting the other direction. Two more shots his direction had him ruffling his feathers, but no harm done. The woods went silent, and I spent the rest of the morning scouting, spooking a couple birds as I walked on the road, but not much other turkey action.

I found a small clearing that looked like a great strut zone, and decided to set up there on Saturday morning. A camp site 250 yards to the north of the field became my home until the next dawn. That night, I heard a bird go to roost a couple hundred yards past the little field, and figured that was a good thing for the AM.

My alarm goes off at 5:00 and I step out of my truck back into turkey heaven. I had never camped where I was going to hunt before, so it was pretty neat to be able to roll out of bed exactly where I wanted to hunt. I geared up, and right as the whippoorwills began to chime, I was headed for the small field.

The decoy was set 20 yards from me and my back was to an old fallen tree I had made into a blind the previous day. A small creek seeped from the ground on the other side of my decoy, and open hardwoods expanded beyond. Hardly could I see the end of my gun barrel, and the bird I had heard the night before broke the dawn only a couple hundred yards away! I listened to him gobble untill 6:00, when I softly said, “Good morning”, with my diaphragm. He said, “HEY DARLIN”, right back. I waited.

At 6:20, he gobbled another 100 yards away and to the left on the ground. I didn’t like that direction, so I popped up and grabbed the decoy and went toward him. Up the gentle grade past the creek and onto a rolling flat that cascaded to the deepening creek bottom to my right and rose to a slight bluff on my left. I came to the end of the flat that dropped off to the creek bottom, with the bluff curling around to the left to a nose 150 yards on the other side of a bowl.

I knew he was on the other side of that nose, and set myself up 20 yards from the dropoff, so that if he came up, he would be in range as soon as I could see his head. He gobbled again, and I gave a soft call, directing the sound behind me and up to the left. A minute later, he gobbled again. The next gobble sounded closer, and just on the other side of the nose. I scratched in the leaves next to me, and waited.

His next thunder had him just out of sight, and I hunkered down on my gun and waited. Finally, he appeared on the other side of the bowl, coming straight to me. I could hear him in walking up the rise in front of me, and guessed where he would pop up. My heart was going 100 miles a minute, and I was afraid he would hear it. Then, a white and red head pops up at the end of my gun barrel. One more step, and BLAM! I see a bird fly away, and all I am thinking is “WHAT THE FRICK???”, when I pop up and see him laying there. I never knew the other bird was there. I sprinted over to the bird and stepped on his head. I had done it.

My excitement was too far out of control to be able to function normally. I was hootin, hollerin’, dancin’, singin’, and carrying on like a dang fool in those woods. I picked up my bird, the feeling of which was like all of my dreams coming true, and headed back to the truck, only 500 yards away.

Now, to say that this was the most incredible experience of my life is a simple understatement. I have told this story several times now, and only those who have been in the woods before have even the slightest appreciation for the awe-stricken state I was in from the moment I stepped out of the truck on Friday morning until, well, it still hasn’t gone away.

To see and hear the things I did is something that far too many people never will, and they will never understand why I spent the whole weekend doing what I did for a bird. I feel sorry for those people, as I feel they may be living for too many of the wrong things. This is why I hunt. This is why WE hunt. To become one with the world that we have intruded on. To see what is continually battling to stay alive. To be in Nature, our mother who will nurture those who care for her, and provide a lifetime of humbling those who choose to see her as she is truly meant to be seen.

Here he is ladies and gentlemen. My pride and joy. The culmination of my favorite hunting, and life, experience of all time.
19 pounds, 9″ beard, 7/8″ spurs. A two year old. My second turkey ever. My first on public land, and my first on my own.”

Did I tell you? Or did I tell you?! Congrats, Royce! And thanks for sharing your excitement with us!

Well boys and girls, I finally have a story for you. I apologize in advance (but not really) for the length of this, but it is now my favorite story to tell, and possibly the most incredible experience of my life.

This is the first season that I have really gotten after the big birds. I killed one with a buddy a couple springs ago (my first turkey), and had only been out by myself twice last season while having no clue what I was doing. I have been prepping for this season for a couple months now, and finally learned how to use a diaphragm call. I even took an old big game vest and sewed pockets and modified it into a turkey vest. Spent a lot of time on the interweb learning everything I could about these birds and hunting them, including a bunch of time on here! Needless to say, I was pumped about opening day!

Well, the week before opening day I bottomed out my car and she got towed to the shop. I was hoping she would be fixed by the Friday prior to the opener so I could get out and scout, but she stayed at the docs until the following Monday. No opening weekend for me.

The following weekend, I went back to Richmond to get on a hunt with my father in Cumberland County. We heard a few but couldnt get set up on one. Heard a bird gobble at 8:30 and set up on him but no response to calls and never heard from him again for another 30 minutes. Walked to a logging trail and got stopped in our tracks by his fan and big ole white head strutting towards us. We were both able to get our guns up and were just praying he would close the distance and not see us. Here is where inexperience sent me packin the first time. I am a very poor judge of distance, and had NO IDEA he was at 30 yards… thought he was at 45 or 50 (first time I had seen a bird strutting within 100 yards). So I didn’t shoot, and should have. Had open shots when he stuck his head up at 30 yards, just didn’t shoot. Then he goes behind a couple trees and, like a darn fool, decide it would be a good idea to kneel down. DON’T EVER MOVE! EVER! Next thing I see is his back side as he is hauling tail the other way down the trail. I about died.

Back in Roanoke now, I planned on going into the Jefferson National Forest on Friday of this weekend (4/26) to a place I had never been before and give it a shot, scout, spend the night there, and hunt Saturday as well. All of last week was spent poring over maps and trying to figure out where to go at daylight. I have only been in the GW NF up by Deerfield hunting grouse a couple times, but other than that I have no experience with NF land. Picked a spot in the Jefferson that seemed a ways away from towns and had some flat looking land with decent aerials.

When I got to the spot on Friday morning, the full moon lit the beautiful open hardwoods like I had never seen before like daylight. At 5:15, the whippoorwills were talking from every direction. It was a tad chilly, but nothing a sweatshirt couldn’t fix. I had no idea what to expect in this brand-new-to-me setting, and could only hope. I geared up and stepped away from the truck about 30 yards and stood waiting for daylight. Light in the east yielded a couple of owl hoots, and my hopes rose for a gobble to follow. Nothing. Then, a woodpecker cut the dawn and a thunder from some tree to my Southeast got my heart thumping! He was a huntable distance, so I made my way his direction. I stopped 100 yards from where I started, and he gobbled again, but this time had a few friends with him hammer at the same time. Also heard a bird closer to me on the other side of the truck, and decided to go after him instead, so I turned around and made tracks up the mountain. I got set up in a bottom with the birds 150 yards above me. The storm fallen tree to my back made great cover, and the nose of a bluff bottomed out 50 yards to my right and a saddle rose 60 yards in front of me. I sat, and waited. Now, to tell you that birds were gobbling EVERYWHERE would be an understatement. What got me the most, was that they were in groups. I was set up on 3 birds who would gobble together. To the west was a group of 4 or 5 doing the same, and that to the Southeast where I heard the first bird of the morning was a flock of, to my best guess, 10 cutting the dawn every 30 seconds. This, I knew, was something special. Well, the birds in front of me stopped gobbling around 6:45, and I heard one bird on the other side of the saddle gobble on the ground. No response to a soft yelp. Never saw him or heard from him again. At 7:00, I was thinking hard about heading Southeast to that won’t-shut-up big group of birds, but decided to give it 10 more minutes before doing so. At 7:08, I heard a gobble on the ridge to my right, close. I gave a soft yelp, and they (2) gobbled again a minute later at half the distance. I got myself turned that way, and the next gobble had them 100 yards away at the top of the bluff. And here they came straight down the nose of it, on a string! They ran, then stopped, and the one in the back would go into half strut then run to catch up with his buddy. If they go left at the base of the bluff, I have wide open shooting. If they go right, I have little space to turn and the tree top to cover their path. Of course, they go right. at 20 yards, the lead bird was about to go behind the tree. Excitement, a pounding heart, and a bit of panic brought my finger down on the trigger, and the bird began trotting the other direction. Two more shots his direction had him ruffling his feathers, but no harm done. The woods went silent, and I spent the rest of the morning scouting, spooking a couple birds as I walked on the road, but not much other turkey action.

I found a small clearing that looked like a great strut zone, and decided to set up there on Saturday morning. A camp site 250 yards to the north of the field became my home until the next dawn. That night, I heard a bird go to roost a couple hundred yards past the little field, and figured that was a good thing for the AM.

My alarm goes off at 5:00 and I step out of my truck back into turkey heaven. I had never camped where I was going to hunt before, so it was pretty neat to be able to roll out of bed exactly where I wanted to hunt. I geared up, and right as the whippoorwills began to chime, I was headed for the small field. The decoy was set 20 yards from me and my back was to an old fallen tree I had made into a blind the previous day. A small creek seeped from the ground on the other side of my decoy, and open hardwoods expanded beyond. Hardly could I see the end of my gun barrel, and the bird I had heard the night before broke the dawn only a couple hundred yards away! I listened to him gobble untill 6:00, when I softly said, “Good morning”, with my diaphragm. He said, “HEY DARLIN”, right back. I waited. At 6:20, he gobbled another 100 yards away and to the left on the ground. I didn’t like that direction, so I popped up and grabbed the decoy and went toward him. Up the gentle grade past the creek and onto a rolling flat that cascaded to the deepening creek bottom to my right and rose to a slight bluff on my left. I came to the end of the flat that dropped off to the creek bottom, with the bluff curling around to the left to a nose 150 yards on the other side of a bowl. I knew he was on the other side of that nose, and set myself up 20 yards from the dropoff, so that if he came up, he would be in range as soon as I could see his head. He gobbled again, and I gave a soft call, directing the sound behind me and up to the left. A minute later, he gobbled again. The next gobble sounded closer, and just on the other side of the nose. I scratched in the leaves next to me, and waited. His next thunder had him just out of sight, and I hunkered down on my gun and waited. Finally, he appeared on the other side of the bowl, coming straight to me. I could hear him in walking up the rise in front of me, and guessed where he would pop up. My heart was going 100 miles a minute, and I was afraid he would hear it. Then, a white and red head pops up at the end of my gun barrel. One more step, and BLAM! I see a bird fly away, and all I am thinking is “WHAT THE FRICK???”, when I pop up and see him laying there. I never knew the other bird was there. I sprinted over to the bird and stepped on his head. I had done it.

My excitement was too far out of control to be able to function normally. I was hootin, hollerin’, dancin’, singin’, and carrying on like a dang fool in those woods. I picked up my bird, the feeling of which was like all of my dreams coming true, and headed back to the truck, only 500 yards away.

Now, to say that this was the most incredible experience of my life is a simple understatement. I have told this story several times now, and only those who have been in the woods before have even the slightest appreciation for the awe-stricken state I was in from the moment I stepped out of the truck on Friday morning until, well, it still hasn’t gone away. To see and hear the things I did is something that far too many people never will, and they will never understand why I spent the whole weekend doing what I did for a bird. I feel sorry for those people, as I feel they may be living for too many of the wrong things. This is why I hunt. This is why WE hunt. To become one with the world that we have intruded on. To see what is continually battling to stay alive. To be in Nature, our mother who will nurture those who care for her, and provide a lifetime of humbling those who choose to see her as she is truly meant to be seen.

Here he is ladies and gentlemen. My pride and joy. The culmination of my favorite hunting, and life, experience of all time.
19 pounds, 9″ beard, 7/8″ spurs. A two year old. My second turkey ever. My first on public land, and my first on my own.