Archives for January 2016

2016 Wisconsin Wild Turkey Drawing Results Announced!

January 19, 2016 by Charlie Leave a Comment

The wild turkeys are out there waiting

Update August 23, 2016 – Wisconsin 2016 Fall Turkey Permits are available

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as announced the 2016 spring wild turkey drawing results. The postcard notifications will be mailed soon. For those turkey hunters anxious to know if they drew their first choice permit go WI Online Conservation License site sign in and check under licenses.

As I write this post, the available over the counter, leftover spring turkey permits are not posted yet. When they are you can check them here Spring Turkey leftover permits.

Time to start making spring turkey hunting plans in the best turkey hunting state in the nation–Wisconsin. Good luck getting your first choice and good hunting this season.

Update 1/23/16 9:00 AM: As of Friday, Jan. 22 the spring turkey link has been disabled making it impossible to check your application status results. Apparently, yet again, the WDNR has screwed up the spring turkey license drawing. Those who have had experience with this system will not be surprised and just think, “Well what’s new?”

Update 1/23/16 9:39 AM: According to a WDNR phone representative results will not be available online until sometime next week. The DNR does not think it’s fair for hunters who have online access to know the drawing results before those who have to wait for the postcard in the mail.

Update 1/25/16 8:30 AM: You can check your spring wild turkey permit status is now online. The leftover spring tags should be posted sometime today.

Update 1/25/16 2:05 PM Here’s the chart of leftover permits. You can also view this on WDNR website

Schedule as posted on WDNR

Remaining permits will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Each zone will have a designated sales date with sales starting at 10:00 a.m. and running through midnight each day. These sales will be held for five consecutive days with customers able to purchase one permit per day. Remaining permits for all zones will go on sale on the sixth day (one permit per day).
The scheduled sales dates are:
• Zone 1 – Monday, March 21
• Zone 2 – Tuesday, March 22
• Zone 3 – Wednesday, March 23
• Zone 4 – Thursday, March 24
• Zone 5 – Friday, March 25
• Zone 6 – Friday, March 25
• Zone 7 – Friday, March 25
All leftover permits go on sale on Saturday, March 26, 2016 at 10 a.m.

What do Wild Turkeys Eat? Crops tell the story

January 17, 2016 by Charlie 5 Comments

Turkeys have sometimes been referred to as feathered goats when it comes to their eating habits. The wild turkey’s diet is very diverse. It might be easier to list what they don’t eat rather than trying to come up with a list of things they do eat.

When I kill a turkey, I always inspect its crop contents. Sometimes referred to as the craw by our southern friends. The crop clearly shows what turkeys are feeding in a given area. The crop is an enlarged muscle area of the esophagus near the gullet or throat.. See #4 on A.E. Shipley’s diagram.

OK you’re on the ball the diagram is a pigeon, that’s fine because almost all birds have crops. One exception that may be of interest to hunters are geese; they do not have a crop. I continue to be surprised by the number of bird hunters I meet who do not regularly open the crops of harvested birds to determine what they are eating.

Images of wild turkey crops and their contents.

From one of the gobblers who was feeding on watercress in a creek. Story here.

Same turkey crop as above cut open. All those roots are watercress and some grasses apparently from feeding on the prairie.

Bird of year. Soybeans and some grass. Grass is one of the wild turkey's staples. Courtesy of www.turkeydog .org

Bird of year. Soybeans and some grass. Blades of grass is one of the wild turkey’s staples. Courtesy of Jon Freis www.turkeydog .org

Jake crop Oct. 15 Full of grasshoppers and crickets along with a few berries, waste corn kernels.

Jake of the year Sept. 18 a summer bird. Stuffed with clover and grass seeds.

A lot of hunters assume turkeys eat primarily agricultural crops and focus their hunting efforts on these fields; this is understandable since field turkeys are the easiest to see. Unfortunately, hunters who primarily focus on fields are missing out on a lot good turkey hunting in all the other out of sight areas.

Many assume wild turkeys primarily eat agriculture crops. They do, but it’s the waste they go after not the standing crops. Think feathered goat.

How can you say turkeys eat the waste grain when I see them feeding in fields before harvest?

Even when turkeys are feeding in green agriculture fields, they are feeding on waste from the previous season, or they’re eating insects. Proof of this is in the crops of dead turkeys. A few years ago WDNR with volunteers from NWTF tracked a brood flock of turkeys on a southern Wisconsin farm that had requested a turkey shooting permit to stop the depredation. In other words, this farm believed the turkeys were eating their growing crops. The volunteer shooters monitored the brood flock all day as they fed. As the flock begins moving to roost the shooters moved in and killed the entire flock; this was in the name of science. The turkey’s crops were then dissected to see what they had consumed all day. All the crops contained primarily insects and small amounts of waste grain, and this affirms what I see in the crops of turkeys. I have never shot a turkey that had any recently planted grain; this includes the turkeys I’ve killed on farms with WDNR shooting permits for depredation.

Pheasants to a Last Minute Gobbler on New Year Eve

January 12, 2016 by Charlie 9 Comments

December 31, 2015, found Vic and I coursing through a likely pheasant field. Wild pheasants in Wisconsin can be very hard to find especially on the last day of the season. Most pheasant hunting here is a put and take proposition. The DNR’s yearly stocking is usually done by the 2nd week of December. The last pheasants released are anemic and short lived due to predators getting easy meals before the onset of severe winter.

Vic learned to hold turkeys by the neck so figures all birds should be held by the neck.

Turkey dog Vic has turned out to be an accomplished upland game dog. He can change tactics to match the requirements of hunting conditions. For a couple of afternoon hours, Vic coursed around me in his effort to force a pheasant or 2 to rise at my feet. One rooster nearly ran into my legs before flushing a few yards in front. Pheasant number 1 of the 2 daily limit.

Tired and wind burn we headed back to the truck. There was a brush line containing some bulldozed brush piles. Vic earnestly began working a scent trail that I thought was the most likely rabbit. He came to a rigid point at one of those piles. He had worked hard so I thought I’d humor him by kicking the pile to flush the bunny.
Well, these “bunnies” had multicolored iridescent feathers, long tails and all 6 of them cackled as they broke off heading to different points of the compass. So startled was I target panic set in as I fired three rapid shots to no effect. “I can’t miss all these pheasants of last season flush” raced to my mind. “dang it, pick a target you fool!” Luckily I did and the biggest and final rooster of the year crashed to the ground. With a limit of pheasants in the bag, single digit temperature, a brisk wind, and an hour & half of daylight left I pondered whether or not to try for a turkey at the buzzer, and this was the first year in decades it looked like we were not going to get a Wisconsin Slam.

Super secret Wisconsin wild pheasant location

The Wisconsin Slam sounds easy, just get a turkey each season of the year; spring, summer, fall and winter. Due to mrs. elk’s chronic health condition my time afield was more limited than normal. And mrs. elk prefers eating pheasants, so we spent more time out pheasant hunting than turkey hunting.

On the way to our super secret pheasant field, a small pod of gobblers had crossed the road onto private land just before the old creek bridge. First time I’d seen turkeys in that area so what the heck, time to investigate. It was only a 5-minute drive back there.
As I drove slowly across the bridge, I scanned the fields, no turkeys, when I looked into the creek valley black blobs were moving in the water. What the heck? I cursed myself for not having the binoculars in the truck. Stopped to study those blobs with squinted eyes. The blobs materialized into a flock of turkeys wading in the water. Not exactly where they’re expected to be.

Turned around to park the truck about a half mile at the public parking area. Vic and I dumped the orange to change into snow camo jackets, slipped on the turkey pack and headed towards the creek keeping Vic on a heel. A glance at my watch revealed about 45 minutes of 2015 season time left.

The turkeys were there, in the creek heads submerged much like feeding ducks. They do this in the spring to eat invertebrates, first time I’ve seen this behavior in the winter.

The 2015 turkey season continues ticking down as we stalk in closer. As Vic catches their scent as he becomes more eager by the second to do his job. On release, he tears down the ravine in a blur snow powder and yipping. The turkeys take to winged frenzy cackling and clucking as they go water drops are clearly visible dripping off their beards while others have icicles hanging causing a mirage of diamond spears protruding from their breasts.

The beard is ice covered from feeding in the creek.

This late in the day I feared the gobblers might just go to roost. However, in late season turkeys prefer roosting together and with toms on opposite sides of the creek, one group would most likely want to rejoin the other before roosting.

Half of the turkeys flushed out the creek

Half of the turkeys that flushed out the creek, the other half went the opposite way.

Picking a setup was tough, the wind was icy especially for Vic; he has very little hair, so something sheltered was a must. That put us below the field sitting against a tree on the slope towards the creek below. Visibility to see any incoming turkeys was more limited than I like.

After 5 minutes, of course, aggressive calling Vic started trembling. At first, I thought he was cold but no, he was on point, head laying across my lap staring intently to my right. Then I heard it- prrt putt, prrrrrt putt, if I can hear that sound the turkeys are close. Slowly I turn my head and came eyeball to eyeball with a frozen bearded gobbler. He backed away putting; his head darted behind a tree, and my body twists to get the gun on him just when another gobbler sticks his head up to see what all the putting was about- Boom!

Vic charges to our prize and flushes more previously unseen gobblers. It always surprises me when the gunshot does not scare them. About 15 minutes left of season 2015 so we reset to end the season with a nice gobbler in the bag, a leftover tag for tag soup and best of all memories of gobbling, yelping and roosting turkeys against the red sky sunset.

The last gobbler of season 2015 on Dec 3, 15 minutes before the buzzer.

Wisconsin Wolves Eat Black Bear

January 7, 2016 by Charlie 7 Comments

The wolves in Wisconsin must be elevated to game animal status in order to prevent them from being viewed as just pests.

The following is a Wisconsin bear hunting story written my friend at Willowridge Calls. This is the first time I’ve heard of wolves eating a large adult black bear. Usually wolves stay well away from bears. There are many reports from hunters regarding their encounters with aggressive wolves and coyotes during the 2015 hunting seasons. Not all want to share their stories because some of the anti wolf hunting/trapping people will harass them and in some cases threaten violence.

I spent most of my fall up north at the cabin Bear hunting. I did all my own baiting and placing stands. I had two good baits that were being hit twice a day by big bears, and lots of sows with cubs. They were hitting the baits at noon and 7pm. I hunted with my crossbow this year. I finally got a big bore that came in at 5pm and he gave me a good clean shot. I drove an arrow in him just behind his front leg and off he went towards the marsh. I gave him 30 minutes, then got down and went to the truck to get my shotgun/slugs for trailing, I had my sidearm on me just in case a sow got to close in the tree. I picked up the blood trail and followed it about 100 yds. and heard growling ahead of me. I hesitated a bit just to be safe, the brush was so thick you could only see about 60 yds. at best. As I waited 5 wolves stepped out of the brush and stood facing me then 3 more showed up. Two went to my left and one to my right. The two on my left kept getting closer when they got to about 30 yds. I fired a few rounds at them with my 357. They backed off about 25 yds. then started coming towards me again, the other wolves just stood watching. I backed off and out. Two wolves I could handle, but 8 would of been trouble. The lone wolf to my right followed me all the way back to the truck, and watched me leave. I went back in the next morning to see how bad they ate my bear; but they were still there feeding on it. I never did get to lay a hand on my bear. That was the last bear that gave me a shot so I ate tag soup on the bear.

That’s the problem up there in that area of northern WI. The wolf packs are getting so big that they are starving themselves because there is so little for them to feed on anymore. I had that bait set out the 4th of July and had cameras on it, got quite a few wolf pics on the bait. The time I spent sitting on that bait I saw a total of 27 different wolves around that bait, I’d see 3-5 usually, but 3 days before I shot that bear there was a pack of 11 that came through. Usually they would send in one wolf to the bait to see what scent they could pick up, if there was a scent of a sow with cubs they would follow it off through the woods. The people up there are screaming about the wolves. The other bear hunters I talked with that ran bear dogs, said they couldn’t run a bait more that once a week and not more that 3 times a season, because the wolves would lay in wait for them to turn the dogs loose and attack their dogs on trail. Even some of the home owners won’t let their little kids wait for the school bus at the end of their driveways anymore because the wolves would come on to their front yards and watch the kids run to the bus. One of the TV bow hunting shows had shot a big buck and the wolves got that before they found it. They warn all the hikers and skiers that use the trails up there to make sure you’re armed before entering the woods. Even when I let my dogs out to go I followed them out with my sidearm because wolves wait in my driveway some days, it doesn’t take them long to learn what times you let your pets out.

I could have shot both those wolves that came at me, but I didn’t want to have an issue with the feds, as long as they backed off and didn’t come at me as fast as they did the first time, if they would have I’d have had to drop them both. That’s why I backed off, being alone with no one around for back-up with 8 wolves is too risky. With having 3 attacks reported this year, and a lot of others that had wolves circling bow hunters in their stands, it’s gonna get worst before it gets better. I had posted my story on Facebook on the Wisconsin Wolf Hunters page there was a lot of reports of the same problem with other hunter in northern WI.

By Willowridge

Perhaps 2016 will be your lucky year.