What subspecies will you be hunting this year/??

[proturkeyhntr]

Looks like just osceolas and easterns for me....


scott

[Frsdturkeyhunter44]

Just Easterns for me this year...

[shaman]

Easterns, but I've been told that these are special sub-species of the Eastern Wild Turkey. These are End-of-the-Stump turkeys. The turkeys down on the end of our ridge are different due to a somewhat haphazard selective breeding program. My farm used to be owned by a family, whose matriarch never said no to a hunter. As a result, I've met people 250 miles away who claim to have hunted my property over the years. EVERYONE knows where the End-of-the-Stump is, and everyone in the county has an opinion on where best to hunt them.

"See, ya' go all the way back to that south fence line. . . " one guy from Somerset I met at a convenience store in Whitley City will opine, as he tells me how to hunt my own turkeys. Mind you, that's over 200 miles away, but he and his brothers hunted that place for years, along with most of the male population of McCreary and adjoining Whitley County.

Everyone who knows about the End of the Stump strain will tell you, that these turkeys are different. They are call shy, camo shy, decoy shy, and so skittish that they'll run if they see a human at 500 yards. They move about freely before season and then, on the eve of opening day, they throw themselves down a well and pull the lid in after them. There they stay until mid-May. With season over, they come back out and resume normal activities. The few brave ones that do venture out of the well are stealth turkeys that use ultra-sonic calling techniques. What's more, they use a series of decoy calling tactics to make the hunter think they are one place, when actually they are somewhere else. They have ultra-sensitive passive sonar, and can now detect the footfalls of a human at two miles. They can also tell if the human is armed.

The one behavior that these turkeys possess that is truly confounding, is their ability to laugh. Once they have zeroed in on a turkey hunter, blinded in and waiting, they open up the well and let any turkey brave enough to try out of the hole. They all sneak up on the blind side of the turkey hunter, and they stand there for hours laughing at him. I know. I've heard them. It's a quiet sniggering and the longer you sit, the more you hear it.

It took a several years, a lot of no-trespassing signs, an ad in the paper, and a lot of leg work to convince folks that there was a new owner who needed a quiet place to hunt with his sons. Gradually, other less jocular strains of turkeys are working their way back into my flocks. That dilutes this weird feral blood that got in them. Once in a while now , I bag one of those sniggering gobblers, and occasionally I find a hen rolling on the ground trying to contain herself, and I just go up and drop-kick her down the hill into the cedars.

[palmettoswamp]

Osceola's (maybe I will finally get one this season) and Easterns

[BuckNBeard Hunter]

Easterns and Rio's for me

[Michael Lee]

Eastern's for me mostly. May get a chance at another Osceola or a Rio if time permits!

[nwtflimbhanger]

I will be hunting the willey old Easterns.

[Mr. Longbeard]

Hi guys. I'm new to this forum, but I love to turkey hunt so I'll be on here a bunch now. I'll be hunting Rios in Eastern Washington and then I also hunt in Idaho and there's Merriams and Easterns in the areas we hunt. I've been told there aren't many Easterns in Idaho, but in the last two years my buddy and I have killed 4 Eastern longbeards so there's definitely more than I thought. I'd sure love to get down to Florida someday and hunt the Osceolas!

[PHammond91]

Easterns for me. I may get a chance at another Rio or Osceola

[BuckNBeard Hunter]

Get alot of Osceola's and Rio's around Odessa do ya?