Northwoods Way Outfitters: April 2012

Big Bird Down

I've been in desperation mode lately to get a nice plump and beautiful, and hopefully delicious gobbler on the ground, on camera, before I move to Manny Waters full time. My dad's tag was good until tomorrow, which meant find a bird for him to kill now. Me and T Gun had just completed safe removals of a few trees in Wausau around 5 pm, setting up an unexpected chain of events. My dad owns a 50 plot about ten miles out of town, but I've typically been checking out a gobbler that's been riding a chunk of public next door, one that I have footage of breeding at least two hens. After not seeing that bird or his flock I simply decided to walk my dad's land with the Raley camera, a Sony HDV 1080i...trust me, it's sic dudes. Brought one of my turkey calls along with me for kicks in case I could roost one later. Hit a wooded plot that we really haven't hit for turks this year because most turkey drama usually occurs on the other side of property. I did know there were at least two hens using the woods, and I was quite sure there wasn't a resident gobbler in that woods. I planned on filming a grouse that was drumming down in there, but stopped at one of my newly constructed deer blinds, gave a couple taps and slices on the slate. One of those hens clucked back to me at super close range. I never called again, and the gobbler pictured above came in silent just after I set up the camera and got comfortable by a spruce. I couldn't believe my eyeballs. He was in full strut the whole time, looking exactly like he does above for a full 25 minutes, and towards the end of this initial appearance, got real loud, like really freaking loud, he had officially been fooled by my ultra realistic hen clucks (I still hadn't made a peep since my initial clucks). At about the 15 minute mark of his ballet display, a tree clump got between me and him, and I texted my dad to get off the couch and get to an adjacent wooded area until I gave word to sneak in to where I was once the bird exited the immediate area. He did just that I signaled my dad into the area where I was......we call it the sanctuary. I called this bird back in on a string and my dad blasted him. All on film, and I can breathe easy. Then I went to the Y and took a sauna.

Bearded Hen

This turkey season has been full of ebb and flows. On the first day of my season, I brought a hot gobbler in on a string and laced an arrow through its neck at thirty yards...so I thought. Feathers flew but the bird survived a skin wound and was never to be seen again. I thought the shot was perfect and was on a line to guillotine the wily gobbler, but the bird narrowly dodged being slayed. The weather was terrible a few of the days but I got on a flock of two toms, three jakes and several hens. Couldn't get the gobblers off the hens for the life of me. Passed on the jakes at ten paces with the gobblers in full strut in the background. I ended up without a kill. Matty outted this bearded hen on his second day before he had to split town. Although scraggly, the beard measured out at six inches. Much to my surprise, I found several eggs in the old hen, each sequencially smaller than the last. The first egg I pulled was fully developed and me and Wipfli ate it with a little pesto and diced ramps....savagely delish.

We are filming these hunts for a television promo for the Outdoor Channel. It is called Slay 2 Gourmet. I am the slay, Wipfli is the gourmet. It is going incorporate my slaying abilities and Jon's cooking specialties into short and sweet segments of killing, cooking, and hot girls. Yes, hot girls.