The 9th of the 7th

Out of the genius of a 20 something college student.

Central Pennsylvania is a wonderment for a twenty year old college student.  First, there is all the obvious college things that students do....other than studying of course.  Fraternity, Sorority, the library, "The Hub", ice cream at the dairy store and party..party..party.  Probably too little of the study part and too much of the party part in some cases.

Second, I had another "Diversion" that most of my undergraduate and graduate buddies did not have.  I hunted and fished.  At that time without the camera.  I harvested my first ruffled grouse and my first white tail deer in those mountains.  Never saw a bear, but knew they were around.  I prided myself in being such a stealth hunter that the ultimate challenge to my skills would be a wild turkey. The time of this story is that period between when the pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving bird and the present day when turkeys roam most suburban backyards at will.  There was a time when Central Pennsylvania had almost the only concentration of these majestic birds on the East Coast.  Sometime in the sixties or early seventies.  Since then the population has exploded and they seem to be everywhere.  But back then it was pretty much a rarity even to see a bird.  Thus a challenge surpassed only by finding the noted Central Pennsylvania Mastodon.  And the reputation of being a successful turkey hunter was surpassed only by graduating college in two years instead of four.

You might think, oh well another bird.  A snap to find...what can be so hard?  Well, these birds have better eyesight than a modern day drone at 40,000 feet over the Afghan mountains.  Their hearing is better than that.  They can outrun a race horse (or it seems like it) and fly surprisingly well for such a large bird (up to forty pounds).  They travel in flocks and will call to each other all day long when dispersed.  They roost in trees and spend the daylight hours looking for food or (if the time of year is right) mates.

I bought a call box....two pieces of wood that you scrape together.  Glued some fall leaves to a hooded sweatshirt (this was before camo underwear).  Loaded up the old 12 bore and headed for the woods one Saturday morning.  Well before dawn.  The woods is black at that time of day and if you want to run the risk of breaking an ankle, just try and find your way around a dark mountainside without making too much noise.  It was an area of hardwoods and I felt because it was adjacent to a bit of a pine trees that the birds would come down from their roost to muck around the leaves looking for acorns.  I did do some homework here.  Probably more than on some of my dry old economics courses.

I finally found my favorite deep woods blind, or as they say in Europe "Hide".  Basically, an old oak tree wider at the base than myself.  Scraped the leaf litter away from the base, dry leaves make noise you know.  Sat down and waited for real daylight.  Now, if you want a real education....go deep into a woods where you cannot hear airplanes go over, or 18-wheelers on an interstate and just listen.

In the very early light, that charging through the leaves is probably not a three hundred pound bear being chased by thirty or forty wild dogs.  No, something a little different.  Probably only a wood thrush looking for grubs in the leaf litter.  Or maybe a **(&(*^) squirrel doing the same thing.  The thumping sound accompanied by what sounds like a consumptive smokers cough is simply a whitetail doe who caught your sent.

In my case the first rushing of leaves and fleeting shadow was a bob tail cat running along a deaf fall.  First and last one I have ever seen in the wild.  It was just amazing to see and to assimilate all the early morning sounds of nature. 

I finally hear what I thought was a turkey calling somewhere along the ridge above me.  Heck, for all I knew it could have been a cock a too (Sp).  I had no idea what a turkey sounded like, nor how to make the box I bought sound turkeyish.  But I did know you could call too much, so about every ten minutes I rubbed the box and it squawked and I waited.

To my utter amazement a young bird (no beard growing out of it's chest) called a "Jake" materialized from where, to this day I know not, about 30 yards below me.  Long story short.  I shot...I missed....he ran.  End of story. 

The next time I hunted these birds, I went to the same spot.  Immediately I got an answer to my calling.  I must have stumbled into doing something right.  Hoping that the bird would come to my calls, I called for a good hour and half.  Finally I decided since the bird wouldn't come to me...I'd take it to him.  I was the king of stealth remember.  I moved to within about fifty yards of the calling bird.  Only to find that he had on an orange blaze vest and hunting cap.  Another hunter.  We had been calling to each other for over an hour, neither moving.  Jeeeeez!  I just eased on back out and decided that studying bio-chemistry would be a better utilization of my time.  As it turned out, that was a mistake too.