Places TO Hunt

As we all know, finding a quality place to hunt is getting harder and harder. Just like everyone else, I too, have to go out knocking on doors to secure hunting spots. Getting permission to deer hunt seems to be the hardest. On the other hand, farmers just plain don't seem to like turkeys. 

This subject came up the other day in a conversation I had with Walt Rayfield. Walt is an avid hunter and works as a hunting supply sales distributor for Apple Land Sports Supply. He put it to me like this, "if you knock on ten doors and ask to hunt deer, you will probably get ten no's. If you ask the same ten people to turkey hunt, you might get nine yeses." Same thing goes for waterfowl hunting, you get way more yeses then no's. This can be your in to the deer hunting later on.

This seems to hold some truth. Many farmers I have talked to, feel that turkeys do more damage to the crops than deer. I have had farmers tell me, they were out planting a corn field and the turkeys follow right behind the tractor picking up the seed. Other farmers on more then one occasion, have told me they see turkeys walking the corn rows, and pulling up the newly sprouted plants just to pull to kernel from the bottom of it. Then you ask if you can come goose hunting in the fall, the reply is usually "kill as many as you can." 

I made a road trip yesterday to go knock on a guys door for my up coming turkey season. Now I didn't hit up a bunch of farmers only one. I know where they are and know where I want to hunt. This was all or nothing, or maybe public land. After a three hour drive I find the farmer in his shop doing so work on his equipment. I had my 15 year old son with me, who will also be hunting. I told him, "I have noticed a ton of turkeys using his fields." "Yep." he replied. My next question was, "you allowing any hunters to get after them this year?" His reply was, "Are ya gonna kill some?" I explained that the state only allows one turkey for each tag, but my son, daughter and myself each had a tag. "We would sure like to kill three of them." I said. This farmer has dealt with turkey hunters before. I knew it from the year before and more so when he proceeded to tell me "this is season one and I had a guy take a turkey opening day. I have another hunter here next week for season two and season four. If ya like you and the kids can hunt season three, five or six."

This created a problem, I already have a tag for his zone in season four and know season three was sold out. I told him I would see if I could get tags for season five and if I could I would let him know. He gave me his phone number so I can contact him. Found out season five still has tags in his zone, so I will be picking them up today and calling him back. 

Season five will have me on his property for five days. I see this as an opertunity to work on the deer hunting. See I hunted his land last year for turkey season also and never mentioned deer hunting. Even though I was chomping at the bit. We saw plenty of turkeys and equally as many deer. The sheds in the photo came from his property. Maybe some midday help around the farm when we are not hunting this turkey season will do the trick. Who knows, but good things come to those who wait.