May 9, 2015 4 min read

Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems there are far fewer turkey hunters now. I have heard but one shot from my home. In past years, nearby shots were common morning sounds.

Come to think of it, gobbles are few and far between.

Mary Ann Johnson of Johnson’s Sporting Goods Store said she saw a drop in persons seeking turkey loads for the scattergun. I also found this to be true.

Back when I managed a local sports shop, we had a steady parade of would be hunters looking for Remington Duplex Selective plastic shells, which were loaded with 1 1/4 ounce of shot packed into the three-inch hull, or in my case the Federal Premium Load. One couldn’t keep calls in the store and decoys were huge sales objects.

Today, there are few, if any, calls for the above-mentioned items. Of course, all of this is what I see in our own locality. One may find the opposite to be true in another part of the state.

Perhaps most hunters are well-stocked with turkey hunting equipment. Decoys don’t go bad unless some silly hunter fills it with a dose of number 6’s. It does happen!

I knew a fellow who fell asleep while waiting, then woke up and shot his decoy thinking it was a bird. This happened despite the fact only bearded turkeys are legal and his decoy represented a hen.

So much for caution and checking the target.

A neighbor of mine, Jake McEwen, downs a Tom almost every year. He is still looking. One thing Jake has going for him is persistence and there is still time.

I have a love/hate feeling for spring turkey season. As we all know, birds love to sing and make sounds early in the morning.

So it is with the turkey. After all, it is a bird.

It’s these early morning gobbles that make the turkey hunt special, but it is the word early that disagrees with me. I hate to get up an hour before sunrise, but hate to miss the early sounds of the turkey as he leaves his roost and calls his harem together.

• May is a great fishing month. It is time to catch crappie, trout and is the start of the walleye season.

I start to target crappie earlier, but they usually are still hitting in May.

It is walleye that begins to attract the attention of the angler who likes to eat what is caught. While many trout are returned to the water, no one releases a legal walleye. The glassy-eyed walleye is not a spectacular fighter and seldom hits a lure near the surface but it makes up for that in size and table fair.

In almost all instances, the walleye will be found near the bed of the river or lake, and seldom will it be found alone. In other words, fish a lure that hugs the depths, and when one walleye is found mark the location for there are probably others present.

Jigs baited with a night crawler is favorite bait but when moving to strictly a lure, John Dino and I favor the deep running Hot-N-Tot.

A typical lake where we will be found is Piedmont in Ohio. This lake is only 65 miles from home and is half the distance of Pymatuming and only a short jaunt from Interstate 70.

There is a cove on the lake that produced walleye fairly regularly. The wind usually blows from the lake into the cove and we will drift into the cove with the worm-jig rig.

We use the motor to troll back to the open lake if we get too shallow. This way, we fish both methods. A jig with the wind and the Hot-N-Tot against the wind. Of course, we each carry two outfits. One to use in and the other to use out.

It works for us.

George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.