May 13, 2017 4 min read

I walked into Mike Weber’s house a couple of days ago and he had just finished smoking a couple of gobblers. I never cared for the taste and texture of a spring gobbler but in this case, the piece of turkey I ate was excellent.

The problem with spring turkeys is brought about by the constant chasing of hens by poor old tom turkey. Many times a tom will lose four or five pounds during this courtship period. His breast might become a bit soft and mushy and his legs are nothing but bone and tendon. But this smoked bird was wonderful. You see, even old men can learn to smoke them.

In the group I stopped to see at Mike’s, everyone got at least one gobbler. The group was basically my bear hunting group. I didn’t hunt with them this spring but bagged a large bird hunting alone.

As the calling season progresses, the woods keep getting thicker, cutting visibility to little more than a few yards. When it rains the birds tend to move into the open fields and there have been many open spots that have been created by the new pipeline dotting Washington and Greene counties. The problem is the grass in these openings is often above the height of a turkey. I watched one the day before the season and all I could see was a head. Add a few yards of distance from me to the tom and it would have passed unseen. Be careful, the thick cover adds to the hazards of turkey hunting.

• It’s been a tough season for trout anglers with all the rain. It seems it is either raining or the streams are muddy from the rain. Still, I have had a good season so far.

Now my thoughts are wandering a bit. The last few days my thoughts have drifted to walleye. There are far more places in Greene and Washington Counties to trout fish than to walleye fish. Cross Creek holds a few and I saw one come from the upper part of the lake that was more than 30 inches.

There is a problem, though, and that is I believe the catching of a walleye from Cross Creek Lake is unusual. Either there are not many or no one is targeting this bottom dweller. While the bottom dweller name isn’t exactly true, it is a fact that walleye prefer deeper waters and are seldom caught in water less than eight feet deep. This means fishing the bottom with jigs and live bait or use deep-diving lures. Most anglers here will be working the surface and shallows for bass and pan fish.

Dunlap Lake just this side of Uniontown has some walleye in it but is in Fayette County. It is a small deep lake that can be fished from shore or with the use of a boat. It also holds a good number of crappie and is stocked with trout. There are walleye in the lower reaches of Ten Mile Creek, and the mouth of the creek where it flows into the Monongahela River offers good fishing just downstream from Ten Mile Park.

Probably the highest population of walleye here is found in the Monongahela River. I have fished this water at Brownsville and as far south as Greensboro. The pool at the mouth of Georges Creek, right across the river from Greensboro, is a good spot for the boater but don’t overlook the water below Maxwell and Alicia Dams. Both require a walk but the fishing is well worth it. A couple of years ago an angler took a 13-pound walleye right below the Alicia Low Wall Dam.

In these fast moving water hot spots, it is really hard to beat a night crawler.

Good luck.

George Blocks writes a weekly Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.