Hunters know how to read signs

I nearly stepped on a landmine.

In this case, it was opening weekend of turkey season cleverly disguised as Easter.

It’s because men and women follow different calendars. Women fill their calendars with anniversary dates, recitals, school functions and holiday get-togethers. Guys mark their calendars with hunting season dates and hunting trips.

In bold, cheerful script, I blocked off April 19-21 as opening weekend of turkey season at a WMA where I drew a coveted turkey hunting permit.

Miss Laura and I mark all this stuff on the same calendar. The difference is she reads all the entries. I don’t always do that. I sat at the kitchen table minding my own business when Miss Laura said, “You’re turkey hunting on Easter?”

It sounded like a question, but it really wasn’t. Every married man knows that tone.

“Of course not,” I answered with catlike agility. “I’m hunting Saturday and Monday. I wouldn’t hunt on Easter. What’s the matter with you?”

Ken Reeves, the newest member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, was not part of the group that set the 2014 turkey season dates. He didn’t step on the mine. He just kicked it aside.

“I’ll be done in time for church, unless there’s one gobbling,” Reeves said.

I spent Tuesday scouting an area for a drastically abbreviated hunt. It’s endless piney woods interspersed with some hardwood ribbons. The ground was saturated from rain, and standing water covered large areas.

Not long ago, that environment would have intimidated and dispirited me. I cut my turkey hunting teeth hunting the dry sandhills of western Oklahoma and the hardwood forests of the Missouri Ozarks. My first exposure to turkey hunting in lowland industrial pine forests was when I returned to Arkansas in 2005 after a long hiatus. I took about three years to figure it out, and while that’s not my preferred hunting environment, I have gotten proficient at finding birds there.

Basically, I look for pine plantations that have been thinned within the past two to four years. I prefer second-year thins because additional sunlight stimulates a profusion of ground vegetation, including forbs and legumes. They provide a lot of food for turkeys, and the floor is open so turkeys can move easily. Vegetation is thicker in slightly older thins, and it provides good nesting habitat for turkeys. If you can find feeding habitat close to nesting habitat, you have a good chance of seeing hens. Where there are hens there are gobblers.

I found several such areas. Some are separated by wide expanses of hardwoods. Those are good places for turkeys to roost, but there’s also a lot of green, seedy forage in those zones, too.

Don’t think turkeys don’t roost in pines, though. They do. In 2008, while hunting near East End, I hunted at the edge of an electrical right-of-way between a vast young pine thicket and a clearcut. The nearest tall pine was more than a half mile away, and the nearest hardwood was even farther. At first light, I heard a loud “whoosh” and a young gobbler landed beside my decoy. I still don’t know where that bird roosted.

I was not pleased to find the ground so soupy under the hardwoods Tuesday. Turkeys don’t mind walking through shallow water, but I don’t like hunting in it.However, I found some wide openings in a clearcut where the logging litter had been pushed aside. Young, fresh greenery carpets the ground. There is still a lot of standing water, but less than there is in the hardwoods. That’s a great strutting zone, and a good place for turkeys to warm up after a cold night on the roost.

I found a spot against a big brush pile that offers a broad view of one opening. The ground dips in front of the brush pile and forms a lip in front of the opening. If I’m sitting, the lip is about belly high, which helps break my outline. I made sure there were no fire ant piles nearby and marked that spot on my GPS.

In a full day of scouting, I saw two mature gobblers and five hens. All were solitary. The hens loitered at the roadsides and appeared to be eating grit. Their reluctance to leave suggested that their nests were nearby. Most hens are probably nesting now, and gobblers are probably looking for company. That plays right into my hands because my favorite time to hunt is mid-morning to late afternoon.

I’ve adapted to those times because of our late turkey seasons, and I’ve had some epic hunts from 11 a.m. onward.

From what I saw Tuesday, I like my chances.