Bagging Arkansas gobbler sets happy tone for year

Whenever I kill a wild turkey in Arkansas, everything is right for the rest of the year.

Business is good. I get along with everyone. The weather is fair, fish bite, and the kids do well in school.

When I "whiff" in Arkansas, I can always bag a bird or two in Oklahoma or elsewhere, but it's not the same.

Mature gobblers are not plentiful in Arkansas. We have the same eastern subspecies as in Missouri and Mississippi, but ours don't gobble as much, and they are harder to hunt. This I know from experience.

Our season limit is two, and I always try for two, but I'm happy with one. I've never lucked into killing a turkey in Arkansas. I've earned each one, and the memories of a single successful hunt sustain me until next April.

When you kill an Arkansas gobbler, it means something.

After bagging my gobbler Monday at Madison County Wildlife Management Area, I had a little fun on social media. I posted on Facebook that to my knowledge, I am the first person to have killed a wild turkey with Remington's new V3 semiautomatic shotgun. Certainly nobody else in the outdoor media has mentioned doing so.

"I'm claiming it, regardless!" I posted.

Donny Harris, former chief of wildlife management for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, replied, "I don't think so."

Harris, not wanting to show me up on my own news feed, called me. He killed a gobbler with his new V3 on opening day.

We compared observations. Like me, he had to order his V3 because none of the sporting goods stores in his area had one. Nobody had even seen one. The store in Sherwood where I bought mine had one with a 28-inch barrel, but I wanted a 26-inch, so they had to order mine, too.

Like mine, Harris's V3 shot low and to the right, but it patterned well out of the box. Mine did not pattern well with dove or waterfowl loads.

We both replaced our factory Rem Chokes with Carlson's chokes. The full constriction tube patterns several turkey loads very well for me, and it shifted the point of impact closer to point of aim.

Harris said his V3 still shoots low and right, but he compensates by holding high and left.

Here's a little secret about Carlson's chokes. They come separately or in kits especially for different types of game. They all have the same dimensions, though. Only the packaging is different.

I bought a Brownell's kit for 3-gun competition off eBay for about $40, but they are Carlson's tubes and are labeled so. That's about $60 cheaper than Carlson's Waterfowl set. The full, modified and improved cylinder tubes are tighter than the comparable Rem Chokes, and I'll use them for everything.

I am now preparing the fan of my Ozark gobbler for its place in the gobbler gallery.

After removing the fan and part of the saddle, I cleaned out the muscle tissue and covered it and the base of the beard with borax. This dries and hardens the tissue. I spread the fan and stapled the end feathers to cardboard.

For the next couple of weeks I will regularly shake off the moist borax and refresh it. When it dries, the fan will be permanently in the open position.

At that point I will mount it and the beard on a plaque. You can buy them at most sporting goods stores, and they come with attachments to mount the beard and spurs, as well. They create an attractive display.

You can also make your own.

My favorite is one that Miss Laura made for my first turkey in 1999. She painted my name and the year on a piece of weathered barn wood that she cut in the shape of Oklahoma. It rests above my desk between the rack of my first antlered buck and the rack of a buck I killed in 2007 at Turley Ranch in western Oklahoma.

For this bird, I want to do something special. I'm thinking of mounting the fan, beard and the shotgun hull in a glass frame along with my permit for my hunt at Madison County WMA.

Problem is, we're running out of wall space at Hacienda Hendricks. Miss Laura paints very large pictures of elk, deer, retrievers and such, so our home is a virtual menagerie.

Somehow, I'm sure we'll find a spot for one more fan.

Sports on 05/01/2016

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