As this is written, it is once again the dead of winter in northern Michigan, and although December was very mild, it’s been very cold since then, with more than a foot of snow on the ground in many areas, which makes it pretty tough for our wild turkey flocks.
“You are not reading THAT are you? Whoever writes that hates the DNR.” – that’s what I heard when I attended the DNR Natural Resources Commission meeting at Cadillac on October 9, 2014. The winter of 2013-2014 was especially brutal and the DNR acknowledged a huge loss of Wild Turkeys in the Upper and Northern Lower Peninsulas. Regardless of the fact of a declining turkey population and huge losses a fall hunting season, in which hens are a target, was authorized both in the Upper and areas within the Northern Lower Peninsulas.
Here it is February already again and the North-Central Chapter is busy getting ready for our annual banquet and giving out corn to help sustain the wild turkey population. We have given out over 7,000 pounds of corn already this winter.
This is being written during the first week in February 2015. Winter has been relativity kind this year, as compared to the brutal winter of last year. Unfortunately snow has melted and formed ice on the ground that covers any remaining food available to our Wild Turkeys.
Did you ever wonder how and why hunting evolved etc.? When hunting started it was for food and furs. They needed to eat and keep warm in the winters. Then the hunters were feeding the railroaders while the skins were shipped overseas to Europe. When you got a reputation as a good hunter people thought you were MACHO.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article was written by John Gunnell of Rockford, following his article that appeared in the September 2014 issue of Michigan Turkey Tracks. We welcome articles regarding our members and non members alike. All articles will be published as written in a professional manner.
If you are often disappointed like I am by the homogenized storyline of many media people pertaining to outdoor matters, you may have interest in reading further. Outdoor writers seem fast disappearing that still exercise self-discernment by rendering their views much beyond the storyline they are fed.
