All dressed with somewhere to go

 

Jason poses with his first wild turkey taken on a morning hunt with the turkey taken by his friend Nick alongside.

Wild turkey hunting is something my hunting buddies and I want to take part in very much. I attended the seminar would be turkey hunters in Ontario are required to complete to get licensed several years ago. With a hunting buddy, I had at the time I travelled extensively in Eastern Ontario, knocking on doors in a futile effort to secure access to a property that held wild turkeys. The most common reasons given when we were refused access were that others already hunted the property or the landowner did not permit hunting. My enthusiasm for wild turkey hunting waned in the intervening years–though my current hunting buddies and I had access to the farmland where we deer hunt to hunt wild turkeys until recently. There are turkeys on the farm; I remember seeing turkeys while seated in my deer stand during deer season. Val, the owner of the farm and our gracious hostess, developed a sentimental attachment to the turkeys as they frequent her bird feeder. She asked that we do not hunt them and we respect her wishes. You could say, regarding turkey hunting, my buddies and I are “all dressed with nowhere to go.” However, fortune turned in our favour this season as one of our number, my buddy Jason, succeeded in bagging his first wild turkey in an exciting hunt