So I have been stuck on 48 states visited for the last decade or so, missing Vermont and New Hampshire. Last Fall I decided I needed to get to 50 and be done with it, and was trying to think of a fun way to do it. Hunting turkeys sounded like a winner, so a plan was hatched. Given limited time and no local resources, I hired an outfitter, not my style in general, but given what I learned about access and vagaries of VT hunting regs, I'm glad I did. Plus - turned out to be a great guy and was great to hang out with him and his uncle and extended family.
Vermont - for a westerner - is very hard to get your head around from a land access perpective. Technically - Private land is open to hunting access by default. If the landowner wants to not allow access, the land must be posted with official signage in some set intervals along boundaries. Then the landowner needs to register with the township that their land is duly posted, and the town will then register it with Game and Fish. There is some renewal interval for this process, too. Posted or not - A landowner can, at any time, ask hunters to leave their land immediately and they have to comply, but by default, if it's not posted, you can hunt it.
You can also only hunt Spring turkeys until Noon, which was another thing that was tough to get used to. And, as you'd expect, the birds have adapted and are out strutting like crazy all afternoon. Of course, turkeys are turkeys, so you can still roost them in the evenings.
We had the same bird hang up on me twice the first two days in a maple syrup operation. Once @ ~75 yards and again at more like 60 in some thicker cover. A few other failed attempts to call birds away from hens and a blown end-around on a strutter at the edge of a field. Finally the evening of day 2, we roosted 2 birds about 1/2 mile apart and set up between them the morning of day 3. Both flew down with hens and wouldn't move, so we started to go after the closer one. About 100 yards out we spotted one of his hens with her head up and we were belly crawling from there to some fir trees we could lay prone under. The gobbler was slightly downhill to my left with 1 hen. I watched from my belly as they slowly worked closer over an hour or so. When he was about 50 yards away, 2 other hens came from uphill and one of them was on a collision course with me laying under a Hemlock. She got to 3 yards and stopped and turned away - never saw me but I was sure she was going to walk into me and spook all of them.
Looked back and the gobbler and his hen were now only about 30 yards out. If they went 2 of the 4 cardinal directions, I'd have a small window through the trees and branches in front of me, if they went the other 2 directions, gig was up. Thankfully, they picked one of the good directions and crossed through a 4' window and that was the end of that. At only 18 yards, I sadly ended up trimming up his beard pretty good with the shot, but was a beautiful bird. 20lb and (originally) a 9"+ beard (now 7" and pretty thin after my barber-ing job).
I'd killed Easterns before back in WI, but I didn't have a Eastern fan (I'd kept beards and spurs, but they ended up at my ex-girlfriends family place), so the wall is ready for the 3rd sub-species fan mount now. Fan is cleaned up, borax-ed and pinned out in the garage and a vermont-shaped mounting plaque is on its way.
Vermont, particularly the NE Kingdom area I was in, was gorgeous country. It reminded me of Northern Minnesota (Birch/Pine/Fir forests with some cedar swamps), but with mountains thrown in. I was probably the only dude transiting Dulles airport Sunday with a bag full of turkey parts and Craft beer
Vermont - for a westerner - is very hard to get your head around from a land access perpective. Technically - Private land is open to hunting access by default. If the landowner wants to not allow access, the land must be posted with official signage in some set intervals along boundaries. Then the landowner needs to register with the township that their land is duly posted, and the town will then register it with Game and Fish. There is some renewal interval for this process, too. Posted or not - A landowner can, at any time, ask hunters to leave their land immediately and they have to comply, but by default, if it's not posted, you can hunt it.
You can also only hunt Spring turkeys until Noon, which was another thing that was tough to get used to. And, as you'd expect, the birds have adapted and are out strutting like crazy all afternoon. Of course, turkeys are turkeys, so you can still roost them in the evenings.
We had the same bird hang up on me twice the first two days in a maple syrup operation. Once @ ~75 yards and again at more like 60 in some thicker cover. A few other failed attempts to call birds away from hens and a blown end-around on a strutter at the edge of a field. Finally the evening of day 2, we roosted 2 birds about 1/2 mile apart and set up between them the morning of day 3. Both flew down with hens and wouldn't move, so we started to go after the closer one. About 100 yards out we spotted one of his hens with her head up and we were belly crawling from there to some fir trees we could lay prone under. The gobbler was slightly downhill to my left with 1 hen. I watched from my belly as they slowly worked closer over an hour or so. When he was about 50 yards away, 2 other hens came from uphill and one of them was on a collision course with me laying under a Hemlock. She got to 3 yards and stopped and turned away - never saw me but I was sure she was going to walk into me and spook all of them.
Looked back and the gobbler and his hen were now only about 30 yards out. If they went 2 of the 4 cardinal directions, I'd have a small window through the trees and branches in front of me, if they went the other 2 directions, gig was up. Thankfully, they picked one of the good directions and crossed through a 4' window and that was the end of that. At only 18 yards, I sadly ended up trimming up his beard pretty good with the shot, but was a beautiful bird. 20lb and (originally) a 9"+ beard (now 7" and pretty thin after my barber-ing job).
I'd killed Easterns before back in WI, but I didn't have a Eastern fan (I'd kept beards and spurs, but they ended up at my ex-girlfriends family place), so the wall is ready for the 3rd sub-species fan mount now. Fan is cleaned up, borax-ed and pinned out in the garage and a vermont-shaped mounting plaque is on its way.
Vermont, particularly the NE Kingdom area I was in, was gorgeous country. It reminded me of Northern Minnesota (Birch/Pine/Fir forests with some cedar swamps), but with mountains thrown in. I was probably the only dude transiting Dulles airport Sunday with a bag full of turkey parts and Craft beer
