Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 1, 1990 TAG: 9004060699
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran Outdoor Editor
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
With the April 14 opening of the spring gobbler season still nearly two weeks away, does this mean the peak gobbling activity will be finished even before camouflage-clad hunters are in the woods with shotguns?
Gary Norman doesn't believe so. He is a research biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. What's more, he has some expert help when it comes to keeping tabs on the toms. He has hens equipped with radio transmitters.
"The activities we have seen so far in the hens we have in our population dynamics study suggests that the birds aren't doing anything out of the ordinary," said Norman.
Last week, Norman and his fellow researchers started seeing the hens leave some of their traditional winter range.
"We suspect they are moving toward the gobblers right now," he said. "We have heard gobbling, but it is not real intense yet. We don't think there is a big rush of early activity."
Last year, spring hunters established a record when they reported killing 7,445 toms. The top counties were Sussex, Franklin, Bedford, Carroll and Halifax.
Norman is expecting still another record kill this spring. The area west of the Blue Ridge looks particularly promising. The fall kill was high there, and he sees no reason why that won't carry over into the spring.
The turkeys should be in good condition, thanks to an ample mast crop the past two years. Well-fed toms tend to be more active, he said.
"We suspect that the turkeys will do more gobbling and the behavior luxuries that are associated with being in better condition."
The shell game
They are called Duplex loads, and they are controversial.
Remington and Federal make them. Designed for turkey hunting, they are a shotgun shell loaded with two or more shot sizes in a single shell.
Here's how they work. The Remington 2X6, for example, loads 12-percent No. 2 shot ahead of 88-percent No. 6 shot. The big 2s arrive first, to deliver a stunning blow; the smaller, more numerous No. 6s follow up with density.
Winchester/Olin doesn't like them. The company has dispatched a consumer alert telling hunters that the Duplex loads have no benefits. In fact, they offer measurably inferior ballistics at ranges over 40 yards, the company says.
Hunters this season are having to make a choice. Whom do you believe?
Most coming into Capitol Guns & Ammo in Roanoke are selecting single-shot loads, said owner Dick Steen.
"I don't believe in mixed loads," said Steen, who thinks the benefit of density is robbed by the big shot.
"The important thing to remember is that you have to pattern your gun with each type shell," said Bob Tully, owner of On Target in Roanoke. Guns and shells will react differently, meaning a good load for one shotgun may not be the best choice for another, he said.
And don't try to shoot a turkey that is out of range.
Don't shoot a friend
Don't try to tell Shirley Grenoble, a Pennsylvania outdoor writer, that your odds for being involved in a turkey-hunting accident are something like a million-to-one.
On a Missouri hunt, Grenoble and her son, Mark, had done some calling, then removed their face masks and were moving through the woods. A 63-year old hunter mistook them for turkeys and put more than 30 shotgun pellets into Mark, who survived.
Two weeks later, Shirley Grenoble was hunting in her home state when she spotted two hunters nearing the position where she had been calling.
With the Missouri accident fresh in her memory, she decided to leave. She removed her face mask and was bending over to pick up her seat cushion when she was shot in the head and neck. She shouted, but the two hunters kept firing - five more times - hitting her in the legs, arms and hands as she crawled away.
A couple of spring gobbler hunters in Virginia last year fared worse than the Grenobles. They were mistaken for game and didn't survive.
"We've got to stop shooting our friends," said Frank Piper, president of Penn's Woods, a call manufacturer.
Research is needed to figure out what happens in a hunter's mind to make him shoot at something that isn't a turkey, said Ron Brenneman, who addressed the Roanoke Chapter of the Wild Turkey Federation last week. Brenneman is the federation's assistant director of research and management.
Lynch celebrates
Allen Jenkins still calls him Mr. Lynch. Jenkins is president of the M.L. Lynch Co., the world's largest maker of box turkey calls. He has been the president for 20 years. M.L. Lynch, the founder, has been dead nearly that long. Still, it's "Mr. Lynch."
"Now listen," were a couple of words Mr. Lynch used constantly. Jenkins listened. As a young man interested in turkey hunting and calls, he soon found that when he did, he learned.
This is the 50th year of the fabled Lynch box call. For Jenkins, who was at a calling contest in Winchester Saturday, it is a time to celebrate. His company is out with a limited-edition 50th anniversary call that is destined to become a collectors item.
Already reaching that status are the box calls Lynch made 20 years or so ago in Birmingham, Ala. (The company now is located in Liberty, Miss.) A call with B'ham, Ala. engraved on it is worth $200 to $400, said Jenkins. Some Virginia old-timers still are using them.
A few years ago, mouth calls started cutting into box call sales. The word was out that amateurs used boxes; pros used mouth calls. That's no longer the case, said Jenkins.
A box call has a place in any prudent hunter's bag of tricks.
"They will gobble at a box call when they won't gobble at some of the perfect calling made on mouth calls," said Jenkins. "It is the tone they respond to."
An extra hour
Turkey hunters who have felt there weren't enough hours in the day will get an extra one this season. A new law allows sportsmen to hunt until noon each day, instead of the old 11 a.m. closing time.
The change may not sound like much, but as spring hunting has matured many sportsmen have noticed that toms are gobbling later in the day.
The additional hour gives a break to the hunter who finds himself working a tom late in the morning. It also compensates for the hour lost when Daylight Savings Time was set to begin earlier in the year.
The season falls a little differently on the calendar, too. A new annual framework sets it to begin the Saturday nearest April 15 and last for five weeks. That way, it will embrace six Saturdays, always a popular hunting day. This season's dates are April 14-May 19.
The old way, hunters occasionally would lose a Saturday when the season's length varied from year to year.
Memo: correction