Mushrooms, Sheds and Turkeys!

The warm weather reminds us that Springtime is time for some well needed outside therapy. What other time of the year can you look for sheds, mushrooms and hunt turkeys, all at the same time? Spring really rejuvenates the soul after being cooped up all winter long. In the next several weeks, we’ll have morels popping up and the turkey’s gobbling. In fact, the turkeys are gobbling now!

I used to pull a mean trick on the guys I worked with years ago when Spring arrived. I would always vacuum seal some morels from the previous season and keep them in my freezer until the end of the following March. I would then thaw them out and bring them to work telling everyone that I just found them the day before. You wouldn’t believe how many people would go out and look for mushrooms at the end of March! To make things worse, they were yellow morels! They finally caught on and I was the brunt of pay-backs for months after!

If you happen to find sheds, remember the locations and keep an eye on that spot come Fall! Yes, you can scout too!

Is this your head?

OK, this is a cruel way to see if you read my blogs but nevertheless, if you own this corn-fed Illinois bruiser, bring your checkbook and give me a call! I’ll give you three days to identify it and after that, I’ll donate it to Jeff Lampe’s collection.

Hopefully, the owner can identify it! See you soon.

The crying, will it ever end?

I found myself watching a YouTube video of a whitetail hunt tonight and sure enough, the guy started sobbing and crying after he shot his buck. Then I rotated into another video, you guessed it, more balling like a 12 year old girl who lost her puppy. For crying out loud (no pun intended), give it up! What’s with all of the crying???

Is this the new standard in whitetail hunting? After killing a nice buck, you must set your bow down then start wiping the tears away as you begin your series of boo hoo hoo. I remember once I was watching a hunting show on TV with some friends when some guy stuck a buck and began crying. My friend’s wife was in the kitchen and heard the hunter on the show sobbing so she asked out loud “Did someone die”? We answered back, yeah, the buck.

For anyone who has watched the evolution of deer hunting in the last 3 decades, you’ve seen the sport go from, well, a sport, to TV hysteria ,to mega products, to now….a post funeral scene! What’s with that? No I’m not insensitive nor am I a drip but isn’t this pushing it a bit too far? Emotions are all over the map when harvesting a nice whitetail, whether it be a young doe or a mature buck and I’ll agree, that’s part of what makes hunting so much fun. It just gets a bit old watching the same old guys killing the same old deer and then crying like it’s the first time they’ve ever had such an experience!

Are hanky’s are now required in your bag of hunting equipment? I hope not! I plan on having fun when I go hunting.