If you're like me, you need something to get you through winter to that first game-time gobble. Here at the Strut Zone we’ll do our best to share what’s new in turkey gear for this coming spring season. Today’s post highlights three recent offerings from Knight & Hale Game Calls:

Knight & Hale’s new box call, the Hammerhead, contains a soundboard within the box, essentially creating a soundboard within a soundboard. This soundboard system consists of raised ribs of specific length, height and width — borrowed from the company’s Hammer Series friction calls — which softens the highs and lows to create a more nasal tone. The Hammerhead Box base is machined out of a single piece of poplar wood, meaning that there are no glued corners to fall apart or dampen the sound, and has a waterproof coating. The lid is made of cherry wood.

Knight & Hale’s new Yella Hammer Kit comes with a Yella Hammer friction call featuring the “works wet or dry” Sla-Tek friction surface, the new Harold Knight Fire’n Ice diaphragm, a new Smoke’n Fire diaphragm, a matching color owl call, a Super Striker with a polymer tip for wet-or-dry calling and a yellow birch striker.

Knight & Hale’s new Glass Hammer Kit features a Glass Hammer Friction Call, a Super Striker with a polymer tip that works wet or dry, a yellow birch striker, an Ole Reliable triple-reed diaphragm, a Screaming Hen II double-reed diaphragm and a matching color owl call for locating spring gobblers.

Both kits also include an instructional DVD with tips and calling/hunting instruction, along with some turkey hunts that show how to use the calls in live situations.

For more information contact Knight & Hale Game Calls, 3601 Jenny Lind Road, Fort Smith, AR 72901; (479) 782-8971; www.knightandhale.com <http://www.knightandhale.com> — Steve Hickoff

Promised to post some photos of the horrendous New England ice storm of December 12. Here are a shot of the road out in front of my camp. Know that there was a flock of turkeys roosted up behind the house in the days leading up to the ice—what's become of them is anyone's guess. Turkeys are tough, but I'm not sure that they could have survived it. Will be surveying the damage in the days ahead and post some shots.—Gerry Bethge

The wild turkeys could wait. The phrase “widespread power outages” has dominated news talk on my battery-operated radio. The storm made us native and transplanted New Englanders national news last weekend and well into this one. It ended today, Tuesday, December 16. Unless you count the clean-up to follow: ancient trees split in half, heavy branches all over the landscape, wet basements and the like.

I can hear a neighbor and his trusty chainsaw right now . . .

Yeah, I've stoked the woodstove fire continuously (it got down to 10 degrees one night over the weekend), but the weather eased considerably yesterday (December 15, the last day of the New Hampshire bow turkey season, and I'll eat that tag with some good memories on file). My English setters enjoyed my company during the recent stretch (I think!?), sleeping downstairs with me near the fire while my wife and daughter stayed on the warmer upper level at night.

Hunting camp without the hunting . . .

Just like the outset of Jack London’s classic 1910 story “To Build a Fire,” today also broke cold and gray. Would the power come back on? Or not? That’s been the operative of late: to build a fire. It could be 3 p.m. or 3 a.m. as the great heating unit, like a newborn infant, must be fed. Like you Strut Zoners, I choose skinny logs to provide air around them, and thicker ones to sustain the burn longer into the night, offering more rest for my vigil of warming the house. Sixty degrees is as low as it got while I fed the fire.

Once I stopped, it dropped like a stone in a lake.

But then it warmed to unseasonable temperatures again as if nature were giving us just one more break. And then I heard that sucking sound, and my home office printer purred like a turkey hen and kicked on. Here in southern Maine, the power in our modest little log cabin fired up this afternoon after five days without it. Yep, you heard right: five days. No typo. The moment of truth arrived to the sweet sounds of two sump pumps sucking swamp water out of my basement. You gotta love it.

Before the electricity kicked in, some of my mallard decoys floated around in the several inches of water down there as if in some winter outdoor-industry show demonstration. As clean-up goes, I've a museum of old (wet) basement gear and classic (read retired) camouflage that needs tossed, so that's a good thing! And no I didn't have a generator on hand. It's on my Christmas list though.

Back on the grid never felt better.—Steve Hickoff

Right now, you Strut Zoners are probably in your best physical shape of the year outside of spring turkey season. You’ve been hiking hills, climbing treestands, and on occasion, you’ve dragged a deer out of the woods. You’ve put on drives (where legal), and maybe even hunted a wild turkey or two. Spring gobbler season is coming before you know it. Here are some ways to stay in playing shape, and even to keep what you’ve earned over the years while doing it.

Hunt Small Game: Many “second seasons” are offered for rabbits and upland birds around the country, including wild turkeys and even deer way down south. Ducks. Geese. Don’t stop. Keep at it. Spring turkey will follow all the fun, and it will make winter pass that much faster.

Move That Body, Part II: Don’t care to hunt small game following deer and fall turkey seasons? Join a recreational hoops league (I play weekly in one with several fellow hunters on my team). Indoors, you can also lift weights. Do pushups. Swim. Stay active. Outdoors, you can ice fish. Take up snowshoeing, which is a great way to scout, and even to check out access for new hunting areas. Get out there. You guys down south basically keep going until you hunt that first gobbler. It's tougher up north in the Snow Belt.

Secure Landowner Permission: If you’ve hunted land this fall and want to keep it, make sure you thank the landowner now. Send a holiday greeting. Drop by his house for a friendly post-season chat. Make an effort to expand your hunting areas too. Sometimes contacting the person who posts his land now will let you hunt gobblers in a few months all by yourself. Permission granted.

I recently talked to a Maine farmer who said, “I need all the help I can get with the wild turkeys. There are just too dang many of them!” This morning, as snowflakes fell, I walked his land these many months before spring turkey season to get a feel for it, and found all sorts of turkey sign. Not that these particular birds will stay, but that’s the fun. Do it. Like me, you’ll have a jump-start next year, and something to look forward to.

What do you guys do in the off-season to make sure you’re in shape for next year? Do you have any special tricks for keeping landowner permission, or getting new land to hunt?— Steve Hickoff

I’ve been fortunate to kill some big gobblers over the years in states like Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Texas, and elsewhere, birds that weighed in the 22- to 23-pound range. Twenty-pounders aren’t all that uncommon if you hunt hard in a bunch of states as many of us do. Actually, they’re squirts compared to the current Top 3 Eastern (“Typical”) birds registered with the National Wild Turkey Federation.

Kyle Nook’s tops the list at a weight of 35.8125 lbs., a gobbler taken in Guthrie, Iowa back on April 28, 2001. A box call brought the bird to the gun.

Scott Cernohous is next in line. His St. Croix, Wisconsin longbeard creaked the scales at 34.5000 lbs. He got that one by the feet on April 10, 2002. The medicine? Again, a box call.

Allen Vanderpool’s 34.2500 lb. Whitley, Kentucky gobbler ranks third on the list. His date of kill? April 13, 1998. You guessed it. This longbeard was also lured in with a box.

My assessment? Use a box call and hunt in April! Kidding aside, I killed this 22-lb. Merriam's in the South Dakota Badlands this past spring. (Heaviest Merriam's ever? George Connors's 31.5600 lb. Stevens, Washington bird taken on April 29, 2006. Yes, he also used a box call, and a diaphragm too.)

What’s your heaviest gobbler ever, Strut Zoners? What call did you use to pull it into range, assuming you used one? Did you do it in April?—Steve Hickoff

Though many autumn turkey seasons are done in the Northeast where I’ve hunted them this fall, I’m still at it in New Hampshire where the bow-only opportunity on either-sex birds continues until Dec. 15. Wish me luck.

Here’s a three-fer of places where you can still down a turkey:

Virginia: How cool is it for a state to offer a variety of fall turkey seasons (into the New Year for the latest one), including a one-day hunt on Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Day? Two-turkey limit. Dogs: legal 

Arkansas: Though the fall turkey gun season is done until spring down where SZ regular “Dirty” hunts, archery/crossbow opportunities run until February 28, 2009 in all zones. You heard right. In some ways it’s just getting started. An estimated 110,000 turkeys roost here.

Kansas: Staggered “Sunflower State” fall/winter turkey seasons run from 10/1-12/3; 12/15-31; and 1/5/09-1/31. You’ll need hunter ed. proof if born after July 1, 1957. Limit: one turkey permit, and three turkey game tags per hunter valid in Unit 2. Dogs are also legal. —Steve Hickoff

Jake went as peacefully as I could have hoped—he laid down, closed his eyes and it was over.

“Look,” my vet said, turning toward me to look into my leaking eyeballs.
“These guys have pride, they have dignity and when that dignity slips away, they know it and feel it. You owed Jake his dignity. He fell asleep with his head in your lap and your voice in his ear.”

My brain agreed, but it’ll take a little time for my heart to catch up—maybe in a few days or months or after another few fall turkey seasons…

“Every bird hunter deserves to have one great bird dog in their lives,” friend and outdoor writer Tom Huggler once told me. “That’s it, you only really get one. So when you get him, cherish him and remember that you must hunt him every chance you get. It’s his mission in life so do not withhold him his mission.”

Was Jake my one great dog? I’m not sure, but as the clock ticked toward my 6:45 vet appointment tonight, my brain got stuck on rewind and the so very many memorable fall turkey hunts during the past 13 years re-played themselves in my head.

Of course, I will always remember the first bird, the hard birds, the courageous efforts, the hunts to exhaustion etc. But perhaps Jake’s finest hour came in just his first or second season when curiosity fall turkey dogging got the best of so many members of my New York club that I found myself playing guide to a half-dozen hunters.

Well, Jake broke a good flock of birds and after sitting on the re-call for ½-hour or so, some shots rang out. I continued to call for another ½ hour trying to drag in other flock members, but to no avail. When we re-grouped, I discovered that one of the members had hit a bird, but it had run off. With afternoon temperatures on the rise and the trail 45 minutes old, I felt that there was little chance of finding that turkey. I no sooner got the words out of my mouth when out of the corner my eye I spied Jake make a beeline run in the direction the bird fled.

If I live to be 100, the vision of Jake—tail in full wag—rushing back toward us with a mouthful of a very-much-still-alive turkey will be one of my all-time, most-cherished hunting memories.

Thanks, Jake.You were the best. —Gerry Bethge

(Special thanks to my buddy, Steve Hickoff, for the accompanying photo—and a shoulder.)

Fall turkeys can be hit or miss. Food sources may or may not hold them — just like deer. In October '07, on the first Maine fall firearms season in modern history for turkeys, I tagged a fall jake on Saturday’s opening morning. (Did this past spring opener too, but I digress . . .)

I got in there early, hunted near a sloppily cut cornfield, heard no turkeys at daybreak, but kept calling. Far off, a bird answered. I eased toward that position, eventually peeked around the corner of some brush. Turkeys. Lots of them, spread across the field full of clover. Into the near woods I slipped, crossed the creek, called.

A brick-red-headed turkey came hustling to me so I shot him. One and done. Spent the rest of the season putting buddies into birds. Sent one friend into that spot the following Monday. He spent the morning in there, heard and saw nothing.

“You didn’t see a big flock in that field,” he half-joked. “Honest, a bunch of them, minus one,” I insisted. “There’s nothing back there now,” he whined.

This fall, I nearly took a bird right after fly-down on the opener, and got obsessed with a flock of 20-plus turkeys — some gobblers strutted and fought on assembling, and/or when I called aggressively. I could have taken a juvenile gobbler (15 steps), with its brood hen and other birds of the year in range too, and chose not to take a shot. This is sort of like you BBZ guys passing on a spikehorn for a bigger rack that might be in range on the next hunt. You gamble. You might just eat that tag . . .

Sure enough, on the last day of this past six-day season that same buddy and I went down in flames. More honor in doing that together, right? It only gets weird when some guy asks how I did in Maine. “I had a great time,” I’ll enthuse. “Did you kill?” they ask. “I didn’t say that,” I’ll smile.

Or as my wife likes to say, “Honey, you only say ‘It’s all good’ when you don’t come home with anything."—Steve Hickoff

My good buddy Bethge's right. The best fall turkey hunting is yet to come. For some, it arrived this week.

In New York state, longtime friend, hunting guide, and turkey dogger Kevin Evans and his son Cody— with whom I had the pleasure of sharing a hunt several years ago when the younger Evans took his first fall turkey (and I filled one of my tags)—teamed up to score on turkeys, doubling on November 4 birds.

Getting in a quick hunt after school, father, son, and turkey dog "Patchezs" (eyes glowing from the flash in this pic provided by Evans) got a good break on 30-40 field turkeys, and by the end of it, each had tagged one. 

Are you Strut Zoners getting out with your kids for any fall turkey hunting? Keep us posted when time provides.

For more information on Evans' guided turkey hunts, both spring and fall, check out his website at: http://www.turkeyridgehunts.com/

—Steve Hickoff 

In states like Massachusetts and Maine, you're done—fall turkey season over. Fortunately, for many hunters around the country, fall turkey hunting—and the very best time to hunt fall turkeys—is about to arrive. Why? Here are 5 reasons to forgo a time or two on your favorite deer stand and get a bird in time for Thanksgiving:

1. Predictable Patterns
On my hunting club property in the Catskills of New York, myself and several hunting partners have worked a single flock of turkeys for several weeks now. Initially, they would be roosted on a ridgetop every other or every third day. Now, you can almost bank on them being in the same roost trees each morning. To date, we've taken 3 birds from the flock--1 gobbler, 2 poults and 2 misses. There's no doubt that we won't be able to fool them into coming to the same spot each day we hunt them, but at least we've got some birds to work.

2. Food, Food, Food, Food
The favorite food source available in the least supply is likely where you will find both turkeys and deer. Here is a case in point:
Several seasons ago, Kris McGrath and I were headed into the fall turkey woods a couple hours after first light when we spotted a flock of birds (jakes) out in the middle of a field of goldenrod. The birds were picking so hard that they never even noticed our woods' road driveby. We parked my truck, snuck into the woods more than 200 yards away and set up. Amazingly, the birds responded instantly to the first series of jake yelps. Within seconds, they were on their way and Kris dumped the lead bird. When I cleaned the jake, I pulled an honest-to-God, softball-sized wad of grasshoppers from his crop. In retrospect, it was obvious why those birds were where they were. We happened upon the first hard frost of the season. The slow-moving hoppers were easy pickings for those turkeys which filled up on the high-protein bugs before instinct told them that hoppers would be gone until next summer.

3. Survival Mode
Northeast turkeys were hit with a nasty surprise last week in the form of snow. It was a bit early for a measurable snowfall, but there's no doubt that the turkeys have taken the hint. Frosty mornings slam the points home harder—it's time to pack on the pounds and there is safety in numbers. I've found that as soon as the weather begins to take a turn for the worse, you can bet that a busted flock of birds will be far more responsive to recalling. This is, of course, true of family flocks, but even gobblers will respond more readily. Break up a flock when the temperatures drop to freezing or below, and you can bet that birds will begin recalling within 1/2 hour of breakup.

4. Secret Weapon No. 1: The Evening Roost Bust
There have been innumerable times when, after striking out on birds for most of the day, I decided to swap out my shotgun for my bow and go deer hunting for an evening post. Of course, that's when I'd spy a flock of turkeys heading to roost. And that's the absolute perfect time to go into full turkey hunting mode. Sit, wait and listen. As darkness descends, you will begin hearing birds flying into nearby trees. Try to think like a turkey who wants to get off the ground and out of possible predator danger while it can still see. Disregard those early roosters and listen for several birds to fly up. Once you've heard several birds fly up, get out of that deer stand and get in amongst the birds. The goal here is to disperse the roosted turkeys in as many different directions as possible. Then, either take a GPS reading or find your exact setup tree and get there at least 1/2 hour before first light. The colder the night, the louder the turkey calling will be the next morning and the faster those birds will want to re-group. It's a killer tactic.

5. Secret Weapon No. 2: The Morning Roost Bust
Okay guys, remember that this is not spring hunting. Bust a bird off the roost in the spring of the year and you're most likely done with that bird for that morning—if not for several days. Do the same thing in the fall and you're in Fat City. If you hear a bird fly off and sense or see (birds silhouetted on the limb) that you're amid the flock, keep walking and spook them all. Once you've busted the majority of the group, take a seat against a tree, wait 1/2 hour or until the first bird begins recalling. Mimic every sound that bird makes and wait.

Bonus Tactic:
If you've shot one bird from a fall scatter/recall, and you can legally take another or are hunting with a partner, avoid the urge to claim your kill. If you're confident that you've killed your bird, sit tight and call like you've never called before. It may take several minutes or 1/2 hour, but you can take multiple birds from the very same setup if you're patient.