Turkey Hunting In The Mead Wildlife Area…2014
Steve Ellis
It’s Wednesday, May 7. The first day of the 4th turkey period in the Mead Wildlife Area of central Wisconsin.
I picked up an extra tag for this period because I couldn’t get the job done with my second period permit.
It reminds me a little of my calculus instructor when I was going to college at UWM.
He was Chinese, or something, and barely spoke English. He looked at my paper one day in class and laughed “ Ha Ha!…you make a lotta MIStake….”
The guy was right about that, and when it comes to turkey hunting this year, I still make a lot of mistakes.
The first day I went out, during period 2, I took my 11-year old granddaughter with me. That part was no mistake. She hasn’t decided whether she wants to carry a gun yet, but she sure seems to like tagging along, and learning the ways of the woods. She stays overnight with us, and bounces right out of bed at 4AM. We knock down a quick breakfast, and it’s off to the Mead….
I’m not going to bore you with all of my failures during that week, but I’ll confess that I made pretty much all the rookie mistakes you can make.
In summary, I set up wrong…I moved too soon… one time, I just had to take the tiniest little peek around my tree to see how the big flock of turkeys was proceeding toward me…adios amigos!…. and I missed once….Jimminey Christmas!
On the good side, I got to hunt with Lydia again, which I get to do fairly often. She’s seen enough successes to know that I’m not a total loser. She also knows that some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug.
On another good side, I got a new knee in December and it’s sure nicer to walk the spring turkey woods, than it was to walk the November deer woods. On one of the spots I hunt turkeys in the Mead, they gate off the road about a mile short of the end to minimize vehicle damage. I take a bike to the end of the road, and my new knee worked just fine doing that.
On the bad side, there seem to be quite a few slobs using the Mead these days, and they leave their droppings for all of the rest of us to look at.
One of the pictures is of tires that somebody dropped in one of the Mead parking areas, and the other is a love seat on a different parking area. This spot also had a few deer carcasses.
Slobs in the Mead Wildlife Area leave their garbage in two different parking areas and leave too a mark on a grandpa and Granddaughter trying to enjoy a turkey hunt. Pigs also discarded their deer carcasses in Mead parking areas.
I talked it over with the people who work out of the Mead office, and they say it’s a continuous problem.
I also talked with one of the wardens who works the Mead. He’s willing to put in the time it takes to track these people down, and I for one think it’s a decent way to spend public money.
They told me a few of the stories about what happened to some of the guys they caught and it ain’t pretty.
So….I’ll be back in the Mead this afternoon if the thunderstorms don’t drive me out, and I hope I don’t make a lotta MIStake. I’ll only report back in if I have something to brag about.
Monday, May 19.…No luck during the 4th period…I never got another opportunity. I purchased yet another tag for the 5th period and went out on Thursday, but the woods is now so green that it just isn’t fun anymore.
So, the walleyes are biting, and muskies open up this weekend and I’m just going to look forward to next year.