Baker's Branch

  Hunters and fishermen are at least as interesting as the things for which they hunt and fish. Here's one way: Size matters to nearly the whole lot of them, and in a myriad of ways. In that grouping, I should be considered no different than any of the rest. Were people not interested in who caught the biggest string of fish, bass tournaments never would have been. Want to know the best bullet size for deer hunting? Ask me 'n “Joe.” I guarantee you I'll say one thing, and Joe will say another, and on and on it goes. For years I carried in my truck a set of postal scales I picked up at a flea market. I used them to measure the body weights of game birds, particularly quail, but also pheasants and prairie chickens. I still carry in my truck a spring scale and a steel tape to measure the weight of turkey gobblers (hens, too, in season), as well as spur lengths. I haven't held a quail in my hand to weigh (let alone eat) for years, would that I could. Show me a quail t

  Look yonder across that winter wheat field, is that a turkey? ‘ Bout two hundred yards? Well, by golly, I think it is. He’s standing there looking over here. See that neck, fire engine red, stretched high? Oh, yeah. He sees us, alright.  That winter wheat is a beautiful emerald green fabric glistening in the sun, rippled by the wind. Yes, the wind. That danged wind. I swear it has blown non-stop for three solid weeks; first from the north, then from the south. Take your pick. Pick your poison. It doesn’t matter. In this country, in the spring, the wind is going to blow.  The wind in this country messes with the hunting and fishing. Here lately, the older I get, I’ve noticed my body has taken a sort of leaning-set, left to right, noticeable if you walk behind me and watch me walk. It doesn’t matter. The harder the wind blows, the harder I hunt and fish. I’ll topple over one of these days, leaning into that wind, and that’ll be it. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.  Look. Look. Here he co

  A lot has been written about a wild turkey’s ability to see things, and rightfully so. Make even the slightest wrong move at the wrong time and a wild turkey’s eyesight seems to be able to see through concrete walls.   A wild turkey’s power of visual resolution, or that of any bird for that matter, has been estimated to be upwards of eight times that of humans. I believe it. I think they can see the whisker roots of uncamouflaged, male faces shaved yesterday, and know them to be human. Yes, I do.   That being said, not enough has been said about a turkey’s ability to both hear sounds long distance, and pinpoint within one yard the exact origination point of that sound. It is yet another characteristic of the species that makes you think that given their inability to scent danger, they would otherwise be unkillable in a fair chase hunt.   One time Jerry Ballard of Hominy and I were chasing gobblers up on the old Dixie Oil Lease up in the wild, Big Osage just as an afternoon thun

  Sometimes you get your hat blown off when you hunt turkeys. It gets windy occasionally in this country in April. Getting your hat blown off is probably better than what happens to the turkeys, it suddenly occurs to me. I don’t like hunting turkeys in the wind, anyway. Do you? I was put to thinking about windy weather turkey hunting by a report Adam Webster and his eight year old son, Lane, delivered to me in my kitchen this past week. Lane’s my grandson. His dad had him out on his first youth turkey hunt, way out west in wild Woodward County. Their orders concluding the hunt were to report to me regardless of the hunt’s outcome, and that’s why we were all sitting around the kitchen table. There’s no such thing as a fruitless turkey hunt. Something, I said something, happens on every turkey hunt, and I wanted to hear all the details. I already knew they hadn’t killed a turkey, as they hadn’t come dragging one into the kitchen. Fine. Tell me what else happened. Every hour spent hunting