Remember the old song lyric, "When it's springtime in Alaska, it's 40 below?" Well, that certainly has changed over the years.
Other than a few frosty mornings and a couple of rainy days, spring has been wonderful in this area.
The streams are in spectacular shape, and the turkeys are strutting and gobbling all over the place. I'm actually surprised at the number of long-bearded toms that I'm seeing around the countryside.
What a wonderful time it is for a blast-and-cast situation. With turkey hunting ending at noon during the spring season, you can chase those big birds all morning and catch a few nice trout in the afternoon.
I remember a Saturday a few years ago. A friend visited from Connecticut to do a little turkey hunting. After roosting a small flock of birds the night before, we were anxious for dawn to arrive.
These birds had been hunted before, so I decided to park on the other side of the ridge and approach them from the backside.
In the dark, Del and I got in quite close.
As we arrived in the woods, we could faintly hear the quiet tree-talk of the roosting birds. We decide to set up along an old log road that wandered across the top of the ridge about 100 yards away from them as the songbirds cheerfully welcomed the dawn.
Soon after the turkeys flew down from the treetops, our hunt was over. A few soft calls had brought the big gobbler strutting right in.
As we sat in the old Duke Diner having breakfast, we decided to spend the rest of the day fishing.
We changed gear before heading to the upper end of the Otego Creek. Since I grew up fishing that stream, I knew we would get a few nice trout to finish the day.
There were some great spots upstream from Mount Vision that were just waiting for a few fat nightcrawlers. By fishing areas a little farther from the bridges, we started getting a few hits.
By noon, we had put several nice browns and a couple of brookies into our creels. It seems the fishing was as good as the turkey hunting.
It was one of those unusual springtime days when everything seemed to go right.
That night, we had a meal almost as good as surf-and-turf. Chunks of turkey breast had soaked in Italian dressing all day just waiting to be grilled over charcoal.
With fresh trout as an added bonus, it was going to a meal fit for a king.
What more could we have asked for than good hunting, great fishing, good food and old friends?
It doesn't get any better than that.
What's happening?
The Oneonta Sportsmen's Club is hosting, "Women on Target," a program for women of the National Rifle Association.
The event will run from 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. June 7 at the club property on top of Franklin Mountain.
This introduction to shotgun- shooting sports will include classroom lectures, basic firearm safety and range time.
Ammunition, cleaning and storage and basic shooting techniques will also be covered.
The cost is $35. For more information, call J.T. Strand at 433-9755.
Rick Brockway writes a weekly outdoors column for The Daily Star. E-mail him at robrockway@thedailystar.com.
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