Outdoors
Rec
B
Saturday, April 16, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Tom Claycomb/Contributed Photo
A one-dimensional Montana Decoy. They’re lightweight and
collapsible.
BRAD
TRUMBO
UPLAND PURSUITS
T
he night before my first desert rainbow trip of
the year, I stared into my fly rod cabinet at the
impressive lineup that had accumulated over
the years. I sought two rods, approximately five-weight,
one for a floating line to cast nymphs and the other for
stripping streamers on a sinking line.
The trouble was that the
number of rods and nonde-
script casing made it diffi -
cult to decipher which were
the fi ve-weights among them
or which of the fi ve-weights
I was looking for. I would be
casting from infl atable water-
craft, which puts the angler
right down on the water. A
fast-action rod with some
length would be important
for handling long leaders and
heavy fl ies.
The year prior, I made
the boneheaded mistake of
leaning my Sage streamer
rod against the passenger side
of the truck upon returning
from the lake. Upon arriving
home, I realized the rod case
was empty. I had left the rod
standing against the truck,
hidden from view, as I packed
up and drove away, leaving it
for some lucky angler to later
stumble upon.
Selecting a remotely com-
parable backup among the
tubes and sleeves scattered
about the cabinet proved chal-
lenging. Wiggling a rod from
the stack was like plucking
the wrong block from the
Jenga tower. Rod tubes top-
pled out as I scrambled to keep
them from hitting the fl oor.
How many rods is too many,
I pondered?
The elephant in the room
was my emotional attachment
to the collection. I had hand-
built almost all of them, and
each was unique. There was
the midnight-blue Batson two-
weight with a deer antler reel
seat built for Appalachian
brook trout.
Then there was a black
cherry-fi nished switch rod
with cock pheasant feather
inlays that has landed all of
my steelhead on the fl y.
See, Rods/Page B2
Brad Trumbo/Contributed Photo
A black laser dubbing bugger delivered on a sinking line and eleven-foot,
six-weight rod and stripped quickly is a rainbow’s kryptonite when the
conditions are right.
Brad Trumbo/Contributed Photo
Having a variety of rod lengths, weights,
and actions covers all the bases, like casting
streamers from infl atable watercraft.
Turkey hunting a
tempting spring hobby
TOM
CLAYCOMB
BASE CAMP
T
urkey hunting has
gotten wildly pop-
ular the last 15 to 20
years, and there is no sign
of it slowing down. Many
people look down their
nose at the intelligence of
turkeys. It is even deroga-
tory to call someone a
turkey. For you, come see
me in a couple of years
after you’ve tried to out-
smart an old gobbler.
Why is turkey hunting
so popular? After thinking
on that question for a
minute, I’d have to list
multiple reasons. First,
many people compare it to
elk hunting. Many people
hunt turkeys in the moun-
tains. You’re setting up
and trying to call them in
just like when elk hunting.
Secondly, even if you
set in a blind, you’re using
decoys and calling. So
you’re interacting with
them which makes it fun.
In some ways it’s like a
chess game. The old lead
hen starts talking and you
start calling over the top
of her. She comes prissing
over to set straight what
she thinks is a mouthy
little hen. And of course
the gobbler is following
right behind her. So,
there’s a lot of angles that
you play.
I’ve hunted with people
that have access to farm-
land where there are a
lot of turkeys. In those
scenarios it works to set
up a blind. You’ll want
a chair and a tripod to
shoot off of. You’ll want
to throw out a few decoys.
There’s some realistic 3-D
decoys now.
But if I’m hunting up
in the mountains, I’m
running gunning, so you
can’t lug around a heavy
3D decoy up there. The
best decoys I’ve found for
this type of hunting are
made by Montana Decoys.
They’re a one-dimensional
lightweight cloth decoy.
It has a rod in it that you
stick in the ground to hold
it up.
Montana Decoys has
one that pops up in a
square type of shape. I
was up bear hunting a few
years ago, and set one up
where I was baiting for
bears. I fi gured I might
as well multi-task. I put
a rock in it so it’d stay up
on a stump that I had set
it on.
The next morning my
decoy was AWOL. If you
picked it up due to the
rock bouncing around in
it, I guess it would have
felt like a real turkey was
bouncing around trying
to get away. I can only
assume that a wolf did
a drive-by on my decoy.
With the rock bouncing
in the decoy, he probably
thought he had hold of a
struggling decoy. I never
did fi nd that decoy.
Turkeys have unbeliev-
able eyesight, so you’ll
want to camo to the max.
Wear a facemask to cover
your face and gloves
since your hands will be
the major source of your
movement. I don’t worry
about wearing all one pat-
tern. I may wear one pat-
tern for my cap/facemask,
a diff erent one for my
jacket and a third one for
my pants. Nature is not all
one pattern, is it? No, it’s
a splash of green, a splash
of this and a splash of that.
If you’re using shooting
sticks try to set up so the
birds will be coming in
from your left and set up
with your shooting sticks
slightly to your left. Have
your gun leaning on the
shooting sticks ready so
you don’t have to move
excessively when they
come in. But they don’t
always cooperate. I’ve had
to shoot them at all posi-
tions. I shot one a long
time ago leaning upside
down out of the window
of a blind left-handed with
my rifl e. So don’t expect
them to act according to
your playbook.
CALLING
You’ve got to learn
how to call. When I was
a kid, you learned on
your own, but now there
are a million YouTubes,
tapes and seminars to
help you learn how to
call. Ed Sweet, who was
an Idaho state cham-
pion turkey caller and
one of the best callers
that I know, makes fun of
calling unmercifully. He
used to always give me
grief. But despite my hor-
rible calling (according to
him), I’ve called in a lot
of birds.
So here’s my philos-
ophy. Don’t worry about
doing perfect textbook
calling. People talk dif-
ferent, don’t they? So do
animals. I’ve called in I
don’t know how many
totally weird sounding
elk that I thought was
some California hunter,
but it turned up to actu-
ally be an elk. So here’s
my advice: learn how to
gobble, cluck, purr etc.
Learn how to make the
various sounds and when
to use them Don’t worry
about sounding perfect.
There are a lot of calls
out there. Which one
should you use? Sixty
years ago all we had were
box calls. They’re old
school, and I still favor
them. You have to chalk
them up, and if it was
raining you had to keep
them in a bread sack so
they wouldn’t get wet
or they’d quit working,
but now some of them
have a coating on them
so they’ll work even
when wet. For instance,
the Quaker Boys Hurri-
cane or the 4-Play call
See, Turkeys/Page B2