I have been fortunate enough to get out on 2 Turkey hunts the season. The first was on opening day. I live in the Lower Mainland, so I was looking for a hunting location that was reasonably close. I scouted my way east, checking out Rock Creek, Christian Valley, Grand Forks, Christina Lake, and Fruitvale. In each location, I found birds, but they were all on private land, or were already being watched by other hunters. I ended going on to a location I know and love near Salmo, and took a nice bird in the first 1/2 hour of legal light on the 15th opening. Two weeks later, I returned with a buddy, and called a bird in for him, again in the first 1/2 hour of daylight. So that was 2 trips 16+ hours of driving, over 200$ of gas each trip for about 5 min. of actual hunting each time. And totally worth it. Hearing the birds gobble to my calls, watching their big blue heads coming bobbing towards me as they came into range, making a good shot dispite the adrenaline shaking hands are all things I'll never forget. The questional incidences occured each time on the drive home.
The first instance occured while driving out of the area I got my bird. I ran into 2 guys buzzing around on Quads. Neither was in cammo, and the had rifle butts sticking out of the gun boots on their bikes. I assumed they were bear hunting, so stopped to tell them about a bear I'd seen earlier. I was supprised to find they were Turkey hunting, using their Rim fire .17 HMR's. Both guys boasted of shooting Tom's last year at over 80 yards. "The birds never even knew we were there!" They also mentioned that they had blasted 2 hens out of a tree in the fall during the any bird season. While I support anyone who wants to get out hunting, to me the spirit of turkey hunting is camoflaging yourself in the bush, and using calls to try to talk a bird into shotgun range. Rim-fires work, but to me, Turkeys arn't a species that should be road-hunted.
The second occurence was while returning from the second trip. We ran into an older gentelman on the side of the road, dressed in camo, and stopped to talk. He was Turkey hunting, and in the course of the conversation, he asked us if we had any spare batteries we could give or sell him, as the batteries in his call had died. I explained to him that electronic calls were illegal for hunting Turkeys, and even showed him the relevent sections in the hunting regs that said so. The hunters response was along the lines of "Wholesale Sports wouldn't sell the electronic calls if they were illegal, and since Wholesale Sports does sell them, they must be legal."
I made the effort to show him, and his 2 buddies that had joined him how easy it was to use a box and slate call, but they obviously wern't interested, and infact not so politely invited me to eff off. As I left the area, I looked for a truck to get a licence plate number for a report, but there was a number of trucks in the area, and no way to be sure which was theres.
Again good on them for getting out hunting in the Spring, but to insist on using the unethical electronic calls, despite clear evidence that they were in the wrong just annoys me.
I'm sure most of the turkey hunters in the Province are like me, and love hunting in all it's forms, but I'm just saddened to see some people miss the whole spirit and ethics of the sport.
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