There's a place for fire in the management of land. An unproductive patch of timber land would best be burned to create better turkey habitat, Traveler Editor Bob Todd discovered. Burning it off, however, takes careful planning and waiting for just the right conditions. There's a story in this issue about when Bob and wife Pat touched off the fire on their place.

Wild turkey season is one of the highlights of April and there were several stories having to do with turkey hunting. Front page has a story by Don Rathert about taking it easy and still bagging a turkey. That story is repeated below.

Easter is also this month, which can be seen as about the coming to earth of God. Jim Featherston writes about other instances when God came to earth, including when God came to the American Indians. Featherston also writes about the history of tobacco, which figured heavily in American Indian rituals.

There were turkey stories about the season outlook, safety, a writer's problem without his glasses, collecting turkey calls, some lessons learned by a turkey hunter and the need to be prepared when turkey hunting.

Ol' Craz, the mythical Ozark turkey, is featured again. This grandest of turkeys that frustrates hunters every year had an incident with an Austrailian Emu in this April's story.

The situation with Black River below where the upper Taum Sauk dam failed in December is brought up to date.

There's also a story about a white bass fishing trip on Lake Wappapello, big paddlefish in Black River below Clearwater Lake dam, the life vest of the future. There is to be no change in deer antler length restrictions this year and a story on collecting shed antlers.

Regular features include sunrise/moonrise tables, a travel calendar, recipes, seasons, and news about conservation and outdoor recreation.

Writer finds he can bag a turkey without so much hard work

By Don Rathert
I always thought that to do something in the outdoors it had to be a challenge of tantamount proportion to have any credence. Since I was one that was blessed with an extraordinary amount of energy and strength of body, it always translated into doing the outdoor thing with maximal effort.
I always looked for the highest peak, the deepest hollow, and the least traversed way to what I thought was the premier spot to hunt deer or wild turkey. My old friend, Jim Myers, always said, “If there was a difficult way to do something, Don would be the one to go that route.”
Since drawing breath for 70 summers and winters, I’ve conceded a bit to “Father Time” and have honed a new skill in my pursuits of game - namely to take the easy road and find the most comfortable path to waylay the quarry.
Now that’s not always the easiest thing to do since these wild creatures don’t travel on four lane highways but every once in a while they unwittingly accommodate, like take for instance, last turkey season.
Opening morning found me hiking in the darkness to a far yonder creek that had ankle deep water which soaked my boots and socks and made climbing up the muddy bank on the far side most difficult. To make things worse I greeted the dawn nestled in some questionable brush that looked a lot like poison ivy.
I worked a gobbler for about an hour with adrenaline pushing my heart almost of out my chest, only to have him take off for parts unknown.
I thought, “Am I crazy . . . . I’ve got to find an easier place to hunt.”
So I started nosing around this conservation area and found a beautiful spot to camp nestled right adjacent to a dam that formed the well-stocked lake that glistened and shimmered in the low light of day.
The dam and surrounding area was covered with a carpet of short cropped grasses all the way to the woods, manicured by a herd of deer each evening.
This easily traveled verdant fairway started at the steps of my camper and was no more than 300 yards to forest’s edge.
On further scouting as I entered the woods, I moved less than another 80 yards and found turkey scratchings and several of the big bird’s droppings.
“A bonanza of convenience,” I thought as I strolled back to my truck, “but will it be productive at tomorrow’s first light?”
The wee hours of the morning found me retracing my steps on this convenient trek to the spot I made a mental note of the previous day. I settled in and waited for the rosy finger of color to paint the eastern sky.
As dawn took hold of the new day, gobblers bellowed from three different directions and I got the distinct feeling there wasn’t another hunter within miles of me. I called softly and they all exploded in unison about 80 yards from my perch.
“Be still my heart,” I whispered to myself as I devised my tactic of calling very sparsely with this kind of hearty response. They know where I am so I let nature take its course as I hear them bail out of their trees a little later.
A sense of oneness with my surroundings covers me as I rest the big gun on my knees and I am comfortable as I settle down and let the gobblers do their thing. The only question is which one will arrive first.
“Kelk, kelk,” I say . . . . then I purr softly and the woods fairly shake with their reply.
I fall silent and there is no sound but the rustle of leaves yards in front of me. I’m always startled by the final moment when you see the snow white head and blood red wattles amongst the foliage.
Also, then there is the probing stern eye of not one, not two but three red, white and blue faces moving through the woods.
I want the boss gobbler this time so bolstered with confidence, I wait until they are close enough to see their dark bodies shining in the early light.
With a quick inventory on beard size I pull the trigger and my trophy is flopping on the damp forest floor. The sweet smell of success fills the air as I hold 22 pounds of poultry high and congratulate myself.
The easy walk in is now accompanied with an easy walk out which is the icing on the cake . . . . not to mention the fact I repeated the performance the following week in the same place.

Two dozen years ago, April, 1982

We didn’t know his name yet in 1982. Ol’ Craz, that is. The fictional (?) turkey that has befuddled hunters for decades. In April, 1982, Bob Todd wrote about a new approach to turkey hunting that might bring down the mighty gobbler.
The idea is this. Turkey’s don’t run off to the next county when a beagle whines its way through the woods. They simply fly up in a tree and watch the beagle go by.
So. Bob was going to make himself a beagle suit and go through the woods on all fours with a shotgun strapped to his belly. When he came upon a turkey, it would fly up in a tree. Bob would crawl under the limb the turkey was on and suddenly roll over on his back to blast the gobbler.
There was no report on the effectiveness of the strategy.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was threatening to close three access areas at Lake Wappapello to save money. Sulfur Spring would be one of them and was selected because the Corps had little invested there.
But the accounting was strange. The boat ramp there had been built by Corps personnel and thus was valued at only $5,000. And the road into the place was built by the National Guard - so by Corps reckoning the road was practically free. By closing the access the Corps said it would save about $500.
It appeared to Traveler the Corps was creating a “body count” of closures nationally for political reasons. In Missouri, a similar thing was going on. State Parks were threatening a $2 admission fee if the Legislature did not come up with some money for operations.
Five years after a dam holding back mine tailings collapsed into Big River, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources said the dam had finally been repaired and was no longer allowing tailings to wash into Big River. Recovery is still on-going today.
There were several turkey hunting stories in the April issue, including one by Charlie Slovensky about a perfect hunt. Charlie found himself in a hotbed of action that ultimately ended with him bagging a gobbler. But a bigger bird was still gobbling when Charlie left the woods.
In 1982, people were really getting into floating and more people were discovering the Millstream Gardens shut-ins on the St. Francis River. This is the wildest water in the Midwest and really not suitable for a family float in a family canoe.
Traveler carried a two-page picture story on the area, complete with photos of an aluminum canoe capsizing, washing against a boulder and being crumpled by the force of the water. Passengers were cold and wet, but apparently unharmed.
Don Slover had a story about using field guide books and Richard Bangert did a story about turkey camps. Rose Alexander had a story about how turkeys were hunted in the early 1900s.
A proposed 40 horsepower limit on boats on Current River was drawing a lot of fire. Some thought it was unnecessary, others thought it was too liberal.
Some things don’t change. In the April 1982 issue it was reported that largemouth bass weigh more per inch in April than at any other time of year. That’s no doubt true in 2006 as well.

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