Pursuing Maine’s Wild Turkeys – the Ultimate Interactive Hunt
You enter the field before sunrise, listening for the big birds to start flying down from their nighttime roosts. Moving quietly, you set up in a low area along the edge of the woods, placing your decoys carefully on an elevated contour out front, before returning to your ground blind and pulling up your camo face mask. Then you start to call, with your box call, slate or mouth call – mimicking the “come hither” cutts, yelps, clucks and purrs of a lonely hen.
Suddenly, there it is – a huge tom, all puffed up and strutting toward your carefully-positioned decoys. You involuntarily jump as a loud gobble pierces the early-morning air – game on!
The May, 2024 issue of The Maine Sportsman celebrates the exciting sport of turkey hunting, because the season is here – with Youth Spring Wild Turkey Day on Saturday, April 27, and the regular season starting Monday April 29 and continuing through Saturday June 1. In this issue, our experienced writers describe how to call in wild turkeys, stalk them, decoy them and even make them into turkey maple breakfast sausage. Get out there and join the excitement.
King Montgomery continues his tribute to the venerable Rangeley boat, tracing its roots from the Adirondack Guideboat and the St. Lawrence River Skiff. King includes vintage photos showing just how good the fishing was in the days when anglers dressed up in their best clothes to try for salmon and trout.
We cover mechanized outdoor pursuits in this issue, including ATV developments, modern boat gadgetry, and the lithium-ion batteries that power all that gadgetry.
The Sportsman’s Grand Slam patch club recognizes those hunters who have taken a turkey, bear, moose and deer in the same calendar year. In the May issue, starting in the center spread and extending over four pages, see the list of 2023 winners, and view photos from their successful hunts.
And more!
- Staci Warren leads us on a foraging expedition
- Nolan Raymond tries to convince readers that his new Mustang convertible is really an SUV
- And our fishing experts, including Lou Zambello and Tom Seymour, tell you how to take more and bigger trout, salmon, togue and even crappies.
We expand our online content this month with three items: 1) “Cracking the Code of Maine’s 200-Pound Bucks,” by Jason Tome (click here); 2) a Father/Daughter Turkey Hunt, by Jerry Scribner (click here); and 3) a video showing Lou Zambello’s great day of flyfishing on the Medomak River (click here).
All this, plus thought-inspiring and opinionated Letters to the Editor and the always-substantive Almanac, as well as trophy photos, cartoons, and jokes that will make you chuckle, making it difficult to use your wild-turkey mouth call.
Questions? Contact the editor at Will@MaineSportsman.com or the office manager at Carol@MaineSportsman.com. And call (207) 622-4242 to renew your subscription, or give a gift subscription to a deserving relative or friend.
Enjoy your turkey hunt and fly fishing this month, and let the May issue of The Sportsman inspire you to get outside and participate in all that our great state has to offer.
Will Lund, Editor
The Maine Sportsman magazine
