Made The Wausau Daily Herald!!!!!!!
Helped my Almost dad get call in a turkey! Guess it pays off!
Made The Wausau Daily Herald. Sweet!
Wet and wild: Some hunters strike quickly
By Jim Lee
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
WITTENBERG Wet weather and birds still in large winter flocks greeted central Wisconsin hunters as the spring turkey season opened last week.
Dick Schoepke, 60, Tigerton, teamed with Cory Hakola, 17, to bag a 19-pound gobbler shortly after daylight.
They used a slate call along with a push-button box call to draw in a vocal, strutting tom.
"We were in the woods by 4:45 a.m.," Schoepke said. "We knew where the turkeys were roosted. ... We snuck through a swamp and just decided to let the birds do what they wanted to do. It wasn't raining that much ... but it made it quieter and a little easier to sneak closer to the birds. They didn't gobble until 5:45 a.m., and then they really started gobbling. They gobbled at geese honking ... they gobbled at everything.
"We were in the midst of a whole bunch of turkeys ... with at least eight gobblers. ... The main group of turkeys flew down and headed to a nearby field, but one gobbler held back. We thought he might be a candidate to sucker in ... and he was."
Schoepke, who has hunted turkeys for almost 15 years, beamed.
"The initial stocking of wild turkeys in Shawano County about 1992 took place on my land," he said.
"I never thought they'd survive, and I certainly never thought we'd be hunting them.
"This isn't the biggest gobbler I've taken ... but it certainly made my day."