Dangers on the river

Went chasing walleyes Saturday morning at Alma. Started drifting from the dam down and caught some small sauger. Around 8:00 we started hunting around downstream. We fished down to the power lines and about 10:30-11:00 decided to go backup towards the dam. We just got the boat on plane and I noticed something dark inbound from my right. To my surprise this object was on an intersecting route with my boat. To my sons surprise, he didn’t see the object approaching. I yelled “duck—–it’s a turkey”!!!! He glanced back at me with a look on his face like “what are you talking about?” He then looked in the direction that I was looking and was just about due for an underwear change. The first bird cleared his head by maybe four feet. While watching the first bird fly by, we saw a second fly behind us. When we looked forward again, much to our surprise, a third bird shot over my sons head at no more than three feet. All three were toms with beards. They were going from Wisconsin to Minnesota, maybe to visit relatives for easter[a much happier time for turkeys than Thanksgiving]. I had heard that turkeys won’t cross rivers but maybe thats just for calling birds in. Anyway, these dudes were not taking a ferry.

that would have been something to see.To bad to couldnt have got pics

Turkeys are definitely no fun to hit. I hit one with my ford ranger last year and it caused $3100 in damage.

Had one just about take me out of the boat on the upper Croix. I was standing up pitching and had the first come by about 5′ away. As I ducked and turned to see what it was here was a couple more coming straight at me. A new pair of shorts is right.
These birds where heading for Wis.

Little brother filled his fall turkey tag one year while floating an interior river for ducks – whne one made the mistake of flying acrossed over his head. Just for the record – steel shot will kill them – and a turkey makes a heck of a splash when they hit the water.
Chuckles

I had one darn near give me a heartattack one time when I was deer hunting. I was doing a three step walk on the edge of a wood lot late one afternoon. Long story short, after standing up side this one tree for a minute or so I went to step away and that darn thing took off from a branch right above my head. When the woods are dead quiet, and that happens right above your head, well, you can guess how it scared me. To make matters worse, he crapped on my head when he took wing too!!

Last couple years here in NE Iowa hunting pheasants in switch grass along rivers we have really flushed a lot of Turkey’s. Last year My brother and I with our labs flushed close to 30 turkeys. Our labs were right on there tails. It was really fun to see.

I have never had a close call in a boat but I did manage to bag one with my harley a few years ago. Going around a corner not far from my house one decided to take wing from the inside of the corner. I just managed to duck as it connected with my windsheild! It folded the windsheild like it was not even there then hit my helmut. If I would not have got my head down in time he probably would have broke my neck.
I took it home and deep fried his sorry butt