Has it been raining NON. STOP. where you are? It’s been crazy here… Monsooning off and on with a steady drizzle in between. Can’t a turkey hunter catch a break?! I know, I know. Some people have had great success in the pouring rain. I guess I’m just bitter because… Well… I have not. There. I said it. Ugh.
But I digress. At least I was able to sneak in a few turkey hunts last week and over the weekend, and hey, who can complain about that? The first one was Wednesday morning with Otis, and it actually started off to be a promising morning. We snuck (sneaked?) into the woods early and got set up in a beautiful open area, and at 7:20 or so we had a hen come putting in. Certain that a gobbler was right behind her, we froze in position, ready for action. And then… The rain started. No big deal, just a drizzle at first, then it really started to come down. The hen wandered off in the other direction, and we were left with our thoughts. All of a sudden, I caught movement to my left. No, not a turkey… A possum. Or is it “o”possum? Like they’re Irish, maybe? Was his first name Seamus? Anyway, this guy definitely proved that possums have terrible eyesight. He was honestly about to crawl into my lap before I moved enough to get him to turn away. In. My. Lap. A possum opossum! And he wasn’t even that startled. It was more of an, “Oh, ‘scuse me, Miss, yes you’re right, my apologies, I’ll just be heading this other way now, thank you.” (It sounds better when you read it with an accent.) I could have reached out and grabbed him with little effort. Don’t worry, I didn’t. I just fished my phone out of my pocket and took a few photos.
[He’s that little blur below the barrel of my gun]
We must have set up near a nest or something, because we saw probably a dozen more as the morning went on. I hate to admit it, but they’re kind of cute close up. More like, so ugly they’re cute, but you get what I mean, right? Well, aside from the possum opossums, and one quick potential sighting of a hog (there and gone in just a few seconds), that was all the wildlife we saw beyond the one lone hen.
John and I decided to give it another try on Saturday morning, but (yet again), it was raining when we woke up. Typically, when I wake up to hunt and it’s raining, whether I go or not, I’m still awake for the day. So, why not? People have shot more turkeys in the rain than having coffee on the sofa, right?
Someone’s not impressed with a 7 am selfie in the rain, it seems…
We got set up and sat and sat, but never saw a bird. By 8:30, the rain was coming down pretty good, and we’d just heard a deer blow at us from behind our blind. That did it in for us, but that’s the way it goes, I guess. The extent of our wildlife for the morning was a raccoon, 2 does, and this little guy I spotted when I was trying (unsuccessfully) to stalk a turkey a little later in the morning.
