Nebraskaland Magazine
It is spring and love is in the air for many of Nebraska’s creatures. I have been in the field helping collect walleye eggs for our walleye stockings the past couple of weeks (Easter Egg Hunt), so I know it is time for the walleyes to be doing their “thing”. I am also a bona fide spring turkey hunting addict and I am very aware that our turkeys are well into their mating season too–the toms are strutting! In the next few weeks I will be spending every second I can in the “woods”, or in Nebraska, in most cases, more appropriately, in the field, watching and hunting those beautiful, big, tom turkeys.
During the turkey “rut”, the hens often appear to be uninterested or in some cases even annoyed with the proceedings. Last spring I watched a big tom a couple of ridges to the east of me as he strutted his heart out for a couple of lady friends. One of those hens would tease him by stopping and lowering herself to the ground, breeding position, and as soon as the tom would turn to strut for her, right up alongside her, she would move. I watched that tom spin round and round in circles for several minutes. Now this is a video of barnyard turkeys, but it is exactly the behavior I observed from a distance last spring. . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-br08dgMCA
I guess I should have moseyed over onto the ridge where I saw the pirouetting tom last spring and just waited for him to get dizzy and fall over. I could have just picked him up then!
This is a great time of year and it is the weekend! Our youth shotgun turkey season opens tomorrow–grab a kid and GO HUNT! The fish are biting, call a friend, a family member, and GO FISH. Whatever, just get outside and enjoy it! You know it will be time well spent!
Have a great weekend, just be careful of dancing around in circles until you fall over!
