977 SUSQ Vol. 77 No. 13 March 30, 1977 Susquehanna Times MARIETTA & Hey turkey! How to lure a gobbler: world’s champ to call a wild turkey. Donegal High was packed with 400 sportsmen last weekend when the Fly-tying Club held its 12th annual Mini-Sports Show last weekend. A highlight of the show was an exhibition of turkey calling by the 1976 world champion, Perry County, Pa. Rob, the first world champion turkey caller from north of the Mason-Dixon line, won his title by demonstrating S turkey calls before a panel of judges at the champion- ship in Mobile, Alabama. Rob told the Susque- hanna Times, ‘‘In Perry County, if a male child is born up there, and he is unable to call turkeys by the time he is two weeks old, they drown him.”’ ‘““He’s just kidding,”’ said Bob Clark, head of the Pennsylvania Wild Turkey Federation. ‘““The only trouble with calling turkeys,”’ said the Rob Keck of, Bob Clark, left, and Rob Keck, right, demonstrate how champ, ‘‘is that after a while you start to think like a turkey. Finally, you start to look like a turkey. A talks turkey at Mini-Sports Show. friend of mine was shot while calling wild turkeys. After he got out of the hospital, he met the guy who shot him. The man explained that he had mistaken my friend’s face for a wild turkey.” At that point, Bob Clark took over the conversation. “You know, Pennsylvania has become 3rd in total turkey population of the United States,”’ he said. ‘““The comeback is due mainly to improved timber management, improved public attitude, and the “trap and, transfer’’ stock- ing program.’’ For our readers who like wild turkey (the bird, not the booze) here are Rob Keck’s tips for spring turkey hunters: The 4 keys to a sucessful hunt are: 1. pre-season scouting, 2. being properly camouflaged, 3. learning to use a calling device and 4. patience. ““You don’t have to be a champion caller to get a bird,”” Rob says. ‘“You just have to be adequate. The best time for hearing a wild bird is the first hour after daylight. Try to get within 200 yards, but don’t get too close. Turkey eyes have 10 times the resolving power of human eyes.”’ * P Scott Smith looks at small trout raised by the Donegal Fish and Conservation UEHANNA T - RN ol 4%) R 1), YY, J ‘Ne ry JL) ' | (IA 0 17552 IMES FIFTEEN CENTS Biospoogyunasl ® gl PF Wild in the barnyard “They practice cannibal- ism. Sometimes they all go crazy at once and start tearing into each other, and they’d kill themselves if we didn’t keep an eye on them. The - males aren’t satisfied if they have less than ten females at their disposal, but the females Association to stock local streams. The Association plans to raise 10,000 fish next year. Scott got a close look at some of those small fry at the Mini-Sports Show. just wander around from one to another.”’ Ed Sweigart wasn’t talk- ing about the latest cult ‘from California. The group he was discussing lives near Mount Joy, at Ed’s place. To prevent them from escaping, he keeps them in a cage. Local citizens need not worry that the group will get loose. They are too stupid to break out. They are, literally, a flock of bird-brains. Ed runs the D & E Pheasantry, raising birds ~ for both hunting and dress- ing. With two small barns and three acres under wire, he produces 10,000 pheas- ants a year. While Ed has the ordinary production problems experienced by a chicken farmer, he also must deal with the birds’ sometimes bizarre psycho- logical reactions to captiv- ity. Pheasants can’t be raised in individual indoor cages. They must be exposed to weather or their plummage will grow dull, thus des- troying their value as game birds. Ed keeps them in open cages containing sev- eral hundred birds each. ‘““We give them S50 square feet a piece,”’ says Ed, who runs the business with his wife Daisy (‘‘D & E’’ stands for ‘‘Daisy and Ed’’), ‘‘but they still get edgy.”’ Like people in New York City, pheasants be- come violent when cramp- ed. Especially during the hot summer months, a single peck can escalate into a free-for-all which leaves hundreds of blood- stained feathers on the ground. No one wants a bird with damaged plum- mage. To prevent this, Ed periodically rotates the birds from pen to pen. ‘“They’re inquisitive crea- tures,”” he explains, ‘‘and moving decreases their boredom. They have to explore the new area, and are less likely to fight.”’ If a fight does erupt, nothing will stop it. All the pheasants’ beaks must be immediately trimmed to prevent disaster. By the time the beaks grow back (about four weeks) the birds have cooled off. [continued on page two]
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers