At the Ohio Deer and Turkey Expo, there was a rather large, unadorned booth tucked into a back corner. It wasn’t crowded when I was there, and the other booths nearby had far more banners and flashy eye-catchers out to snag the crowd’s attention.

But there were magical things going on in the corner booth with the hand-painted “The Gun Shop” sign on the back wall.

Photo by Matt Cunningham

This informal group of volunteers doesn’t really have an official title. They stay in touch on their own, may have one meeting a year and really only gather for personal celebrations, funerals or demonstrations like the one in Columbus.

These men – mostly from engineering or technical fields, and of widely varying age – have one thing in common: a passion for antique and reproduction long guns.

Photo by Matt Cunningham

While some of the members worked on sanding stocks and rifling a hand-turned barrel, others showed me their magnificent display of firearms. Some were new, built by the club members, and some were more than 100 years old.

Looking at them from the aisle, you couldn’t tell which one was which.

These guys take tremendous pride in their work, both as restorers and as builders, and it shows in the guns. Each rifle had something unique about it. For many, it was the wood grain pattern in the stock. For others, it was fine touches, like the hand-carved ivy curling around the fittings of an antique rifle, or the engraving on one of the many flintlocks on display. Most of the guns had a story attached – some came from deceased club members’ collections, while others were proudly designated as heirlooms, a concrete inheritance for a member’s children.

Photo by Matt Cunningham

Too often, I look at my hunting implements as tools to get the job done. They’re machines designed for taking life, after all, and how healthy is it to obsess over the aesthetic details of something like that? But seeing the hand-crafted gems on display at the Gun Shop’s booth reminded me that there are many other ways of looking at firearms: as touchstones to happy memories from the field. As invaluable tools that keep the family fed all winter. As part of a heritage upon which our ancestors relied for sustenance and safety. No wonder, then, that the old guns were works of art. It’s a craft that makes sense, and an art form that deserves appreciation like any fine sculpture.

One of the booths at the Ohio Deer and Turkey Expo, right across from where Twin Creek Outfitters was set up, held what I thought was one of the more useful accessories on display. It’s especially timely, what with Spring turkey season only weeks away.

Three words: grungy mouth calls. Know what I’m talking about? Try as I might, I haven’t yet been able to come up with a way to keep my mouth call from getting that middle-school-retainer funkiness when left in storage. And I’ve heard of a number of turkey hunters who regularly get sore throats during the season, thanks to the bacteria-infested calls they put in their mouths season after season.

Nevermind the sanitary aspects; there’s the issue of gummy, inconsistent calls to deal with, too. Put saliva, bits of food and who knows what else in between those thin latex reeds, and the call’s going to start sounding odd in a hurry.

Val Duvuvuei of Gahanna, Ohio, has invented a solution – literally – to these problems. The Diaphresh mouth call storage and cleaning system uses a simple mix of hygeine and common sense to keep calls fresh and restore old ones.

Photo by Matt Cunningham

The Diaphresh storage case is makes the kind of sense that elicits a “why didn’t I think of that” from me. Thin plastic fingers separate the latex reeds, and the holder seals the calls in a washing-storage container. No more plastic bags, or fishing the grubby thing out of your pocket.

The Diaphresh solution is part of the process, too. Duvuvuei said it’s a mix of ingredients that sterilize the call and recondition the latex. He claims that the system has rejuvenated 10- and even 20-year-old mouth calls back to useable condition.

Check out Diaphresh’s web site here. And if you’re tired of shoving stinky calls into your mouth, or want to breathe life back into an old faithful call, you might want to check it out.

Today’s post starts a series of pieces about what I found, saw, learned and talked about at the Ohio Deer and Turkey Expo last weekend in Columbus.

It was a good time. I’ve got lots of photos, and lots of stories in the cue for you.

But I wanted to start with one of two things that made me stop in my tracks. This was front-and-center at Yamaha of Columbus’s booth:

Photo by Matt Cunningham

Holy cow this thing was cool.

It’s Yamaha full-size ATV shod with Camoplast’s Tatou 4S track system. This all-season modification uses rubber tracks and, once installed by a dealer, can be swapped out with regular wheels by pulling lug nuts – just like changing a tire, I was told. According to sales associate Ashley Wheeler, the tracks work best with the bigger ATVs out there. Power steering helps maneuver the extra contact patches up front.

Camoplast makes the Tatou to fit a range of large ATVs, and the tag on the display model quoted the price at about $3,500 to $4100 (the ATV on display stickered for $13,000 – no kids’ toys here). Wheeler said they’ve sold a few Tatou mods to construction contractors to deal with mud, and that the dealership recently put a tracked ATV together for a local moving to Alaska.

So if you’ve got a mud bog to get through on a regular basis, or are looking for the “least likely to get stuck” award at the local ATV trails, here’s your ride.

Stay tuned for more from the show. It wasn’t all as outrageous as this thing, but I was amazed by the amount of helpful info I picked up, and I suspect you’ll enjoy what’s in store.

And, one more picture for the road – or trail, as it were:

Photo by Matt Cunningham

I’m going to be spending Sunday at the Ohio Deer and Turkey Expo, courtesy of Kevin and the folks at Twin Creek Outfitters (they’ll have a booth set up there, so be sure to check them out). If you can’t make it to the Ohio Expo Center in Columbus tomorrow, Saturday or Sunday, be sure to check back in here over the next couple of weeks. I have a full list of seminars, interviews and all-around cool things I’m planning to check out Sunday.

Near the top of my list is a seminar on slug gun and muzzleloader hunting with Dave Henderson. These versatile firearms have a big place in the woods, and I want to know how to get the most out of them.

Also on the list is the archery trick shooting demonstration by Byron Ferguson. These demonstrations are always a hoot.

And speaking of bird noises, there’s a seminar on turkey calling that I plan to be early to; don’t want to get shut out of that one, and I suspect there’ll be a lot of folks in attendance.

So stay tuned for stories and pictures from the show. Hope to see you there!

It’s just about one month until Ohio’s Spring turkey season starts, and I suspect the more prepared of you out there (and those of you whose hunting implements haven’t been out of the closet for a year) will be heading to the range to prepare for the season. Whether you hunt the birds with archery for firearms, and even if you just finished up a year of heavy deer hunting, it’s important to re-acclimate yourself to the new loads and new targets of turkey season.

Think about it: the vitals on a typical whitetail are a few inches in diameter. How do the kill zones on a turkey compare? Thanks to Mother Nature’s creativity, they aren’t even close. Archers have it worst, in my opinion. You have to go from hitting a hefty grapefruit to nailing a lemon with a string hanging off of it. Yep, the target’s a fair bit smaller.

So perhaps you’re trying one of the guillotine-type broadheads, with its much longer reach. Still, you need to spend time at the range getting used to how the thing flies off the bow – all that surface area up front will affect the way the arrow flies.

For gun hunters, it’s still important to hit the range, as the load and choke combination you’re going to use for turkey is going to be different than what you use for wingshooting, and night-and-day from the slugs you were putting downrange in preparation for deer season.

So make some extra time in the next few weeks to hit the range. You’ll probably have some fun in the warming Spring weather, and confidence in your gun or bow will go a long way to making your Spring turkey season a good one.

With crow season winding down, I hope at least some of you have gotten relatively good at hunting these cunning birds.

But when you get one, what do you do with it?

Rather than tossing it to the dogs or (much worse) leaving it to rot in the field, why not take it home and make dinner?

Dead serious. Crow’s some good eatin’.

Many of the crow recipes I’ve come across involve bacon-wrapping and grilling – always a surefire way to get a good meal out of a piece of meat. But the links below will take you to a veritable smorgasboard of ways to cook up the blackbirds.

Speaking of blackbirds, I’ve heard rumors that some of these work well with starling, too. Haven’t tried that one yet, but one day when I’m feeling adventurous…

Anyway, here are the links. Hunt safe and eat well!

Bacon Wrapped Crow

Recipes from CrowBusters.com

Even Cooks.com has a few crow recipes

Photo by Matt Cunningham

The first of the ODNR’s spring trout releases are scheduled to take place March 12 at Adams Lake, New Lexington Reservoir and Wolf Run State Park. Yeah, these trout won’t have the cunning and legendary intelligence of their wild-born bretheren, but they still fight on the hook, and provide a relatively simple, entertaining way to prepare for a season of (hopefully) successful fishing.

Since these are farm-raised fish, it makes sense to suspect that their predatory instincts might be a little lacking. Bring some bait along, even if you’re planning to fish artificials for the day. Fish that don’t know enough to hit a moving target may still follow their taste buds to a Powerbait or the tried-and-true night crawler on the hook.

If you’re fly fishing, best of luck; that’s beyond my ken. But come back and report what the trout are hitting; who knows what patterns will make sense to these pen-reared critters.

Tired of late winter yet? I know I am. Between hunting seasons wrapping up, wet weather making it too muddy to hike or mountain bike, and the $#!#% cold snaps making it hard to do much of anything outdoors for long periods of time, I’m getting crazy cabin fever.

Time to go fishing.

Like many casual fishermen in this part of Ohio (the Southwest corner), I’m usually a fair-weather friend to my rod and reel. Summertime, crappie and bass are a great combination, especially when friends and a cookout are near at hand.

But there’s plenty of fishing to be had at this time of the spring, too. So this year, I’m thinking walleye.

I’ll admit, I haven’t done much of any fishing for the funny-eyed buggers before – that’s what happens when you grow up in heavy bass, striper and saltwater country. But this is a good time of year to snag big early-season walleye, so I’m thinking about giving it a shot.

According to my sources, we’re in the pre-spawn phase for the walleye. The fish are fattened up to handle the stress of the spawn, and will be starting their move into the spawning grounds as the weather warms and days get longer.

Since the fish spawn in tributaries, it makes sense that features leading into these areas would be good places to start the hunt. I’ve heard lots of lure/bait suggestions involving arrangements of minnows and small jigs, so I think that’s the direction I’ll be heading for my first forays out to the lake.

And remember: if you’re going after walleye in a boat this time of year, for crying out loud be careful.  That water’s going to be nasty cold for a few more months, and you don’t want to get into a situation where an accidental swim turns into a life-or-death fight with hypothermia. Stay safe, and may your spring be filled with the shout “fish on!”