It's not often that I review books in my weekly and monthly outdoor columns. readers tend to think I must have gotten a free book and I'm obligated to say nice things about it; especially if the book is written by a friend or colleague. My personal library holds almost all of the books written about wild turkeys and turkey hunting written over the past 50 years. I cherish some of them and I question the wisdom recorded in others. Turkey Hunter's Handbook, Fall & Winter (Stackpole Books 2007) by Steve Hickoff (another Maine writer and personal friend) is one of the rare volumes I highly recommend all turkey hunters to read. The title may direct your attention to fall turkey hunting but the information within the covers offers years of knowledge that can be utilized by turkey hunters spring and fall, in every state in America. I never claimed to know everything about wild turkey hunting but i know way more than the average bear. I learned a number of things from this volume, from hunting tactics to lifestyle sublties of the different aged turkeys. Heading into the fall season I fully intend to put this newfound knowledge to good use. Too often turkey hunters take the fall season for granted due to the large number of birds available and because most hunters, ezspecially those new to the sport will chase the younger birds. Find the flock, scatter the flock, and select the largest bird in sight is usually the tactic. Steve adds a dimension new to turkey hunters in the Northeast. Using trained hunting dogs to scatter flocks of turkeys in the fall is foreign to most of us. I've heard of it being done in the South, but Steve was the first to introduce me to this tactic in New England. A significant amount of this book deals with using a trained hunting dog but the the real reason I suggest hunter buy and read every page of this book several times is the amount of basic and expert hunting strategies contained on the pages. Most bookstores carry the book but in this day of online shopping Amazon.com is probably the best bargain and the fastes way to get your hands on a copy.
