Category: Blog

The term “tip” refers to the meristematic part of the tree, which means the new, actively growing parts. In conifers, such as pine, balsam, and fir, this will happen at the top of the tree and at the ends of all branches. If you look around coniferous forests in the middle of spring, the trees are all a deep forest green, but over a period of a few weeks in May and June, you will notice that the ends of all the branches are illuminated. top with a bright spring green – these are the tips. If you brush against them at this stage, they’ll be soft and rubbery, if you pinch them, your thumbnail will go right through them, and if you pop one into your mouth, it’ll taste somewhere between citrusy, hoppy, and summery. in Maine. This is when you want to choose them. As the season progresses, this new spring growth will harden, both in texture and flavor, and become much more resinous.

Flavor between species, and even within a species from tree to tree, can vary quite a bit, so it’s best to try it yourself before committing to picking from a tree. I favor balsam fir for eating fresh because of its milder, more approachable flavor, pickling fir for its bright flavor and snappy texture, pine is the perfect candy with its solid, cylindrical shape, and hemlock is my favorite for nibbling. walking trails. because they are bite-sized and too delicate to do much more with.

There are many different species of pines, spruces, and firs in North America, and lucky for us, our native evergreens are a pretty safe group to collect, except for a few. You should avoid eating tips from yew trees, ponderosa pine, and juniper trees and shrubs, as the foliage of all of these have compounds that are toxic to humans.

You’ll want to grab some sort of basket or jug ​​that can be tied around your waist so you can scoop with both hands, though if you come across a tree laden with stubby tips while walking, unprepared, scooping with one hand and filling your cap isn’t the end. of the world. I do it all the time, and a full hat is enough to make some goodies.

I like to go for tips in early to mid successional growth forests so that the trees are young enough that I can reach their branches. When collecting tips, especially with younger trees, don’t take the tips from the top of the tree, called the apical meristem, because this is the only vertical growth on the tree during the year and you don’t want to stunt it. Similarly, when you gather from the branches, distribute your harvest, taking a little here, a little there, and without removing all the tips of any branch or tree. Gathering tips can be addictively fun, and it’s easy to be tempted to keep picking because there are so many at your fingertips, but be realistic about how many you’ll actually use and stop there—a little goes a long way.

Once I’ve picked what I want, I like to put them in a cooler or fridge as soon as possible, as the weather during picking season can be quite warm and they will start to ferment very quickly, especially in a plastic bag or jug. If you can’t cool them down soon, try spreading them on something clean in a shallow layer so they don’t clump together, or if they need to stay in their collection container, turn and toss them periodically with your hands to disperse the heat. Once you get them home, you can store them in the fridge for quite a while if you’re not going to use them right away, and even better, they freeze really well without any preparation.

Once you’ve checked yourself for ticks and taken care of all mosquito and black fly bites, as they all seem to peak around tip time, it’s time to decide how to use them. I usually divide my harvest into a handful of treats to enjoy all year long. I’ll use a few handfuls a year to eat fresh, separating the tips and sprinkling the soft needles over green salads, fruit salads, and ice cream, but most of my tips are used as a flavor infusion plus a lot of pantry liquids. .

I’ll chop up some spruce and fir and infuse them into vodka along with other spring aromatics for a seasonal variation on gin. I will coat a jar of pine tips (usually called candlesticks or buds) with honey and let it ferment on a dark shelf for a couple of weeks and then put it in the fridge to use as a sore throat wrap to take by the tablespoon . , in my tea, or to make the dreamiest festive baklava you can imagine. I’ll fill a half gallon jar ¼ of the way with tips and fill it with rice, cider, white wine or champagne vinegar and let it infuse for a few weeks or a few months, testing weekly until I love it. I’ll layer the tips in a jar with granulated sugar and let them ferment into a “mugolio” or “pine bud syrup.”

I will pat dry and grind them with salt to finish savory meals or grind them in sugar to sprinkle on sweets. I’ll cold brew it in sugar water for a few days and then use it as a base for the most refreshing sherbet or popsicles. I’ll mix with some type of dairy product, like milk, cream, yogurt, or a soft, sweet cheese, for the creamiest, dreamiest desserts like ice cream, posset, custard, cakes, and icings. At the very least, try tossing a handful into your water bottle and then see if you don’t want any more.

The second source is the turkeys themselves. When they tell you something, you should listen. This isn’t what we normally consider real advice, but I don’t care. If anything is going to tell you how to be a better turkey hunter, it’s the birds themselves.

Trust your calling
Tyler Jones and KC Smith host the popular hunting podcast, The Element. They also film hunts ranging from turkey to elk and are convinced that none of them are expert turkey hunters. This is, according to Jones, one of the reasons they try to hunt with people who really know what they’re doing.

“I looked up Mitchell Johnston this year, who is a calling champion,” Jones said. “When he gets a quick response from a gobbler not too far away, he finds a place to settle. He doesn’t waste time because he trusts his vocation”.

Many hunters don’t, but the best advice you can receive for becoming a cold-blooded turkey hunter is to learn to call well. He learns to sound like the birds and reads every situation. This comes from practice, hunting with experienced callers, and listening to the birds. It also involves understanding the turkey’s vocal range and how you can mimic it.

“One thing really good turkey hunters seem to understand is how to call very softly,” Jones said. “If you learn to softly purr and cluck and sound like a quiet chatter from hen to hen, you will attract more birds. Every good turkey hunter I’ve shared the woods with has passed that message on to me.”

decoy lessons
There are some decoy rules that are pretty ubiquitous in a wide variety of hunting situations. The more realistic, the better a rule. Another is to match what happens to wild birds, such as using more decoys early in the season and less later.

Even following those loose rules, you’ll have birds that turn on and just don’t commit. Jones dealt with it several times this spring and realized that the best advice for lure use might be to adjust it as you go.

“We had a gobbler hang 90 yards out in Tennessee,” Jones said. “He was embarrassed, and then four Jakes ran in and pushed him. Having a quarter strut jake lure actually worked against us on that bird. He probably would have compromised if we had only had chickens, although the seasonal weather said a jake was the way to go.”

When the local birds tell you what they want from your setup, you better listen.

just gain experience
“I’m not a good turkey hunter,” Smith said. “I don’t have the experience, so I’m like a sponge when hunting with good turkey hunters. One of my friends who is a huge turkey hunter told me this spring that you just have to mix it with the birds. You have to call them, interact with them and just learn to read their mood.”

This is some of the best advice you will ever hear. Just spend time with the turkeys. Explore before the season, pay attention to what they say to each other as they pass your tree in the fall, and learn from their behavior whenever you can in the spring.

While this will be wildly unpopular, I will offer some parting advice from my own world. After killing dozens of birds with shotguns over the years, I started primarily hunting turkeys with a bow. Talking birds into range at distances less than 10 yards is a different challenge, and you learn a lot about what makes a bird commit or leave.

This has changed the way I hunt and definitely made me rethink my run and gun strategies. I’m more patient because of it, and much more confident in my settings. The need to abandon all settings after 45 minutes of inactivity is gone. Good advice is excellent, but it is not a substitute for experience.

conclusion
You probably started this article looking for something like “scream three times at dawn and shut up”. But that’s not how this works. There are too many variables in individual hunting situations to make blanket statements.

The best you get is this: Try spending time in the woods with someone who knows how to be successful (and often is). Then, dodge the birds and let them advise you on how to proceed in each encounter. Do these two things enough and you won’t need any more turkey hunting tips from anyone, ever.

“A choke is one of the easiest and cheapest things you can change on a shotgun to improve effectiveness,” said MeatEater waterfowl guru Sean Weaver.

In simple terms, shotgun chokes reduce the diameter of the gun’s barrel to adjust the shot pattern and extend the effective range. In some situations you may want a wider pattern, but Weaver encourages hunters to use as narrow a choke as possible.

“I would love to see more hunters shooting a tighter choke. Sometimes they’re going to smell, but they’re also going to end up with more stone-cold dead birds in the bag,” Weaver said. Thousands of birds are injured and lost each year, in part because hunters do not use the proper chokes.

What is a choke on a shotgun?
A shotgun choke is the small metal tube that threads onto the end of the barrel. Your shotgun probably came with one and a tool to remove it. There are a variety of choke sizes that restrict the caliber of a shotgun to a greater or lesser degree.

“Cylinder” chokes do not restrict the inside diameter at all. “Full” chokes constrict the inside diameter by approximately 0.035 inches. Between cylinder and full, “improved cylinder” chokes restrict diameter to about 0.010 inches, “modified” restricts to about 0.020 inches, and “improved modified” restricts to about 0.025 inches.

Between, above, and below these choke variations are additional choke sizes that further restrict (or sometimes expand) the hole diameters.

Changing the diameter of a shotgun’s bore changes the “pattern” of the shotgun’s ammunition. “The tighter the choke, the denser the pattern,” Weatherby’s Zach Hein told MeatEater.

A dense BB pattern will be more effective at a longer range because the cloud of shots will stick together longer. A wider pattern requires less precision and is ideal for scenarios where birds are close, erratic and fast.

Generally speaking, a cylinder choke will produce 40 inches at 25 yards, an improved cylinder will produce 40 inches at 30 yards, a modified one will produce that distance at 35 yards, and a full choke will do the same at 40 yards. yards. While hunters new to the field can benefit from a modified barrel choke, Weaver never shoots anything wider than a modified one in the field. For a quality choke, he recommends Carlson Chokes and Pattern Master.

The size of choke you choose depends on the type of game you are hunting. Turkey hunters often use a full choke (or an extended full choke like the one on this Weatherby item), waterfowl hunters generally opt for a modified cylinder, and upland fowl hunters often opt for an improved cylinder .

complications
Everything in the above section is generally true, and if you’re just getting into shotgun hunting, it’s a good place to start. But if you dig a little deeper, things start to get a bit complicated.

First, different shotguns can produce different patterns even with the same choke and trigger because shotgun manufacturers don’t use the same bore diameters, Hein explained. If a 12 gauge bore starts at 0.724 inches, a modified choke will reduce it to 0.704 inches. But if it starts at 0.730 inches, a mod will bring it down to 0.710 inches.

Believe it or not, 0.006 inches is enough to change the shot pattern and affect the result. “Knowing your particular shotgun, especially the shells you’re shooting, is really important,” Hein said.

To make matters worse, different brands of the same type of choke can work differently even on the same gun and with the same shot. A choke must have enough space after constriction to allow the balls to “seat” (about an inch for a 12 gauge). If the choke is not long enough, the patterns will be inconsistent or produce gaps.

“You’ll find that a choke tends to throw a little high, or a little to the side, or for whatever reason it doesn’t keep a nice, tight pattern,” Weaver said.

Different types of shots can also affect shooting patterns. Lead, steel, bismuth, and tungsten all react differently when choked, so it’s important to make sure your choke can accommodate the type of shot you’re using.

One final complication: different choke and shotgun manufacturers use different choke “patterns”. Hein compared the neck-in patterns with thread pitches in screws. Weatherby uses a variety of choke patterns on his shotguns, and your gun’s owner’s manual should list the pattern he’s looking for.

Testing, testing, testing
Changing even one variable in your build, be it weapon, shot, or choke, can affect your shot pattern, but there’s only one way to know for sure.

“Everyone needs to get into the habit of designing their shotguns,” Weaver said. “No one fires a rifle without aiming it.”

“Modeling” a shotgun is not difficult. As with rifle aim, be sure to shoot from a stable rest. Pattern boards are available online or you can make your own from cardboard or butcher paper (just make sure you have at least 40 inches of board).

You can shoot from whatever distance makes the most sense, but Hein and Weaver recommended 30-40 yards. At that distance, you’ll know pretty well what your shot is doing.

Shoot the center of the board with the shotgun, projectiles, and choke you plan to use to hunt. Weaver said that if he sees holes in the pattern larger than a melon, he “has a problem.” He tries out different chokes and projectiles until he sees a nice solid shot pattern right in the middle of his pattern board.

Designing a shotgun may sound tedious, but it is crucial to a successful and ethical hunt. Weaver recalled a choke that caused the lug to invert and not open when it came out of the barrel. At 30 yards, the cue was traveling fast enough to put a hole in the paper.

Hein also noted that shotgun manufacturers have different standards for regulating shotguns. Some time their guns to hit dead center every time. Others, well, not so much.

You will also notice during the test that quality shotgun shells are a must. Some of our favorites are Federal’s Bismuth for highlands, 3rd Degree with HEAVYWEIGHT TSS for turkeys, and Black Cloud for waterfowl. These shells will deliver consistent patterns every time, whether you’re out in the field or in the field.

Why chokes matter
Many hunters do well without thinking too much about chokes or shooting patterns. But they could do even better and help wildlife conservation in the process.

Both Hein and Weaver agreed that trying out different shotgun chokes on paper increases confidence and leads to more successful hunts. If you know for sure that your gun produces a tight shot pattern at 30 yards, you’ll pull the trigger with more confidence when a mallard approaches that distance. If you miss, you’ll also know it’s not the weapon’s fault.

It’s tempting to make up for those shortcomings by using a wider choke, but Weaver argues that you’re not doing yourself—or the ducks—any favors.

Estimates vary, but most researchers agree that “crippling loss” accounts for between 20% and 40% of all ducks hit by gunshots. These ducks get hit with a few BBs, but not enough to stop them in their tracks. They fly over the next hill and never recover.

“That’s a disgusting number,” Weaver said.

Some of that loss is due to poor shot selection, but sometimes it’s due to poor choke selection. That’s why Weaver always recommends using as tight a choke as possible.

“Firing a tight choke is an all-or-nothing proposition of killing the dead bird or living to see another day,” Weaver said. “If spending $60 on a choke means a lot more mallards come down the flyway each year, that sounds like an easy proposition to me.”