If the name Al Kisamore rings a bell, it ought to. Often called big Al, we are referring to a very active grandfather who sets traps, shoots deer, chases bears, and does the same to Quebec moose. And he’s good at all of it.
I’ve mentioned the times and travels of Kisamore many times, enough times it seems that we should be running out of things to report. But Kisamore never runs out of adventure, enthusiasm, or energy, just three of the things that keep him involved in all that is outdoors.
Living life
Kisamore is an 81-year-old kid exploring the wonders of the world, living life to the fullest. He’s recently been published in the Fur Taker Magazine. He can prove it too; his name is right at the top of a bunch of words only a trapper could digest.
The article is a descriptive how-to piece teaching readers how to catch beavers by incorporating old kitchen skillets and leg hold traps in clever sets only a clever woodsman could think of. I guess you’d have to be a trapper to appreciate it, but appreciate it they will because when Kisamore speaks, smart trappers listen.
Ohio turkey season
But that’s a trap line tale and now it’s turkey season in Ohio, a few weeks of spring’s most iffy weather when a guy old enough to be senior to a few generations of Kisamore kin, might want to watch from the sidelines. But not Al Kisamore, no sir. Kisamore, always the generous host, invited an acquaintance from church to an opening morning wild turkey hunt.
“I asked him to be at my place at 5:30 a.m. and by golly he was right on time,” Kisamore said. His guest for the day was another fellow in his 80s, and as they talked their way to one of Kisamore’s secret honey holes, he found that his guest had never killed a wild turkey, one of Ohio’s favorite and most wary birds.
“I really wanted to get a bird in range by 6:30,” Kisamore said, confessing that it was right around 6:45 when two jakes plopped down right in front him and his guest.
“My prayers were answered,” said Kisamore.
Getting the old bird
Kisamore’s guest, 88-year-old Alvin Shuetty, took aim and took his bird, short, sweet, and simple, just as Kisamore had planned.
Kisamore wondered if Shuetty would wait for an older bird, but it was apparent that 88 years of wisdom was going to go with the old bird in hand philosophy. Smart move.
Typical turkey season
On day three of the spring hunt, cold and damp turned to bright and calm, text book weather for spring turkey hunting. According to avid yelper Jon Myers, the gobblers were taking up a storm, gobbling back at him from their roosts.
Myers and friend Ed Moon hunted hard for a couple hours, but like many early season hunts, the morning action was pretty much in favor of the hens, not the hunters.
Later in the morning, however, probably after the hens wandered to their nest leaving the gobblers to seek other sweethearts, things picked up. Myers and Moon yanked in big gobblers and both filled their tags with birds sporting long beards and equally long spurs.
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