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John Lewandowski, left, and John Zuelke show off ocellatedturkeys they took in 110-degree heat recently on the Yucatan Peninsula. Zuelke's turkey completed a royal slam for him.
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Not all turkeys gobble

NOT BLADE PHOTO

Not all turkeys gobble

Everything's coming up wild turkeys on the outdoors desk, what with the Ohio and Michigan spring gobbler seasons opening just a week from tomorrow.

There's a guy who uses turkey wings to show-and-tell kindergartners about the history and conservation of the turkey, a couple of guys who got a jump on spring hunting by trucking down to Florida to bag the coveted Osceola subspecies, and a Devils Lake, Mich., hunter who just completed a rare "world slam" on the birds, killing an ocellated turkey in Mexico. Here goes:

Gil Kollarik needs your wild turkey wing-feathers, and he'll be glad to receive any primaries and secondaries that you can spare from your bird's wings for his school project. In fact, he'll try to talk you into starting your own such project in your own local schools. A school maintenance man in Oregon, Kollarik for the last four years he has been spending some of his off-duty hours in the schools' kindergartens, talking turkey, including demonstrating calls. He finds these youngest ones at just the right impressionable age.

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The program is, he explained, "mostly to expose them to the wild turkey and what the National Wild Turkey Federation and Ohio Division of Wildlife have done to restore the wild turkey populations in Ohio since the '50s." He also aims to introduce kids "who may never have seen a wild turkey, to a part of our American heritage. It's a fantastic conservation story."

He brings in turkey tailfeathers and whole wings as props, and also lets the youngsters handle the wings and feel the feathers and see the delicate mix of colorations. If a child wishes, he or she is allowed to take home a wing feather.

"I go through 200 feathers a year, easy. It really sparks the interests of the kids and their teachers," said Kollarik, adding that even some of the teachers "thought that all turkeys gobble."

A veteran of 45 years of hunting and a state-certified hunter education instructor and instructor-trainer, Kollarik hunts deer and wild turkeys with a traditional recurve bow. "That's why I rely on other people to bring me my feathers," he says with a chuckle.

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To help out, just clip off the primary and secondary feathers, [trim off the quills, too, for easier handling] and mail them to Ohio Wildlife District 2, c/o Linda Ringer, 952 Lima Ave., Findlay, OH 45840. Kollarik and a whole flock of kindergartners will be glad you did.

Next comes Toledoan Bruce Branson and his fellow Jeep retiree Wayne Wittebort, of Northwood, who like to call themselves the Dynamic Duo of field and stream. Among their feats was the near-simultaneous hooking of the same yellow perch last year on western Lake Erie.

"We went down to Lake Wales, Fla., and Wayne shot an Osceola jake at 12 yards, his first turkey ever," said Branson about his buddy's near instant success - with archery tackle no less. "He wanted to get one and get it over with."

Branson, on the other hand, held out and "sweated bullets" in a blind in the Florida heat until he "was fortunate to get my nice gobbler, running right at me to a hen that was right outside the [blind's] door." He killed his bird at 20 yards.

The duo met "some of the nicest people in the world" down there, Branson added - real Florida folk who lent the "Yankees" a spare camper, then allowed them to hunt on private land, where hunting hours extend to dark instead of 1 p.m. as on public ground there. Last and not least, they even lent the use of a golf cart to get around in.

If all that were not enough to demonstrate the famed Southern Hospitality, the folks took the Ohioans "Speck fishin,' " as they call crappies down there. "They were so nice it was unreal," Branson said.

Last and not least among the turkey tales are the ocellated birds taken by John Zuelke, a former Toledo now living at Devils Lake, and his buddy, John Lewandowski, "way down in Mexico."

The men recently made their way to Campeche on the Yucatan Peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico, engaged an outfitter, and proceeded to hunt with guides in sweltering 110-degree heat - "then I come back to six inches of snow."

During a week-long trip, Lewandowski bagged one bird and Zuelke bagged two, a jake and a mature male. "They don't have beards, and they don't gobble -they sing."

Lacking experience with the colorful but beardless ocellated, he first took a jake on his guide's advice - the guide did not speak "gringo" and Zuelke admits his Spanish is not the best. But the message that got through their crossed wires was that the guide wanted Zuelke to shoot. He later learned he had not taken a mature bird and arranged to hunt a second bird.

Turkey hunting fans hereabouts may recall Zuelke's successful quest a year ago for a Gould's turkey in northern Mexico. He previously had killed a Rio Grande wild turkey in Texas to round out a grand slam, which also includes eastern, Osceola (Florida), and Merriam's (mountain/western) birds.

The Gould's last year made it a royal slam of wild turkeys for Zuelke, and he now has extended it to a world slam by hanging the ocellated on his game belt.

"My second bird was a mature bird with 1 3/4-inch spurs. John's bird was mature with 2-inch spurs. As these turkeys are the smallest species, our 3 birds weighed 8, 11, and 12 pounds respectively. During my hunt I saw 76 turkeys, 1 puma, 2 rattlesnakes, 1 aguti, 2 javelina, 1 scorpion, 1 red fox, 1 coyote, and lots of unusual birds."

Asked if there are any other turkey hunting heights to summit, Zuelke replies, "if there is I'm going to get him."

Contact Steve Pollick at:

spollick@theblade.com

or 419-724-6068.

First Published April 12, 2009, 10:30 a.m.

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John Lewandowski, left, and John Zuelke show off ocellatedturkeys they took in 110-degree heat recently on the Yucatan Peninsula. Zuelke's turkey completed a royal slam for him.  (NOT BLADE PHOTO)
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