Just in time for Thanksgiving!!

[gsganzer]

I was sitting in a deer blind in central TX this morning. Right as the deer feeder went off at 7am, about 30 wild turkeys, which must have been roosting nearby, came in like a flashmob hitting a California department store. They came in flying and running in one giant swarm and proceeded to scamper around picking up the corn like a flock of chickens on scratch grains. Fighting one another until every last kernel was gone.

Then the darndest thing happened, the entire flock fell asleep! It was like they all put themselves in a food coma, like the rest of us do at Thanksgiving. Standing there with heads under their wings, heads on their backs, standing, laying down and roosting on nearby branches or on the feeder itself. They all napped for about 20-30 minutes and then slowly started waking up.

When they had all finally awoke, they just wandered off as a group to somewhere else in the pasture.

It was one of the wildest things I've ever seen. I'm still in disbelief.

 

[MossRoad]

Turkey old folks home?

 

[BackRoad]

Corn mash?!?

 

[oosik]

I can imagine how that would spook you. Turkeys are not known for their stealth and silence. I get a small band coming into my yard quite frequently. All the flapping, squawking and horse play. For sure - you know they are here.

However - they hit the pine trees when they need to sleep. A ground sleeping turkey could easily become coyote food.

 

[gsganzer]

However - they hit the pine trees when they need to sleep. A ground sleeping turkey could easily become coyote food.

It was the falling asleep part that I found so surprising. Turkeys are usually so wary and flush at the slightest thing. A few went to some low limbs to roost, but the rest of them just zonked out in place. I still can't believe what I just watched.

 

[EddieWalker]

A Texas Stage Biologist told me that the reason we don't have wild turkeys in East Texas is because the land has been cleared and farmed, then abandoned to grow back. The process of the forest growing back makes it too thick for turkeys to survive here. Not having wild turkeys is one of the bigger disappointments in moving to East Texas.

We have a few pet turkeys, and they are fun to hear and watch. But having wild turkeys would be a lot better!!!!

I've only shot one wild turkey in my life. I breasted it and grilled it on the BBQ. I thought it tasted amazing!!!!

Did you shoot one? How do you cook it?

 

[oosik]

Ha, ha. I read your post again - gsganzer. Right there is the obvious reason you have no deer. I look at the turkeys in gsganzers post and again in yours - Eddie. Your Texas turkeys are quite a bit bigger than ours here in Ea WA.

Must have been 20 - 25 years ago. I shot one. We cooked it like a normal turkey. It was very tasty. But - man was it tough. Made me mad that the wife had spent so much time in prep and cooking. So.. I boned the bird and ran it thru our meat grinder. We added German sausage spices and it made pretty good breakfast sausage.

Had a good friend that cooked one and it was good and it was tender. He cooked it in one of those deep oil cookers. He was a coonass from Louisiana and said that was the way they were normally cooked down there. Whatever - sure a lot more tender than the one we cooked.

Tony Capdebasque - he carried a magnificent Cajun drawl. He and his wife moved to Alaska. He's a sport fishing guide on the Alaska peninsula now. One mighty fine fellow.

 

[MossRoad]

A Texas Stage Biologist told me that the reason we don't have wild turkeys in East Texas is because the land has been cleared and farmed, then abandoned to grow back. The process of the forest growing back makes it too thick for turkeys to survive here. Not having wild turkeys is one of the bigger disappointments in moving to East Texas.

We have a few pet turkeys, and they are fun to hear and watch. But having wild turkeys would be a lot better!!!!

I've only shot one wild turkey in my life. I breasted it and grilled it on the BBQ. I thought it tasted amazing!!!!

Did you shoot one? How do you cook it?

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This guy is about 7 years older than me. (He got me over my fear of water and taught me how to swim when I was about 8). He was instrumental in turkey reintroduction to Indiana, as a state biologist, as well as ruffed grouse.

There were no turkey's in our area when I was growing up. From the IDNR:

Indiana Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) are a conservation success story. They were extirpated from Indiana and many parts of the U.S. in the early 1900s due to loss of forested habitats and lack of regulations. Between 1956 and 2004, 2,795 wild trapped turkeys were released at 185 sites around the state as part of conservation efforts to restore wild turkeys. Wild turkeys are now found in all 92 counties. Indiana has the Eastern subspecies of wild turkey.

They stopped stocking turkeys in 2004. Now they are in all 92 counties, and in many places are now nuisance birds.

 

[EddieWalker]

I went to a meeting put on by the Texas Fish and Game about improving wildlife on your land. They are actively trying to bring turkeys back to East Texas. For years, they where catching wild Easter Turkeys from places like Georgia and Alabama, then releasing them here. In every case, their numbers decreased every year until they where gone. Now they are securing access to at least ten square miles from landowners, and then doing what they are calling a Mass Release inside that area. The strategy is to release so many birds that enough will adapt and reproduce. So far, they say it's working and after an initial decline, they stabilized and now they are starting to increase. I think there where two areas in East Texas that they where doing this. The hardest part is getting access to that much land from all the different landowners. If they cannot get access, they keep looking until they can find what they need.

 

[gsganzer]

Spring turkey hunting is my favorite hunting of all. In TX, the spring hunting rules are gobblers and bearded hens taken by shot gun or legal archery equipment only.

There are so many things at play that need to all align to have a successful hunt. Your location, the weather, you're calling ability and then just the luck factor. Part of the beauty is in the TX hill country, where I hunt, the wildflowers are also coming into bloom. There's just something about getting out into the bush, watching, listening and smelling nature come alive again, after the long doldrums of winter. When you finally get it all correct and a gobbler comes strutting in, they almost look fake, because their face and head colors are so vibrant. It's so amazing to me every time.