Wild Turkey Huntin'

[Dargo]

Wild Turkey Huntin\'

I have really never been hunting much. However, I have quite a few wild turkeys on some land I own. How is it that I can practically run them down on a slow moving UV, and they are everywhere, but when I show up with a shotgun I can't find one?? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif When I didn't have my shotgun, I actually counted 19 of the things running in a group right across the trail not 15 feet in front of me!
I thought it would be cool to actually get a wild turkey for thanksgiving. You know, really get into the spirit. I marched around for hours and couldn't find a one! Short of driving around in my truck with a shotgun out the window, I can't find the dern things when hunting them.
Another thing, I had no idea those stupid things could actually fly! I'll admit that their flight isn't exactly graceful, but the blasted birds flew up into the top of a tree and landed there! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
Now that you know that I'm no great hunter, how do you bag one of those wild turkeys?? For some reason I don't think it is exactly legal to shoot them from a moving vehicle. Also, from the landing in trees statement, I found that you can't kill one that is in the top of a tree with "light field" loads! Yeah, you know why I know that now! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif Boom, boom, boom, boom! A few feathers and all the stupid things just fly away again!

 

[johnday]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

Dargo; The comments you've made about the turkeys being stupid just don't wash /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif It appears they're the SMART ones /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif And by the way, how many turkey splats compared to deer splats have you seen on the road? /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[bczoom]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

Dargo,

Yep, turkeys are pretty smart. Also have a very keen sight and hearing.

Turkey roost in the tops of trees for the night. Honestly, it's considered pretty unsportsmans-like to shoot them out of the roost.

Here's a thread over on CBN that briefly discusses what you're seeing. CBN - Turkeys Just noticed that johnday and I were both on that thread as well.

Brian

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

Let my failures in turkey hunting in southern Indiana be your guide!!!

First, you need to spend a bundle of money on full camo, a matt-black finish lightweight turkey gun with a short barrel and an extra tight choke tube. Get yourself some shoulder busting heavily loaded shells designed for turkey. Don't forget to buy some turkey targets so you can practice head shots and see how your groups look at various distances, and some ice for your bruised shoulder after you shoot through a box of those heavyweight turkey shells using that lightweight gun sighting it in on those dastardly paper targets. Get a couple of turkey calls and practice with those until your family and pets are all collectively tired of you and they want you to leave. Drive to your hunting grounds and scout it out looking for places where the toms rub/dust their wings, fields where they congregate, etc. and then pick a nice tree with moderate coverage but with clear shot paths. Sometime before dawn, plop yourself down in that spot with your back resting against the aforemetioned tree and slowly call in birds. Understand that these things have amazing eyesight and the slightest movement will scare them off. They also have discrening ears and can hear you rustle around.

After sitting there until you rear is sore without ever seeing a bird, give up, unload your gun, pack it up in its case and stow it in the back of your vehicle, drive back home and just before you pull into the driveway, see not one, but 2 turkey's cross the road in front of you!!!

After that happened to me (twice) I gave up turkey hunting. I realized that a bird that is so stupid that it can drown by looking up with its mouth open while it is raining is far too smart for me to hunt.

 

[shoppintractors]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

From what I have witnessed you need to call the turkey's 'in' with a turkey call. In order to be effective while calling, you need to bob up and down and walk around in a circular pattern.

For some serious info on turkey calling visit the NWTF

Don

 

[Dargo]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

Dang! Bob, you must have been stalking me when I went turkey hunting. About the only thing you missed was when I took a slight detour on the way home to buy a Butterball. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Such heavy loads for a bird! Are they armor plated?? /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

bczoom, yup, I sort of figured that it wasn't exactly being sporty trying to blasting them out of the trees. With a rifle, they would be pretty easy to pick off out of the trees. I was just so surprised that they could fly up to the very top of a tree. There are lots of turkey farms around here and they all just have short fences to keep the turkeys in. Do the turkey farmers clip their wings, or are the white turkeys too dumb to fly? Uh, that last sentence sounds wrong...you know what I mean. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[SkyPup]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

On Thanksgiving morning I had approx. 30 hens, jakes, and a huge gobbler right outside my living room window eating up pounds of ornemental rye grass I had spread out a couple of weeks ago waiting for some rain to innocuate it. The turkeys and deer have been going nutz for the last two weeks all over our property. Fortunatley for them I do not hunt on our property since we enjoy the wildlife so much. They always have a safe haven on our propety.

However, I did shoot an 18 pound gobbler with a six inch beard back in October with my Thompson Center Renegade 54 caliber blackpowder muzzleloader on my neighbors property. The smoked gobbler (both literally and figuratively) was simply excellent! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[EddieWalker]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

I've only shot one turkey. Did it like described. Spent many days sitting around in the woods until the day they actually responded to my calling. Then two came in and boy did it get exiting!!!!!!!!

One was much larger than the other, but I shot the one that came the closest and gave me the best shot. Not sure which one I got.

Like most wild animals, it didn't taste anything like a store bought bird. It was a totally new taste for me and proabably the BEST tasting bird I've ever eaten. I mean really tasty!!!

Funny thing about turkeys is just a few decades ago they were extremely rare. The Dept. of Fish and Game let some go on park land near his place, and it took several years until we saw our first birds. A few years later we were spotting them about once or twice a year. About a dozen years after the first transplants were released, we were seeing them enough to actually hunt them.

Benjamin Franklin was so impressed with the turkey that he wanted it for our national bird.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

<font color="red"> In order to be effective while calling, you need to bob up and down and walk around in a circular pattern. </font>

Don, I think you are confusing wild turkey with city pigeons. Turkey struts with a majestic gait (well out of range of my gun) while pigeons in the city bob their heads up and down while deficating on seats, sidewalks and sculptures and the occasional tourist.


<font color="green"> Such heavy loads for a bird! Are they armor plated??
</font>
Nope, but the birds are a hardly lot. Take a body shot and you just make them made. The most effective way to take them is with a head shot. To my shoulder turkey loads are only a shade milder than magnum buckshot, I suppose because it is not uncommong for only a few pellets actually strike the kill zone and they need to be heavy enough to do the job?


<font color="blue"> Do the turkey farmers clip their wings, or are the white turkeys too dumb to fly </font>

Nope, their breasts are too large to allow them to fly. Domestic turkey has been bread to have lots of breast meat, it literally makes them too bulky to fly.

Did I mention that I have a limited edition NWTF 12ga for sale? Lightly used. Rarely successful. Resoundingly unsuccessful the last 2 years I hunted!

 

[Dargo]

Re: Wild Turkey Huntin\'

I had no idea that it was that complicated to hunt wild turkey! How are the laws about just running one down on my Rhino? I could almost do it on my RTV, so the Rhino being faster ought to do the trick! It sounds like too much work otherwise. I went to the site you posted. Man, there are several different calls, methods etc. etc. Heck, the way that they aren't afraid of motorized equipment, I thought they'd be easier to hunt! The things are smarter than I thought!

As I said, I'm not much of a hunter. This last summer I had some Canadian geese that were crapping all over my dock on the lake. I kept trying to shoo them off. One in particular didn't want to leave, so I approached him and hollered and stomped my feet. The idiot bird charged me! What a sight! He was pecking at me and trying to flog me with his wings and I was throwing rights, lefts, and uppercuts. I finally caught him with a good right hook that knocked him off of the dock. For a while I thought he was ready to hop back up for more, but he swam away. The Great Blue Herons I have are the same way, but they are even bigger. I turn the dog loose on them. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif