Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Why Do You Hunt Turkeys

Nothing like old shootin' irons. I did it with this George Daw hammergun made in 1865...

Surely adds something to the hunt.

Turkey hunting is a chess match that is different everyday!

I shot one several years ago but don't hunt them now even though we have them on our place. I can't hear well enough to tell where they are. The one I shot was gobbling about every ten seconds and I had no clue which direction he was coming from. If he hadn't run right out in front of me, I probably wouldn't have got him.

Real challenge!

Armadillo,s which have exploded over the last decade .
Possums always been here
Coons always been here.
Coyotes always been here.
Bobcats always been here.
Owls always been here.
Hawks during the day always been here.
All eat and raid clutches of eggs and poults in nest at night until they get big enough to roost.
Hens cant stay ahead of it.
And if too many Tom's get taken out of a flock prior to breeding that dont help either.
Excessive bush hogging is also wiping out nesting areas.

All take a toll.
I know on ft Campbell the #,s are down.
They have been doing alot of Bush hogging of feilds since the spring of 2017 .
Over grown feilds that were nesting areas since the early 90,s.

It's a DPW / EPW we got money thing and better spend it doing something or else it will drop off the budget after Oct 1 each year.
A use or lose sorta thing.

It’s nothing to see two dozen turkeys together on my farm . I saw five gobblers with several hens the other day.

I don’t think dillers are eating too many baby turkeys, they are one of the few toothless mammals and live mostly on grubs and worms.

Around here they’re down but I think it’s due to a bad drought we had for several years a while back. Pigs are probably eating some eggs too but we don’t have a lot of pigs out in the slick hills where the population of turkeys seems to have been hit the hardest.
I did find 4 big Toms and about a dozen hens scattered around over a 3 or so mile area out there on opening weekend. Shot a nice gobbler with a 9.5” beard and spurs a bit over an inch.

They are thick in some areas close by, just outside of my usual stomping grounds. If my wife gets to feeling up for an afternoon hunt I’ll probably take her to a friend’s place where I saw 4 Jakes yesterday. They’ll be easy to call in and she won’t mind, they eat fine too.

We don’t have armadillos or wild hogs, yet, in my area. I think both are probably moving this way. Maybe the Wild Turkey population will come back. I do know that it took off rapidly after F&W introduced them here in the late eighties and early nineties.

My grandad hates armadillos, kills every one he sees, says they’re always tearing up everything. I’ve probably shot several hundred over the years but I don’t think they actually do much damage. They root little 2” diameter holes about 2”deep looking for grubs. They will dig a burrow of course but I ain’t buying the cattle breaking legs in those story either, in over 30 years in cattle and armadillo country I’ve never heard of a broken leg on a beef from stepping in a burrow.

It's a good reason to get back out in the woods after a looooong winter. I also like to get out and dig a bunch of ramps to pickle. Mmmm good.
I'm deaf in my left ear so even though I might hear them gobble I can't figure out which direction it came from. Sure makes things interesting.
I never thought about that way but like coloradobob wrote, it's a poor man's elk hunt with an easier drag! And in nicer weather.

They are fun.. Cool thread!! Not going for a couple weeks..

I started the season last Saturday in Nebraska. Got 3 birds there and moved to Kansas. I got my first one here this morning and hope to get another tomorrow or the next day. Then its back to Virginia for a couple more before the season ends. I love the sound of gobblers on the roost and the interaction with the birds and it's a great way to get into the woods in the spring. It's humbling too! Sometimes it's rediculously easy. More often than not, it's a significant challenge. I've hunted turkeys all over the country in the past 16 years but only started chasing them then. I keep telling myself that someday I'm going to get one with a bow but I just can't leave the shotgun at home. I love eating them too. Hunting turkeys is like a lot of other things. If you have to explain it to someone, they probably wouldn't understand.

I hunt them because I love eating them. I've found that the frozen food section is the best bet; the fresh birds are only around on holidays and are loaded with preservatives.

Seriously, I like to hunt them in eastern MT in the fall. I can take Jakes, the best eating IMO. On several occasions we hunted them with dogs and jump-shot the birds. We could pick the smaller birds and not send errant shot into the other birds.

To eat them.

I hunt them cause I can

I hunt them cause it's a good excuse to be in the spring woods

I hunt them cause I'm an insomniac

I hunt them cause I like big BREASTs!

good eats

When I had not had the chance to hunt them, starting was great fun. Calling and all.

Used to guide for them after that.

It kind of got boring to me, you'd figure out how to kill em, and they'd still get away at times, but sooner or later you would win. Just got to where don't much bother me if I shoot one these days or not and have not called one in years.

But other things are in my blood and have not left yet.

Thankfully we all can like differing things. If not turkey would be draw only and few tags. LOL

I am not getting up at 4 am to get into the turkey woods to pinpoint a roosted gobbler anymore. My method is to get there anywhere from 8:30 on depending on my estimated patience that day and begin to slowly but regularly “cold call”. I have a lot of gobblers come in at about the 1 1/2 to 2 hour mark (patience and more patience needed) after the hens leave them and go to nesting. You need to be very comfortable to sit that long. Those gobblers ignore you until their hens leave but then they are uncanny in “remembering” and pinpointing your hen calls from a long ways away. Most come sneaking in.

I agree that it’s a bit like elk-hunting in miniature and a chess game rolled into one.

Shrap what’s the recipe for your grilled turkey breast?

I've heard that some of the biologists are thinking maybe that the chicken litter that is being spread on crop fields is giving the turkeys a disease. There have been man chicken houses built around here, and that litter is a popular form of fertilizer, so there may be something to it.

Here in my locale, just about every tract of land, big and small, that has been sold has been bought by the Mennonites. They have bought a number of farms that were good turkey habitat, and then they clear the land, build houses, barns, chicken houses, crop it intensively, and that land is lost to wildlife forever. Also, the seasons and the limits mean nothing to some of them. I have a Mennonite neighbor who owns 15 acres, and his field joins my property. He has let someone hunt on his land, and they are hunting over a pile of corn, which is illegal. I thought I'd approach him before I called the game warden and tell him it was not allowed, as I try to get along with my neighbors, regardless who they are. I just have a different attitude about hunting than they do.

We also had a lot of CRP here at one time, and that land has mostly been put into crops. That means a loss of nesting ground, which does have an affect. The clearing of land and intensive farming does the same thing.

In short, the downward trend in the turkey numbers are a combination of a number of things, all of which add up to fewer birds to hunt. I know it's not like that everywhere, and I envy you guys who still have the numbers of turkeys like we used to have.

I like hunting (Eastern) turkeys because they're too stupid to outsmart.