I'll be hunting on a river trip in April.
Never turkey hunted before.
I've cleaned pheasants by stepping on wings at shoulders and pulling legs and it makes a pretty nice package. Leaves breast attached to wings, legs are in my hand and guts come out pretty easy.
Can you do with with Turkeys? How much of the head do you keep/ how do you keep the beard if you're so interested?
I was thinking I could cut skin around the beard and keep it that way, but wonder about other ideas?

Please share what you do as I'll be putting it in a cooler and floating some more if we find some.
Thanks in advance,
Jon

I usually just breast them out like a dove and throw the rest away, with the exception of the beard and Spurs. You could boil the carcass and pick it clean for stock. It's just not as palatable as store birds imo.

Just grab the beard and tug, it pulls off fairly easy,

I tried cooking/eating the whole bird a few times, just isn't worth it to me,

pull back the feathers on the breast and follow the breast bone, done.

The wife and oldest daughter take care of the birds around here. I haven't actually done one in years. In addition to the breast for fried nuggets, they take the legs and thighs for enchiladas or pot pie. You want a pressure cooker for that. Cook it then pick it for the recipe. We eat a good many squirrels, so the extra effort is not out of the ordinary.

You can also save the marabou feathers for any fly tiers you might know. Wing feathers can go to a traditional archer for fletching arrows. The wing bones can be used to make a turkey call. Mounting the fan is pretty easy and makes a nice piece for the man cave.

plucked and smoked my share of them. Really a chore when they live in cactus country.
since my family likes fried turkey better than smoked or roasted, I filet out the breast and thighs cut into strips and fry it like chicken. Easy and quick way to clean them.

JonS,

I hunt turkeys here in CO, and usually take a tom every spring.
I tag 'em, take them to the truck, open the tailgate, and proceed to filet the breast meat. CO requires the beard to stay on the bird until final destination, not a problem to cut around it and leave it attached to the breastbone. Skin out the legs and detach, put the breast halves and legs in Ziploc bags, and transport along with the carcass back home. At that point, I remove the beard, maybe the tail if it's really nice, and the rest goes into the trash. Very quick, and easy.
Where are you doing your float trip? Seems like the same method, sans the tailgate, would work just fine.

As far as eating goes- there are some great recipes for grilling wild turkey that I use. They involve marinating before cooking, and result in very tender, non-dried out table fare.

Same here.

+2

Bone out the breast and run it through a meat cuber. Like a pork cutlet. Then bread it and fry it.

My favorite recipe for wild turkey breast is as follows-

For two people, I use 1/2 of one turkey breast. Marinate overnight in Honey Dijon dressing.

Put on the grill at 325 degrees, I use a smoker box with cherry wood chips for smoke.

Cook for 5 minutes, turn over, insert meat thermometer, cook until internal temp. of 165 degrees is reached.

Comes off the grill juicy and tasty, IMO better than any domestic turkey.

Sounds like a good recipe for turkey!!!

breast it out, cut it up in to chunks and fry it like a chikfila chicken nugget.

now you might think I am cazy,i have shot a lot of turkeys but I usually tag one in the fall season when all sizes are legal, I now always shoot a smaller one better eating and more tender.those big tom`s sure look good but are tuff and not as tasty. same as a deer or a elk the smaller ones are always better to eat ! good luck ,Pete53

I agree with others, filet out the breast and call it good. I've tried the thighs and legs many diff ways and they're real tough unless you pressure cook or boil them for a long time. I keep all the legs and thighs on mine and either give them away or use them for crawfish bait.

I too skin the birdand cut down the breast bone and cut to finger size chunks,marinate with Italian dressing and garlic,,grille or fry.
As far as the beard,just pull it out a bit and cut at the base,zip cut the spurs as well.
good luck!!

Breast them out, throw the meat in the freezer for 4-5 yrs and then feed it to the dogs. Turkey sicles.

Tried eating them once, ....once

They tasted like muddy carp.

I've done about everything there is to do to clean a turkey. Plucked quite a few. It's not as bad as it sounds or others make it seem. I've skinned them. I wouldn't do that anymore. Mostly now I just breast them out and either grill them or crock pot em.

You can cut the beard off easy enough if you get some skin with it. I do the same for the tail. Youtube would show you a video I'm sure if you searched there.

The meat is decent, but dry. The legs are pretty useless unless you're starving as far as I'm concerned. They're stringy as hell and just not very good.

I have smoked them, bbq'd them, and deep fried them. Most always they come out tasting pretty good. The dark meat ain't much to talk about. However a breast injected with a mix of butter, curry powder, creole spice and grape jelly comes out mighty fine either deep fried or hot-smoked with pear wood.

I've had plucked and roasted birds that were great. The last one I did was a bird I killed during fall season and saved for thanksgiving. It was so tough we ended up having hamburgers. I threw it out in the back yard and my daughters cats had a hard time chewing the thing. Less risk in cutting the breast meat off and slicing it in steaks across the grain and frying or grilling them.

I use the same Gerber Gator knife I use for field dressing a deer for my Spring Turkey kinda like this:

Brest them out, then save the legs & thighs put them in a Crock Pot fill with Mt. Dew or ginger Ale, cook 8-10hrs Dam good eating! I used to throw them away till I learn about this way to fix them!

^^^^^^ This ^^^^^

I cut the beard off, cut the spurs off, cut the breast out, and use the rest of the carcass for coyote bait. On the first turkey I killed, I soaked it in hot water, picked the feathers off, and tried cooking it whole It was tougher than shoe leather, and my wife knows how to cook. Trying to keep anything other than the breast is just not worth it.

I keep the breast and thighs. I take them to my local shop and have summer sausage made. Guaranteed I’ll eat it!

That is a great idea.

I used to boil enough water to get a cooler filled enough I could dunk a whole bird.
The key was 185 degrees, dunk whole bird for 4-5 minutes or you can pluck feathers easily, you can literally grab fistfuls.
I would hang bird in my garage and pluck till naked then gut it out.
I would lastly take a torch and burn off the little itty bitty fine feathers and have a bird that looks store bought.
I would next bake, fry, broil or whatever and like others said the only thing worth eating was the breast.
Now days I just breast it out = even easier.

Wow, maybe it is my tightass family, but I would not even admit to breasting and chucking a turkey.

Not counting animals killed to be gotten rid of, I eat what I kill.


If someone posted that they pulled the back straps and cut off the horns, they would be flamed for days.

You ever eat a wild turkey leg?

Yep, legs with thighs roasted, make turkey salad or use with broth to make turkey and waffels.
Turkey and rice or noodle soup.

If you want a good eating turkey, hunt for a Butterball.
But, wild turkey can be made into good food.

. Asked my mother-in-law what she thought after eating some wild turkey. She said, well, it's not a Butterball.

Breastfeeding is good fried.

The rest,
requires more work.


Obviously, I typed breast, the rest was spellcheck!

Wild turkey leg is nothing more than solid stringy muscle and tendon.
Unchewable and I tried to like it.

It's like chewing on a mouthful of fishing line.

I'll take the thigh and legs all day long, Best part of the turkey, smother them down pot roast style, until they fall apart and you can pick out the spliters in the legs, Damn good stuff.

smothered turkey rice and gravy, potato salad and french bread

Yup

I just fillet them. Lots of good recipes for the Breast meat.
For the legs and thighs I crockpot them on low in chicken broth/water for 8 hours, let em cool and shred the meat. I use it in Chili, and my new favorite Enchilada's.
For the wings, I take out the bones for call making. Used to take out the primaries for fletching.
Not much waste but the rest gets fed to the wild critters out back.

Add 2 heaping Tablespoons roux!

Good god man, many of you need cooking lessons. Those that say store bought turkey tastes better than wild must have no taste buds. That mushy, bland stuff from the store is barely fit for my dogs. Second, if you are tossing the legs and thighs in the trash you are missing out on a ton of great meat. While no, you can not just throw on the grill for 5 minutes and have dinner but with a little forethought braising is an excellent way of cooking those tougher parts and transforming them into something delicious... like shredded turkey tacos, turkey pot pie, or smoked turkey soup.

Filet the breast meat off the bone and tenderize, marinate, batter and fry, keep the thighs and grind or use for fajitas, and the best part is the gizzard, heart, liver, and gonads for frying.

I also like cooking down the running gear till if falls apart.

I've caught some big ass catfish with the turkey insides.

That's a great way to put it! lmao.

Actually, I FIRMLY believe that a wild turkey is FAR better tasting than store bought, and I never waste anything from my birds, ever. I generally cook wings and thighs and carcass down and pull the meat for turkey soup with the saved broth, or turkey salad. Breasts are generally filleted and grilled. Sometimes I’ll fry the whole bird, skinless. Tender, juicy, and full of flavor..... which I can’t comprehend anyone ever saying about any store bird unless they brined it forever and injected it. I guess I would caveat that I’ve never eaten anything but acorn eating and bugging easterns and rios.

like wild birds,depends whats they been eating,i smoke them or deep fry them.real tender.

Do some of your states require particular parts of a bird to be used?

In Montana, the breast, thighs and wings are considered edible meat and are required to be taken. The legs are not.

I've tried the wings and thighs smoked, broiled, fried and whatever other way---and they all sucked (the breast too for that matter, but that's a different story). Almost makes me want to stop hunting them-or not.

These days I breast the bird out like many others have said above, cut into 1 inch cubes and soak in salt water overnight and then smoke it. It makes decent snacks. You could put them on salads, if you'll admit to eating those.

The wings and thighs I strip from the bone, then freeze and wait for when I have some deer or elk grind meat, then mix it in.

I think in Texas tossing the legs and thighs is illegal although done often.

Use the thighs for: Tamales, Gumbo, Soup, chili, Coq Au Van, Wet Smoked, In dry sausage, or one of the best is to slow cook the thighs and make meaty gravy then fry the breast and cover with the gravy over rice or mashed potatoes it is hard to beat.

Turkey sausage is one thing that recovering heart patients can eat. Make some for a friend in need.

The few I bagged in the past, I plucked, or skinned whole. Today, I whacked a nice 22 1/2 pounder and decided to breast him and pluck the legs and thighs in one piece. Still a good bit of work, but nothing like plucking one. I'll do the legs in a slow-cooker. If that makes deer shanks fall-off-the-bone tender (it does!), it'll do bird legs.

There's a LOT of meat on a big turkey, even leaving the wings and back.

Mentioned this on another thread, but aging gamebirds (especially old ones) helps tenderize them just like it does big game. We field-dress our turkeys, then keep 'em in a cooler for a week. Some of the older ones we part out, but use all the parts in various ways. A younger bird, plucked and roasted, is always better tasting than a store bird.

After I shot enough big Toms over the years I started taking Jakes. They taste better to me. I breast them and take both legs/thighs. They are great in Turkey soup. The breasts usually go in the crock pot or on the grill. A couple of times we picked them but the traditional baking isn't as good, to me anyway, as grilled or put in the crock pot.

We also make Turkey salad sandwiches with what is left.

I have pulled a lot of pheasants apart by standing on the wings and pulling on the legs but I don't know anybody who can pull a Turkey apart that way.

Ready for the oven....almost