Talkin' Turkey

Mongo

Mongo

Joined
Nov 5, 2001
Messages
8,969
Howdy all,
It's official... I am now suffering from terminal TURKEY FEVER. I had my first turkey hunting dream of the season this morning. I will be heading out at the end of this month to the NW corner of Illinois. Unfortunately, will only be a three day weekend due to work constraints. This will be my 7th or 8th spring season. I have only been successful TWICE! :eek::grumpy:

So... who here turkey hunts? Where do you hunt? What is your shootin' iron? (mine is Mossberg 835) Are you actually insane enough to BOW HUNT these damnable birds? What is/are your favorite call? Do you use a locater call? If so, which? What knife do you use to process your bird?

Oh... and yes, if you have pics... let's see 'em!
 
Had two good friends hammer nice birds last weekend. I had to pass due to family committments. It was the second weekend of the season, but the opener was during a huge rain storm, so this essentially was the opener. My buddy shot a nice tom about 20+ lbs. on Sonoma on a ranch we pig, deer, and turkey hunt. My other buddy had his son draw for a special DFG hunt in the northern part of the state. They called in a flock of jakes and hens, and the kid got a two-fer on jakes. I'm bummed I missed out. The weather is finally getting nice around here.

Oh yeah, to answer your questions, I usually hunt them in the Sonoma vineyard country near the coast (ranch where my buddy shot the tom). I try to do my best to call them in using a box call. I've got another month left and will get out for some in April.
 
I'm on my 5th season with only one bird to show for it.

I hunt either SW ont or Eastern Ont. I'm using my duck gun this year and shooting 3.5 #6 remmy HD out of it. I use whatever I have in my pocket to clean it. I may try to use the Hoyt on the second bird if I get one with a gun first.
 
I've been hunting them for thirty years here in Alabama. I have bagged 3 so far this season. It ends April 30th. We are covered up with them here in Alabama. I deer hunt as well but nothing compares, imho, to turkey huntin. Wanna look stupid. Go turkey hunting. When you least expect it, they will make you look stupid! I use a Remington 870 Wingmaster Magnum with rifled sight turkey barrel. Here's a pic of my son with one he shot a few days ago. To add, I once read somewhere that "if turkeys could smell, they would rule the earth"!!

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Good Luck,

Jim
 
Turkey is my favorite animal to hunt. It's just plain fun. And who can argue with hunting in the spring?

Haven't been out for the past couple years, but I should be able to try it at some point this spring. Benelli Montefeltro is my hunting gun. Northeast Nebraska is my area, generally. I have tried to bowhunt them once, but the only time I got out was a very impromptu hunt and I wasn't able to put an arrow into one. Haven't shot the bow in over a year so going to stick with the shotgun this year.

Bow season is already open here, saw a few people out last weekend.

Not terribly sure I have any good places to hunt lined up this year... may be a bit challenging this time around.

The toms were out strutting last weekend.
 
I haven't been successful with it, but my preferred weapon is a bow. My effective range with a shotgun or bow is roughly the same, and the bow makes that much more fun. I've shot a bunch of turkeys during the fall deer season (concurrent with fall turkey in many parts of Texas), but I have yet to be successful during the spring turkey season. I don't think I am going to get to make a spring trip this year...
 
It's probably the best type of hunting that you actively participate in, rather than just sitting and waiting. Using the calls and getting a bird hot is just too much fun. I usually get so involved with talking to the bird that I forget to shoot the damn thing, I'm having so much fun. I've taken a couple, no big trophy beards or anything. I've used a couple of different shotguns and I took a hen one fall at 75yds with a crossbow.

I've got a custom waterproof slate and a custom box call that were given to me by a friend some years ago. That fiberglass slate in a polycarbonate bowl produces the best purr that I've ever heard from a slate type call.

I'd like to get back into it, and coyote hunting too, but I don't have any place to go. Not a whole lot of time for it either. Blah!
 
I would rather hunt turkeys than anything else. I love the interaction. I use a Rem. 870 and I have a lot of different calls. Mostly use a slate call of some type. I've had good luck using an owl hoot to locate birds early on the roost. Crow calls seems to be more hit or miss, for me anyway. And I don't normally use decoys.

I mostly hunt my home state, but did get my Grand Slam in 07. I've tried bow hunting them but only been successful on a jake. So, mostly shotgun for me, but I have been considering a crossbow.

I did get to start my season early this year in TX. (Season starts April 16th in Ky) I went to visit relatives and had to turkey hunt while there. I got two nice toms right off the roost, both flew down right in front of me on two different mornings. Here's one.

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I had a knife made for my turkey hunting, by JK Handmade Knives. The Kentucky Fieldmate.

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Best of luck to everybody chasing turkeys.
 
Anybody making and using their own wingbone calls? I have two... each sounds a little different from the other. Last year, the ONLY call that was even half way intriguing to the Toms was one of the wingbones. They are fun to make, and rich in tradition.
 
I've glued up a few wingbone calls, but haven't really hunted much with them. A friend of mine has three on a lanyard that he hunts with- that's all the calls he carries. He suggested using hen bones if you want the call to sound like a hen.
 
Season started here in S.E. Kentucky Sat. (4-16-11). My little brother (Turkey George on here) took this ThunderChicken Yesterday(Sun. 4-17-11). He shot it with his Remington 870Xpress & Undertaker choke tube w/ Winchester Supreme 3" Turkey Loads. He used a mouth(diaphram)call. He used his C.U.B. knife by Bryan Breeden to dress the Turkey. This Tom had a 9" beard & 3/4" spurs. We don't call him Turkey George for nothing !
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Nice bird!! Winchester Supreme 3" are my favorite shells for turkey's. They throw a fantastic pattern with an Undertaker choke tube. After using them, I just don't see any reason for a 3.5" shell. I had a buddy who used to insist on using a 3.5" and I always asked why? One day, we were patterning our guns and I had much tighter patterns at every range out to 60 yds with the 3" Winchester Supreme's, and the recoil is much less than the bigger shell too. I asked him again, why? He had no answer but still insisted on shooting them.

He must have been compensating for other things. I told him that 1/2 an inch doesn't make it better. :p
 
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i've always heard turkey vision equates to ours with a 7 power binocular. we usually shoot from feeded blinds but lately the texas drought has slimmed the sightings. most of us like the 223 or 243 with scopes. central & west texas is pretty open so 100 yd. shots are likely. we use folders to breast them out, i do'nt think these roving trotters have edible legs. certainly one of the most interesting big birds on the planet.--dennis
 
We're only allowed to use shotguns or archery in KY. I think that a .22 Mag or a .22 Hornet would be a perfect rifle for turkeys. I breast out the ones that I clean, but I know people that bone out the legs and wings too and make a stew or cook it in gravy. The legs and wings are too much of a pain the butt to mess with, IMO.
 
In the past, I did the whole dress them out thing. IF I get lucky enough this year, I will save the beard, spurs and tail for mount and breast out the carcass for eating. I will also save the wings to make two more wing-bone calls. The legs?... if my hunting partner wants them, he is welcome to them. He claims to make jerky out of them, but I haven't seen any of it! (I'm pretty sure he'd share...)
 
The legs makes a great stock. Just pop the leg out of the hip socket, skin it out boil with some carrots and celery and onion. I just freeze it and use it like chicken stock.
 
I'm a deer hunter who also hunts turkey, small game, etc. My hunting is done *almost* exclusively with my longbow (Howard Hill Halfbreed). Between that and the fact that I'm very much a noob at turkey hunting, I've yet to bag one (though I've called several into bow range).

The expression in this pic says it all - snapped moments after being busted trying to draw on a nice gobbler...
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For calling, I use an owl call a very little bit, but mostly it's a yelps on a diaphragm for me.

---

Beckerhead #42
 
Nice bird Bonez! How bout some details? What type call did you use? Set-up? Location?
 
Me and my buddy setup at a field edge that we've been watching for a few weeks. There are around 9 males in it. For whatever reason they decided to change the roost from the back wood lot to the front the day before the opener. So instead of walking right by our setup they ended up in the next field and walked into the back wood lots from the other side. We decided to ditch our dekes and run-n-gun towards where the birds went.

After hearing the 2 of the toms breed all the hens (we counted 6 hens and we heard all 6 sqeal), we decided to give it a few call. We were using HS and Primo mouth, call they responded right away. After about 10 mins the 2 birds were in view but behind some brush right at around 40yds. They just wouldn't come any closer, so my buddy took 2 shots at the bird on the right, missing both times. In the confusion this bird flew left towards me, but I was under the impression at the time that this was the bird my buddy shot, so i stood up looking for the other bird.

This one started to flat out run the other way when my buddy told me to shoot it. I remember yelling where's the other bird! He told me to shoot the one on the left, so I clipped him with a shot right on the neck and he folded nicely to a round of 3.5 remmy HD 6s.

I spent all winter picturing the opener hunt, looking down the barrel and aiming for his head, but ended up wingshooting it like a giant crippled honker.

Eitherway, it tastes great.
 
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