Restuarant owners love to hear that the turkeys weren’t gobbling that day because they fill up around 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. with hunters looking for breakfast who gave up for the day. We can and MUST break this dependance on gobbling to hunt turkeys, and if you are hunting right, you never need to hear a gobble to hunt all morning and fill your tag. Listen to this podcast episode to hear it all!
Turkeys gobble for a number of reasons, it is not solely about mating. And they may gobble year-round. Likewise, turkeys can mate without gobbling, it is certainly not required. In fact, they will often not gobble while mating. Weather plays a part in gobbling as well, as do many various other factors, many of which are not fully understood. What we know for sure is that if we hear a turkey, we know one is there. But the opposite is hardly true. Not hearing a turkey only means you don’t hear a turkey.
First things first, you should not pick a hunting location based on gobbling, you should select it because of sign. Real, tangible evidence that turkeys are in that area. If you scout and do that, you will have something that very few turkey hunters have. Confidence. You can be confident that whether you hear them or not, gobblers are in that area, and you have a chance to call one it and take it home.
Most turkey hunters have no confidence, if they do not hear turkeys, they assume they do not exist and are not in their area. And without scouting, there is no reason to think they are in your area. So, the hunter who scouts well is not fazed by a lack of vocalizing toms, but the hunter who does not scout has no reason to stick it out if they do not hear any birds.
You can hunt and take turkeys no matter what sounds they make or do not make. It may require a change in strategy, it might take some different tactics, but you absolutely hunt them. And taking a turkey that never gobbled is no less fun! In fact, it is a great challenge, greater feat, and often feels like a greater accomplishment.
Turkey hunting is not birdwatching. If you work hard and do not take the easy way out, you will find turkey nuggets on your table again and again.
Most the time it is easy to tell the difference between male and female turkeys, but sometimes it is strangely difficult. Bearded hens can make things more complicated but a lot more can happen that makes it even harder to tell the difference between a hen and a gobbler.
People often ask, what percentage of hens have beards? The answer should be simple but data from researchers varies greatly between 3% and 20%. The most commonly accepted statistic I have found is around 10% of hens have beards. And hen beards tend to be shorter, thinner, and less pronounced than the beard of tom. However, what normally happens is not what always happens.
Hens and toms can share a lot of traits they aren’t supposed to have at times. Hens can have plumage similar to gobblers at times. Gobblers can have no spurs, lighter colors, and different head colorings. Some hens can be larger than normal and some toms can be smaller than usual.
At the end of the day some turkeys can be so mix-matched that it is not possible for even a trained hunter to properly identify them in the field, even if they have them in hand. You may think I’m joking, but occasionally a bird comes along that even biologists cannot identify without checking its reproductive parts.
The big thing hunters need to know is what are the laws for taking a bird. If a turkey is legal and you want to take it, you probably should. People often say that killing a bearded hen is the same as killing a whole hatch of poults. But the truth is that predation and winter kill more turkeys than anything else.
That bearded hen may get eaten by a coyote by the end of the day. The whole hatch may never last a week if foxes and crows find it. Very few of those birds will live long enough to see the winter and fewer still will survive to breed. Nature consumes many of the turkeys that hunters think they are saving.
But the bottom line is this, if as an seasoned turkey hunter you have come to a point where you prefer to pass on bearded hens for the chance it may help the population then you should. If you’ve never taken a turkey before and you see a legal bird, and you want to take it, you should. Each hunter needs to follow their heart and conscience, not the collective input of Facebook groups.
There are not many things we hunt where hearing matters more than it does for turkeys. Every gobble, cluck, purr, scratch, and footstep provides us with the strategic audio input we need to hunt these majestic birds. And yet the very practice of hunting turkeys damages our ears, both from gunshots but also loud calling. On this episode I interview Dr. Bill Dickinson, an audiologist and founder of Tetra Hearing, to talk about how important our hearing is and what we can do to protect and restore it.
Tetra Hearing Free 2-Year Service Plan. Just add this Service Plan to your cart and use this code at checkout: NEWHUNTERSGUIDE
Most people do not think that one or two shotgun shots a year hunting turkey is enough to damage their hearing. The truth is, one shot, the next shot, could be the one that changes your hearing forever. And if it’s not, it can take a just a little bit more of your hearing away. Most people lose a little here and there until all of a sudden, they realize they have a real problem.
But perhaps even more harmful than shotgun noise is loud calling. A box call or glass call can easily exceed the safe hearing threshold and cause you hearing damage every day you walk into the woods whether you pull the trigger or not.
But if people do not protect their hearing hunting turkeys, they likely do not protect it hunting pheasants, deer, ducks, doves and other game. And every day you walk into the woods you are hurting your hearing for next season. You are also hurting your hearing for work, family, and everything else you will do for the rest of your life.
Hearing protection is not just important, it is crucial. And thankfully we have more amazing options available today than ever before in history to protect our hearing and even help us hunt better. Tetra Hearing has created the most sophisticated hearing protection and augmentation technology ever seen.
This is not just technology that prevents hearing loss, but it compensates for hearing loss and then enables you to hear the game that you are hunting from further away than you could normally, even with perfect hearing. Dr. Bill has created something truly amazing and special that is bringing back the joy of hunting for so many who were no longer able to hear turkeys gobble. And it is enabling a generation to protect their hearing and enabling them to hunt for a lifetime without sacrificing one of their senses every day spent afield.
On this episode Dr. Bill breaks down some of the complexities of the human hear and how it works, the technology that goes into protecting it and enhancing our hunting. But more than that he shares how important hearing is at all levels of life. His work truly celebrates this amazing sense God has given us and all of the great things that flow out of it into our lives.
Listen to full podcast episode to hear the interview, stories, tech, and much more. And you can watch my review of the AlphaShield’s below.
When it comes to hunting spring turkeys, there is one thing that trumps gear, strategy, calling, ammo, stealth, and everything else. And that is SIGN. You could be the greatest turkey hunter in the world, a championship winning caller, with the best equipment that money can buy, shooting gold platted TSS shells accurate to 100 yards and none of it will matter at all if there are no turkeys there. Finding and hunting over sign is the single most important part of turkey hunting.
You can make a lot of mistakes chasing gobblers and still get opportunities, still get seemingly “lucky” and take birds home. You can sp0ok birds day after day, you can miss birds, bump them, call badly, and worse, and still occasionally find success IF there are turkeys there to be hunted. It happens all the time.
But you can also waste days, weeks, and entire seasons hunting in places where there are no turkeys to be found. Sometimes they are areas that look like they should hold turkeys, sometimes they are areas with perfect food and habitat, and sometimes they are just traditional or convenient hunting areas. But none of that matters to the turkeys and will give them any reason to be there. We need to find them and go to the places where they are.
Scouting is an unending part of turkey hunting. We should scout before the season, during the season, and after the season if we want to find areas that have turkeys this year and may have turkeys again in future hunting seasons. Turkeys are sometimes drawn to specific areas and habitat year-after-year because in the spring it is quality turkey habitat. And if you can find a few of those honey holes, then current and past scouting can pay off by providing future benefit. But every year we need to be on the lookout for sign.
Sign comes in many forms and in this episode, I talk about numerous ways to find it and make good turkey hunting strategy decisions. Listen to the full podcast episode for more!
Hunting spring turkey is one of the most fun and unique hunting experiences in the world. These are majestic birds, large, powerful, cunning, and a culinary delight for those who know how to unlock their potential.
I was completely hooked after my first turkey hunt, there was no going back. The sights and sounds, the thrill, the challenge, were all like nothing I had ever experienced. And the truth is, you can experience all of this and have success by just following a few realistic principles.
There is no shortage of books and articles on how to hunt spring turkeys, but I have found that very few of them are practical for people brand new to the sport. People who want to get into the woods and taste turkey hunting without devoting hundreds of hours to study and practice. No, this article will not make up for a lifetime of experience in a few minutes, but it will enable you to pursue spring turkeys with a fair chance at filling your tags!
If you want to take the plunge and go in all the way, check out my archive ofturkey hunting podcast episodeswhere I have years’ worth of free turkey hunting content organized and sorted by subject matter. I will also use this article as an outline to organize videos, articles, and podcast episodes so you can do deeper in many of these areas. Use this resource, bookmark it, and study it to learn everything you can!
How To Find Good Turkey Habitat
Turkey habitat often shifts year-round. Where you saw birds in the fall or winter is not always indicative of where they will be in the spring. In the springtime turkeys are mating and they flock to habitat that is ideal for that mission. I have found that some areas hold few turkeys year-round but, in the springtime, they are turkey magnets, every year. The reason is they have the perfect blend of cover, open areas, food, roosting trees, and hiding places.
Turkeys are ground birds, but they sleep, or roost, in trees for protection. Every morning they fly down and begin to eat, socialize, and mate. So, this time of year they look for a unique mix of habitat features. They need big trees to roost in and they also need ground cover for safety, both so they can hide and so they cay nest and lay their eggs.
But cover alone is not enough, they need space. Birds want large open areas where they can see predators from afar, where they can see other turkeys from afar, and where they can easily move and forage.
Groves of hardwoods are frequented by turkeys in the spring, clearings and empty fields are often used, but as vegetation begins to get too high as the season progresses, they may shift to other areas. You see in addition to making it easier to spot predators and food, turkeys need to see each other.
The tom, AKA gobbler, the male turkey will gobble, puff out his feathers, and strut to attract mates. Those hens, the female turkeys, need to be able to see these displays to be attracted to them. If all the vegetation is four feet high, this is not likely to happen. So, they search out open areas.
The single largest mistake that turkey hunters of all ages and experience levels make is they do not scout for turkeys before they hunt. There is no greater thing you can do to succeed hunting spring gobblers than scout for birds and hunt where they are.
Whether it is public land or private property, you MUST first determine if there are turkeys around. Spending money on high end gear or becoming a master caller will do nothing to help you unless there are birds around to hunt.
You do not need to scout for weeks and weeks either. Often just a few outings into the woods is all you need to find an area with turkey activity. Now scouting is its own discipline that you will grow in over the course of your life but there are a few main things to look for.
Tukey tracks – Tracks are maybe the most distinguishable sign you can search out. It is ideal to go looking for tracks 1-2 days after a good soaking rain. This can wash away old tracks and soften the ground, so new footprints are easy to see. Look in moist areas and places you can see bare dirt or mud; puddles are also a good place to find tracks. Nothing leaves a track quite like a turkey. Do not worry so much about trying to identify tracks as male or female, if you have one nearby you will likely have both.
Turkey gobbles – If you go in early to mid-morning, you may very well hear turkeys gobbling, especially a few weeks before the season. The gobble tells you everything you need to know, yes there are male turkeys here, and they are in that direction.
Turkey droppings – If the weather is dry and the ground is too hard for tracks, droppings can tell you what you need to know and can be found in the same places. The dry weather that makes it hard to leaves tracks actually enables droppings to stay visible longer. Logging roads, gas line roads, potential feeding or strutting zones can be good spots to look.
Turkey scratches – Turkeys spend a lot of the day eating, and often scratch up the leaves looking for old mast, bugs, grubs, or anything else they can scrounge up on the forest floor. If they spend a lot of time in an area you should be able to find patches of leaves that have been disturbed.
Turkey feathers & strut zones – Sometimes turkeys just lose feathers going about their business, but strut zones are prime places for feathers to wear loose while toms are puffed out and strutting their stuff. If you find feathers you know there were turkeys, there.
Turkey images – Trail cameras can be a hunter’s best friend for scouting. Set these on trails, clearings, or food sources to see if you can locate any turkey activity. The best thing is you can see what time of day the birds were there.
I scout year-round in a sense but practically speaking it is most efficient to head out starting maybe three weeks before the season begins. It is the last week before the season starts that matters the most. For more info on scouting, check out these podcast episodes that I created for you.
I say it all the time, the best shotgun for a new turkey hunter to use is the one they already have, can easily borrow, or buy used and cheap. The reason is you need to get into the woods and actually hunt to learn if you like turkey hunting and to learn what kind of gun features really matter to you. Spending a lot of money your first year on a turkey gun could easily get you a shotgun that is not a good fit for your style and preferences.
Keep in mind, most turkeys are taken with the first shot. Rarely does a second shot bring home a turkey. And the third shot only serves to let every other hunter in the woods know that you missed with the first two shots. Almost any shotgun can be a good turkey gun.
I am partial to semi-automatic shotguns and recently upgraded to a Mossberg 940 Pro Turkey with a Holosun 507k red dot,full shotgun and optic review here. But you can use anything to great effect, a single shot, and over-under, a pump action, even a bolt action shotgun will work just fine. You only really need one shot.
People ask maybe the most questions about ammo and what they should use. For me it is simple. Start with lead, specifically theWinchester Long Beard XR. There is no better lead turkey load on the market, there is no close second place either. It is the best.
Then once you have your bearings, upgrading to TSS #9 shot can help give you some extended range if you are taking far shots. I have done reviews on BOSS Tom and APEX Turkey. Both are great. But start with lead, it is much cheaper and frees up budget and focus for other things you need to get started.
Gearing Up For Turkey Hunting
One of my favorite things about turkey hunting is that you do not need much gear at all to get started. If you have arms and ammo covered, you can get by with one call, some camo and piece of foam to sit on. That is it. Granted, some additional gear can certainly help and I recommend more gear, but you have to start where your budget allows.
However, I do really like how you can be a minimalist turkey hunter and carry very little in and out of the woods with you. Here is a video I did going over the bare bones of gear.
To go further still, here is a podcast episode I did on the subject:Turkey Hunting Gear – Beginners Guide. Like every other kind of hunting, you can buy more than you need. Just focus on the core components of turkey hunting, you need to stay warm, stay dry, sit for periods of time, call to turkeys, and be concealed. I’ll talk about decoys and calls more in coming sections, but do not over think this. Less is more!
How Turkeys Are Hunted
Turkeys are hunted during the spring breeding season, a time of year where their patterns and behavior change drastically, making them much more fun to hunt.
To make a long story short, toms are trying to attract mates in the spring. So they gobble to let hens know they are around. When they gobble they expect the hens that want to breed to come to them.
To take it further, they will puff out their feathers, spread out their tail fan and strut to display their size and strength to entice hens and demonstrate their place in the pecking order. The tom expects the female turkeys to come when they call or at least come for a look and the strutting works to seal the deal. Turkey hunters make hen calls to try and entice the toms to come to them. This tactic goes against nature, yet it still often works.
A lonely tom is likely to come find a mate if he can hear her. The challenge comes when he gobbles and then expects the hen to come to him. The hunter often calls back repeatedly trying to get the tom to gobble more because it is exciting. However, this often causes problems.
If the hen is very eager, she should go to the tom, or she may entice the tom to stop his advance and begin strutting instead. Over calling has caused many problems for many turkey hunters. More on that later.
The goal is to call just as much as is needed to get the tom to come into shotgun range, no more no less. Though that can take a lifetime to perfect. But the bottom line here is call as needed and be stealthy and shoot the bird when it comes into range. That is how the game is usually played.
Basic Turkey Hunting Strategy
There are three turkey hunting strategies that are probably the most used. They include sitting, running and gunning, and active recon. There is no right and wrong way, there is no best and worst way. Often it depends on the situation, the land, the conditions, and the opportunities and limitations you have to pick the best option for you.
Sitting. There are many ways to determine when and how to sit but let’s keep it simple. You decided based on scouting that an area is good for turkey hunting, so you come in before dawn and lean up against a big tree or setup a hunting blind. You then wait to hear gobbling or for legal shooting light and work to call the turkeys into your position.
Running and gunning. This involves actively covering ground and stopping every few hundred yards to call and see if there are any close by turkeys that will answer you. Then you take up a good position and ambush them as they come in. This works, it can be fun, but you need to have a lot of land you can cover, and it can take a lot of energy out of you.
Active recon. This hunting style involves getting into the woods early and trying to find a listening post. Somewhere with some elevation and you can hear a long way off. You wait until you hear the first gobbles, even as far as half a mile away, and then move into position for the most promising prospect. You want to get within maybe 200 yards or less of where the turkey is roosted or loafing and then try to call the bird in.
Many people begin the morning hunting one way and then finish the hunt another way. This can work great to break things up and give you some variety, if you have enough land and opportunities to do so. I have talked alot about turkey hunting strategy on my podcast, here is a great episode to get started with:4 Strategies To Hunt Spring Turkey.
Basic Turkey Calls & Calling
There are many different kinds of turkey calls you can buy, build, or improvise. Slate calls, glass calls, mouth calls, box calls, push pull calls, wing bone calls, and dozens more. You do not need to be a good caller with all of them, in fact you only really need to learn how to use one or two to be effective.
I believe that the box call is the best one for new hunters to learn, it is one of the easier calls and you will use it your entire turkey hunting career. Fancy calls do look pretty and can have nice tones, but I’ve called in plenty of birds witha simple cheap box call just like this one.
Turkey calling is a lifelong pursuit, a skill that you continually develop and refine season after season. That said, you can gain 80% of the benefits from 20% of the skills. Which is a great thing for new hunters. There are three main calls you need to learn.
The Yelp – This is the main turkey call that hens make when trying to locate a gobbler. If you know nothing else, you can still kill turkeys with this one.
The Cluck – This is a short loud note often used for locating other turkeys but also by excited hens.
The Purr – These are low soft tones used to put other turkeys at ease and to let gobblers know there is a hen around here somewhere.
Typing long paragraphs about how to call makes difficult writing and even more difficult reading, so here is a video to help you learn more.
Decoys or No Decoys?
The question of whether or not you should use decoys to hunt turkeys is not an age-old question. It is a very modern question. Only in the last few decades have decoys become both popular and accessible.
Decoys do bring some advantages under certain hunting conditions. However, they also have some significant disadvantages under other hunting conditions. Personally, I do not believe the new hunter needs to use decoys, in fact I recommend against it.
You are more likely to hurt your chances of success than help them if you are new to the sport of turkey hunting. However, this is a lot behind that recommendation, alot of experience, science, and perspective. Which is why I wrote an entire article on the subject. Check it out to learn more: How To Hunt Turkeys Without Decoys & Be Even More Successful.
The 3 Big Mistakes To Avoid
I think there are three things that cost hunters more turkeys than every other common or uncommon mistake combined. These are problems that can change the course of your turkey hunting career if you can fix them now. And you can absolutely fix them, it may require a little bit of effort, but it is doable.
Not stealthy enough. This is the biggest issue. Turkey hunters are too noisy and move too much. Lack of stealth does not just cost you the birds you see running away, it costs you birds that you never knew where there. They snuck in at 100 yards out of view, heard or saw you and melted away without leaving a trace. Practice walking quietly, sitting quietly, doing everything with the upmost attention to sound and motion, and you will see and shoot more turkeys.
Over calling. This is the easiest problem to fix. All you have to do is nothing. Just call less. And stop calling when the bird starts to come in. Calling nonstop all morning is not natural, hens do not do it. You must call less often, and even when you do get a gobbler excited, you can get and keep him too excited, and he may stop at 100 yards and strut and never get close enough. Soft calling is maybe the most underestimated turkey hunting skill. I did a whole podcast episode on the subject: The Art Of Soft Calling – The Turkey Hunting Advice Of Sages.
Underestimating range. Almost all new turkey hunters will underestimate how far away a turkey is. They figure it’s 30 yards and it’s really about 50. They assume 40 yards and its closer to 80. We have all been there and have most all taken shots at hopeless distances only to scare the birds away, or worst wound them to die slowly and painfully over the next few days or weeks.
Learning to judge your distance is not only better for hunting but it ensures that birds do not suffer needlessly. Get a cheap range finder and just practice estimating and checking distances when you are scouting. If you need to, get higher grade ammo like TSS shot that will give you more margin to ethically take longer range shots.
Conclusions
So, what are the big conclusions for those who have read this far? First and foremost, this is not just an article packed with information, it is also filled with resources. This guide is an outline that links you to the in-depth information you need to become an effective turkey hunter and I will add more resources and links to it over time.
Be attentive to the podcast episodes, videos, and other articles and resources that I linked to. I created and organized all of these resources over the course of years. Use them to become a great turkey hunter and send me pictures of your first couple birds!
Till next time. God bless you, and go get em in the woods!
George Konetes Ph.D. – Founder and Host of the New Hunters Guide.
The New Hunters Guide is simply what George wishes he would have had when learning how to hunt; a single place to get practical hands on knowledge about different kinds of hunting, gear, strategy, and tips that can improve your comfort and fun factor in the woods.
Not every turkey hunter needs the same gear, in fact two hunters in the same town could need very different gear depending on their individual hunting style. On this episode I talk through some of the specifics of different turkey hunting styles, the type of gear that best supports each and how you can build a set of gear for cheap.
There are numerous factors that can affect what kind of gear works best with different hunting’s styles. Some of the most popular way to hunt turkeys include:
Hunting one spot all day – This is similar to deer hunting and could be done in conjunction with calling or just as ambush hunting. The biggest gear challenge is keeping warm, quiet, and comfortable for long stealthy sits.
Running and gunning – A favored style because hunters are on the move, covering ground, trying to strike up a conversation with a lonely gobbler. Here you need gear that is light weight, keeps you dry, and lets you walk long distances unhindered.
Moving and sitting – This is the toughest gear challenge because you need to stay warm sitting for long periods of time and need a high degree of mobility without overheating. People often struggle with this type of gear because you tend to wear too much or too little.
Keep in mind you do not need super expensive gear to be comfortable and effective, you just need gear that is designed to help you do whatever style of hunting you prefer. The right gear matters more than gear that is expensive.
Listen to the podcast episode to hear how to optimize your turkey hunting gear.
The first shot I ever took of APEX TSS Turkey hunting ammunition put 297 pellets into a 10″ at 40 yards. Before the morning was through, I found a choke tube that would give me 378 pellets in that same circle at the same range. To put that into perspective, that is a dinner plate with almost 400 holes in it, we are talking about devastating effectiveness. Most lead turkey loads do not even have that many pellets in the shell!
The APEX TSS Turkey loads have demonstrated the best pattern efficiency of any turkey load I have ever shot as of this writing. The patterns are amazing. And as I understand it, others have gotten even tighter patterns with tighter chokes. Now there does come a point where the pattern can be too tight but more on that later.
The bottom line is this ammo is impressively effective and I could not rate it any more highly. But there is more to it than that. If you are considering this ammo or any TSS turkey shells, this review will provide you with insights and data from my firsthand first tests.
If you are looking for more info on turkey hunting shotguns, ammo, and chokes, check out these podcast episodes I have done on the subject:
The two most asked questions regarding turkey hunting ammo of this caliber are:
Is that level of performance really necessary?
Is this TSS Ammo worth the price?
After having done some tests with the APEX and hunting with TSS in general, those are easy questions to answer. For the first question, yes, this kind of performance is absolutely necessary IF you plan to hunt beyond 40 yards. Is it worth the price? Yes, IF you plant to hunt beyond 40 yards.
Tungsten Super Shot gives you increased range and lethality at range. That is its greatest strength. If you plan to hunt at 25-35 yards, it just is not needed. You can use much cheaper lead shot, like Winchester Long Beard XR to easily and efficiently take birds at close to mid-range. TSS shot gives you the ability to punch out further, to hunt at truly extended ranges. And if you want that flexibility, there is no substitute for the power and patterns that APEX brings to the hunt.
How Many Pellets Do You Need?
My rule of thumb that I use for all turkey hunting ammo of all sizes and densities is 100 pellets in a 10″ circle at the range you plan to shoot. At close range, almost anything will work for turkey hunting, lead target loads, steel, bismuth, anything. When you get to the 40 yard line however, your choices are very few if you want to get 100 pellets in a 10″ circle. There are a handful of lead loads that are up to the task, like the Winchester Long Beard.
If you want to hunt beyond 40 yards, lead quickly drops below the pattern density threshold. Even though the marketing sometimes quotes things like “Putting twice the pellets in a 10″ circle than comparable turkey loads out to 60 yards” you need to ask what are they really claiming? They are saying their lead turkey ammo is twice as good as others, but none of them live up to the standard of 100 pellets in a 10″ circle at 60 yards. But APEX TSS Turkey does.
Pattern & Ballistics Gel Test Results
I put APEX to the test at 40 yards and at 60 yards with the same Carlson’s 0.670 turkey choke and here is what I saw: 378 pellets of #9 shot at 40 yards with 170 pellets at 60 yards. This means that at 60 yards, the APEX is more effective than almost every lead load on the market is at 40 yards. These shells easily give you the ability to punch out to 70 yards, perhaps more if you have a tighter patterning choke than I did.
You might wonder if these tiny #9 TSS pellets still pack enough punch to get the job done. Well from my field testing, the #9 TSS has about 32% more power at 40 yards than lead #6, which gives it almost as much ballistics gel penetration as lead #4. And at 50 yards, the APEX TSS still had 3.26″ of gel penetration. Which is mind blowing. That is a lot of numbers, but what it means is that at range the TSS #9 packs similar power to the largest lead shot that is legal to use in my state.
I tested the APEX TSS Turkey in 3″ shells with 2.25 oz of #9 tungsten shot going at 1150 FPS using a Mossberg 940 Pro Turkey shotgun with a 24″ barrel topped with a Holosun 507k red dot. For even more, check out my video where I pattern tested multiple chokes with the APEX TSS Turkey ammo:
Can A Pattern Be Too Tight?
It can be easy to get the impression that a tighter pattern is always better, and with TSS you can actually get to the point where a pattern can be too tight. Of course, pattern density is relative to range, so if you go far enough even the tightest pattern becomes perfect. But at close range, a pattern can be so tight that you are able to miss a turkey.
If your pattern is softball sized at 20 yards so you can have a tight pattern at 60 yards, then it can be like trying to hunt turkeys with a slug gun or a rifle when you are only aiming for head shots.
I personally still want to have some margin of error at 20 and 30 yards so I can take birds that come in that close. So for me, the patterns I got with the Carlsons .670 turkey choke were ideal. Some people aim for even tighter patterns to be able to shoot even further, and that is cool, but I cannot see myself needing to shoot past 70 yards where I hunt. For my hunting area, a good realistic long-range shot is about 50-55 yards. I cannot see much further than that.
Here are some additional videos I’ve done on turkey hunting ammo to help you take things to the next level.
So, it is not all rainbows and sunshine with these loads, there are a couple of cons. First, the recoil is major. For one or two shots under the adrenaline of hunting conditions, its ok. But for pattern testing at the range, the kick is brutal. I would recommend sizing down from the 2.25 oz to the 2.0 oz 12-gauge version to trim off some recoil energy.
Just shedding that 0.25 oz of shot cuts recoil from about 66 foot-pounds of recoil energy to 54 foot-pounds. That is a major help to the shoulder. A semi-auto shotgun can also help, check out this article I did on the subject: Do Semi-Auto Shotguns Have Less Recoil REALLY?All TSS that is hotly loaded will have the same concerns, thankfully APEX has enough load options that you can pick how much shot and recoil you want.
Second, the cost is high on TSS shells, coming in at nearly $13 per shell. You can save some if you step down to 2.0 oz version as well. They are about the same price as other TSS loads on the market, if not a little less expensive. They compare well, but TSS turkey ammo in general is expensive.
As I said early on, it is worth it if you are going to use it to its full potential. Most hunters shoot one or two shells a year in the field so a box of 5 shells may last you 3 years or more once you are sighted in, that is not a bad investment for the best turkey ammo on the market. But if you are going to hunt at short range with it, save the money and buy lead.
Conclusion & Recommendation
The APEX TSS Turkey loads are just devastatingly effective. So much so that a 20 gauge is probably more than enough for most hunting scenarios. There is really no need for the more heavily loaded 3.5″ 12-gauge shells either. In fact, this ammo really does make a 28-gauge shotgun viable for turkey hunting, those shells still have 477 pellets of #9 TSS in them.
In conclusion, I also really like APEX as a company. It is a veteran owned American company with a great story and high quality. These TSS turkey shells demonstrate outstanding performance at a good market price, and they are viable on their own merits. Being able to support a great company is just another big benefit in my book.
Till next time. God bless you, and go get em in the woods!
George Konetes Ph.D. – Founder and Host of the New Hunters Guide.
The New Hunters Guide is simply what George wishes he would have had when learning how to hunt; a single place to get practical hands on knowledge about different kinds of hunting, gear, strategy, and tips that can improve your comfort and fun factor in the woods.
As a note, APEX kindly provided me these shell as my request to do this review, and Carlson’s and Muller provided the chokes, thanks to them for their support.
Most turkey hunters are not equipped with the gear or tactics to hunt turkeys on super cold spring mornings. But gear can be acquired or improvised, and the strategy changes are not hard to adapt to. On this podcast episode I talk about how to successfully hunt turkeys on the coldest days of the season.
Remember the turkeys are always out there. They can be hunted, even if they don’t gobble. They are still doing many of the same things even if they are not vocal. The key is being extra alert, expecting them to come in without making a sound. You can have great success on fridged days, especially if the cold keeps other hunters out of the woods.
Ice cold spring turkey hunting gear needs are rather unique. The ideal gear is something between deer and elk hunting in nature to accommodate covering rough terrain as well as long sits. Most of the time, turkey hunters are not buying premium base layers and outer layers optimized for the job. Their gear is either not warm enough or not wind proof enough, or maybe it is too noisy or too bulky. Or perhaps their gear causes them to overheat when moving and then freeze from sweat when sitting.
You can overcome both of these challenges however with smart thinking and paying careful attention to gear you can find good deals on in the off season. Some gear can be improvised if you know exactly what you need it to do and what qualities it should have.
However, if you don’t have the equipment and the strategies, the easiest way to deal with these cold days is just stay home and hunt another day. That is not a terrible option. Why risk being miserable or getting sick? If its only a couple days a year, you can easily just skip them and hunt turkeys on the better days. Remember, hunting is ALL ABOUT HAVING FUN and if this kind of hunting isn’t fun, just hold out for better days. There is no shame in that at all.
But if you want to hunt these days, you can, and you can be effective. That drive can push you to cobble together the needed equipment and be patient enough to effectivity use the strategies I discuss in this episode.
Listen to this podcast episode to hear about how to hunt gobblers in the cold.
These were the words of a real turkey hunter. And while that story is sad, it does not need to be your story, in fact it shouldn’t be! On this episode I talk about all the preventable things that bog down hunters and hinder success as well as the very simple straight forward things you can do to make sure you never fall into a sad pattern like this.
Turkey hunting is seldom easy but it’s not impossible or mystical. If you can find turkeys, you have a reasonable chance of being able to get one on any given day. And if you don’t, you take what you learned today and use it to improve your chances tomorrow. That is what turkey hunting is all about, you hunt and you learn, then you hunt more. Constantly improving and learning.
To take birds more seasons than you don’t, you need to do a handful of very simple things, like learn, change, and repeat. If you can do that, and you invest some reasonable amount of time hunting, you will become a proficient and effective turkey hunter in time.
Some people learn so much about their local area that it becomes too easy to them, and they feel compelled to change things in order to up the difficulty more. But what they are really doing is stretching to learn more in new areas or new ways.
The internet has split opinions on whether ported choke tubes reduce felt recoil in a shotgun. The debate is fierce and there are strong arguments on both sides. I will give an overview of the some of the key points here. But instead of weighing the merits of various opinions, I got my hands on a recoil meter, some ported and un-ported choke tubes, various kinds of ammo and decided to put this to the test once and for all.
I studied and searched for some time to find an objective way to measure this phenomenon and get some real data on the subject. I was shocked at how little there is written or published on the subject and how hard it is to objectively measure recoil in even quasi-scientific ways. But after much research, I found a way to examine this.
I should state up front, I have no vested interest in whether or not choke tubes effect recoil. I only want to know the truth so I can know what to buy and shoot for myself. And I figured other people might want to know as well, hence the study, videos, and articles I’ve published. Recoil is a big subject when it comes to hunting, to go deep on that subject in general, check out my podcast episode: What Hunters Need To Know About Recoil.
Why Might Ported Chokes Help?
The idea is that the porting on a choke tube enables gas to vent out perpendicular to the barrel, so it does not exit the muzzle of the barrel. The less gas escaping through the muzzle, the less felt recoil there will be. That is a fair hypothesis, it makes sense, and the physics line up. The big question is whether or not this effect is large enough to make any measurable difference. And that is the main question I set out to answer with these experiments.
There are some other hypotheses though. Some expect the porting in the choke to reduce muzzle rise and recoil similar to a muzzle brake. Ported muzzle breaks are designed in such a way that aggressively cut channels angle escaping gas upward and toward the shooter thus creating a downward and forward force which mitigates rear pushing felt recoil. Muzzle breaks are real, they really do this, and they can have a major impact on how a gun handles.
But choke tubes are not muzzle breaks. Their porting is to the sides, not rearward or on top. They create no downward or forward forces. They screw into the end of the barrel and their ports go all the way around uniformly. A choke tube will not produce the benefits of a muzzle break.
Muzzle breaks are also most often used on rifles to mitigate recoil and muzzle rise with high velocity loads. In these applications the cartridge is producing much higher pressures in the chamber and barrel than a shotgun will, and those gases are more swiftly and forcefully working to escape which enhances the impact of ported muzzle breaks.
Ports = Louder
Regardless of any impact on recoil, an unintended consequence of ported choke tubes is an increase in the volume level of the shotgun behind and beside the muzzle. The ports do let gas vent out perpendicular to the barrel and with that gas comes sound. A ported choke can significantly impact the volume of each shot from the perspective of the shooter and those nearby. This amplifies an already significant danger.
Shooting and hunting without ear protection is dangerous. Every shot can take a toll on your hearing. Add a ported choke and the risk becomes greater still with every shot. People often shrug this off when they are hunting, as if it is just part of the cost of going into the woods. But that is just not true. If you do not protect your ears, you will pay for it. You will pay a little bit now and a lot over time. You will also likely pay for it in ways you do not realize. Often hearing loss is accompanied by ringing and other endless painful sounds. It also increases your odds of developing various conditionals like dementia by 300%.
It boggles my mind that people flippantly hunt without ear protection, especially today when quality digital hearing protection is available that both protects your hearing and enables you to hear game animals better and more clearly. This is a big subject that I won’t take the time to cover here, but to go further check out my article: Tetra AlphaShield Review – Hearing Protection for All Hunters.
Actual Recoil vs. Felt Recoil
There is often confusion between actual recoil and felt recoil. Actual recoil is the force generated by the cartridge, it is real, mathematical, and inflexible in a sense. Felt recoil is how the recoil is experienced by the shooter. Additional factors come into play that can lessen the perceived effect or intensity of felt recoil. Diverting gasses to create a counter force like with the muzzle break is one way this can occur.
Adding weight to the shotgun also slows down the recoil impulse, allowing it to be experienced over more time and thus with less severity. A padded but plate on the stock has a similar effect. The action of the shotgun can also impact the distribution and timing of the recoil impulse some as well. You can find more about that in my article:Do Semi-Auto Shotguns Have Less Recoil REALLY?
If choke tubes do have an effect on recoil, it would be with respect to the felt recoil, potentially diverting gas to slow down the reward acceleration of the shotgun into the shoulder of the shooter.
So How Do You Test Chokes & Recoil?
Well, for years people would change choke tubes and take a few shots to see if they can feel any difference. You can imagine how that approach would lead to different opinions. To test it, we need an objective and quantitative way to measure recoil. After much research I came upon the Mantis x10 Elite Shooting System. The Mantis is a training sensor that you can attach to the end of your barrel that enables you to measure the effects of recoil. It gives measurements for shot recovery time, muzzle rise, and recoil width among other things.
I reached out to Mantis and asked if I could borrow one of their sensors for this test and they were very kind to send me one. The Mantis really does ALOT of other things for training, trigger control, accuracy, etc. What I used it for with this testing is about 5% of what is capable of and designed to do. The full Mantis system is worthy of its own review, which I made do down the road.
I then attached the Mantis to my shotgun and got two different types of ammunition, Remington Sporting Clays target loads with 1 1/8 oz at 1200 fps and some heavy waterfowl hunting ammo, the BOSS Copper Plated Bismuth #1 with 1 5/8oz at 1350 fps. I fired a 3 shot string with each load using an extended un-ported choke and then fired them in an extended ported choke, I used Carlson’s Sporting Clays Extra Full Chokes. The Mantis tracks and averages the results of each shot and each string of shots. I then compared the ported vs. un-ported data from each test group. You can see the entire test video here:
Preliminary Results
Having never used the Mantis before this test and making up the methodology as I went, I encountered a few problems with my initial test. The individual shots and shot strings produced wildly inconsistent results. I found that good data was incumbent upon me to hold the shotgun in the same exact position with the same grip every time. I also found that a single string of three shots was not enough to produce robust data. I had to keep shooting more strings off camera to figure out what my problems were and then shoot more shots to get enough data to get results.
It was messy research and by the end I was weary and bruised. The BOSS #1 Hammers, as they are called, are a late season goose load that produces so much recoil that every shot was painful for someone with my build and t-shirt. They hit as hard as heavy turkey loads. After firing most of a box, I was anything but consistent. People often do not realize that just by adding a little bit of shot you can significantly increase the amount of recoil, here is a video I did testing that with the Mantis: Does 1/8 Ounce of Shot Really Increase Shotgun Recoil? TESTED. I ended the test with the conclusion that IF ported choke tubes made any difference, it was not much. I then began planning for a better way to test this.
Take 2 – The REAL Test
I devised a new research methodology where I would use only one ammunition, regular target ammo that I could easily handle and fire many shots of consistently. I then shot 25 shells with each choke tube to get a much larger data set, one box of ammo per choke tube. I focused very intensely on my shooting form and grip to be as consistent as possible. Thankfully this was much easier with regular shells. I easily shoot 125 or more in a day of sporting clays so doing a test with 50 was not taxing at all.
The data from this second test was much more consistent, reliable, and easy to interpret. Here is the full breakdown:
In short, the ported choke had less than 1 tenth of second worse recovery time, 1.98 degrees more muzzle rise and half a degree less recoil width. Put plainly, the differences were so small that they could have been rounding error. The ported choke did ever so slightly better in some areas and ever so slightly worse in others. There was no functional difference to speak of. Both chokes were practically identical when it came to impact on recoil. You can watch the full test video here as well:
Conclusion & Recommendations
So the bottom line is that this myth is busted. Ported choke tubes have no significant impact on felt recoil. That isn’t opinion, feelings, or reasoning, it is real data. I can also say that subjectively, as the shooter, I could not detect any difference in recoil myself. Both chokes seemed identical to me across all of the different testing scenarios, good and bad.
My conclusion then is to stick with non-ported choke tubes in those situations where equally patterning options exist in both. Some choke tubes only come ported for some reason. I will not discard a high performing ported choke in order to save a few decibels of volume, but I now prefer to search out non-ported choke tube options first.
Till next time. God bless you, and go get em in the woods!
George Konetes Ph.D. – Founder and Host of the New Hunters Guide.
The New Hunters Guide is simply what George wishes he would have had when learning how to hunt; a single place to get practical hands on knowledge about different kinds of hunting, gear, strategy, and tips that can improve your comfort and fun factor in the woods.
As a note, Carlson sent me with these chokes and Mantis sent me this sensor to do this testing. Thanks to them for their support.
