Category: Turkey Hunting

Does all of the best turkey hunting happen early in the morning? Some professionals say yes, but others say no. The bottom line is that there is still good turkey to be had all day long IF you know how to take advantage of it. On this episode, I give strategies to successfully hunt spring gobblers later in the morning after many hunters have already left for breakfast. 

Turkeys are indeed the most vocal early in the morning, you can often figure out where they are roosting and hear some very exciting gobbling. This is fun and exhilarating but that still does not guarantee success, even when you have the perfect spot, and you are surrounded by turkeys. It can still be hard to connect when everything is working perfectly because the turkeys have their own plans, and we cannot always get them to do what we want.

As the morning wears on, turkeys get less vocal and are harder to locate. Many hunters get bored with this and head out of the woods, but the truth is, the odds of a turkey coming in later in the morning may increase. Once gobblers have bred the hens they were with at first light, they often find themselves alone and are more likely to take action when they hear you calling. But they may gobble little or not at all. They make quietly and slowly sneak in to find you. 

If you make some adjustments to your hunting style and strategy you can have very successful hunts after sleeping in and lazily strolling into the woods at 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. The big key here is stealth, moving slowly, quietly, and with cover whenever possible. You are more likely to spook gobblers because you won’t hear them to know where they are, so you have to move quietly.

There are several ways you can hunt birds this time of day, such as stealthy sits with infrequent calling hoping to ambush a quiet gobbler as he stalks his ways into you or running and gunning to cover ground and create more opportunities. This kind of hunting can be very productive but too often people mess it up and hurt their chances because they make a few simple and easy to avoid mistakes. Taking a little more care can help a lot, especially if you have limited acres to hunt or limited energy to cover lots and lots of ground. 

Listen to the podcast episode to learn more about how to hunt turkeys late, lazy, and quietly. 

Some of the saddest stories in turkey hunting happen after you pull the trigger. And they are nearly 100% preventable. On this episode I am going to talk about what you should do immediately after shooting a turkey to make sure you take the bird home, and you make it home safe. This is about much more than the obvious. 

There are two big concerns that present themselves immediately after pulling the trigger on a turkey.

1. The first one is staying focused and on task until you can 100% confirm a clean ethical kill and the bird is not just stunned or wounded and about to run or fly away.
2. The second one is safety for yourself and other people or property. So many things awful things have happened when people let their guard down and begin to celebrate a successful turkey hunt. Adrenaline is pumping, excitement is soaring, and we can easily make bad and unsafe decisions, and I am talking about a lot more than firearms accidents. 

You will want to celebrate a successful turkey hunt, and you should. It is a great accomplishment. But many birds have been lost because people celebrated prematurely, and life and limb have been lost because hunters celebrated recklessly. YOU MUST take responsible action immediately to confirm the kill and then set a handful of events in order to assure safety. Yes, shotgun safety is paramount, but there are other serious injuries that can occur beyond firearms accidents.

When a turkey goes down, even with the cleanest possible kill, it will still often thrash and flail on the ground. Kind of like a chicken with its head cut off. The bird is dead. It is not suffering, but the nervous system of the creature is in shock and muscles will continue to spam, sometimes off and on for a few minutes. It is easy to forget that turkeys are armed with brutal spurs that can cause serious damage to people. Children are especially at risk for being injured as a result of moving too quickly.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that the hunt is not over until you have confirmed the bird is not breathing and tagged the turkey, and you are not out of danger until you are in your vehicle. Some of the worst accidents happen while walking out of the woods with a dead turkey. You all of these issues are largely preventable.

If the first thing you do is stop and pull out your cell phone to take photos and text people, you may find no bird to take photos of and have no idea where the bird went. You may also find yourself moments away from a terrible injury that you will likely not see coming.

In this podcast episode I share several real-life events from new hunters, professional hunters, and youth hunters where the simple steps I outline were not known or not followed. Taking very simple, obvious precautions can help you make sure you fill your tag with a spring gobbler and get you home in one piece to tell the story.

I also go further still and outline what to do with the turkey once you get home and talk about how to field dress a turkey as well as some wild turkey cooking basics. 

Listen to the full episode to hear it all.

Turkey vests have a lot of pockets, but what should we put in them? You might be surprised how little you really NEED to take with you hunt turkeys effectively. On this episode I talk about the top 5 things you must keep in your turkey hunting vest at all times!

What should you pack in your turkey vest? This is an often-asked question. But first and foremost, we need to recognize what a turkey vest is and is not. It is not a backpack, but it can give you some of the function of one. It is not a coat, but it can give you some warmth and handy front pockets. It is a very specific and specialized system.

I am a fan of turkey vests because they are a combination backpack, seat, and front pockets. They give you everything you need in a small light package. They can take the place of a backpack and do more, if you use them properly. 

The turkey hunting vest is a very specialized and versatile tool. Some have so many pouches, pockets, and folds, that you could bring enough gear to camp with. I recommend a more minimalist approach, only taking a handful of core necessities. Why? Because I want to travel light. Light is easy, light is fast, light is quiet. All things that are important to turkey hunting.

The more you take the more problems you can have, the more things you can fiddle with and get busted with while moving. The more you have the more noise and the more time you need to get situated. A light vest without bulky noisy cargo is a much more practical tool.

Listen to this podcast episode to hear about the top things you MUST keep in your turkey vest.

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.

Listen to the whole podcast episode to hear more.

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. 

Listen to the podcast episode for much more!

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! 

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. 

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.

Listen to the podcast episode to hear it all!

Fall turkey hunting is a very different pursuit than spring turkey hunting, it has its own distinct flavor and unique strategies. On this episode I talk about five strategies for hunting fall turkey, the best times of day, and how to chain turkey hunts together with other game pursuits.

5 was you can hunt turkeys in the fall:

1. Big Rifle Hunting – This involves using terrain to gain altitude where you can see big distances and trying to take a bird from long range.
2. Small Rifle Hunting – This is most often done as an ambush technique or when trying to divert nearby birds into your area.
3. Scatter and Call – This approach is used when you can get close enough to bust up a flock, hide, and try to call them back together. 
4. Flush and Shoot – Similar to pheasant hunting, you push through areas with cover trying to flush birds and shoot them in the air.
5. Slowly Stalking – Akin to still hunting deer, this approach focusses on moving stealthily through thick woods, trying to spot and shoot a bird before it sees you.

On of the best things about fall turkey hunting is you can also combine other pursuits, in some places you can hunt turkey and deer at the same time, or turkey and pheasant at the same time, or ducks, small game, and any number of birds. Do not fall into the trap of thinking you need super specialized gear to take all these types of game either. often you can use the same shotgun and the same ammo to hunt several different things, just make sure you are compliant with local laws.

You can shoot turkeys with steel, bismuth, tungsten, lead, or anything else that flies out of a shotgun or rifle if its legal. One of the best things new hunters can do when they are learning to turkey hunt is combine several pursuits to maximize their chances of coming out of the woods with dinner and to have the most fun.

In many areas you can take all different types of turkeys in the fall also, be them big toms, jakes, hens, or poults. Do not be afraid of taking a hen in the fall or a poult. Turkey winter survival rates are not as high as many think. There is a good chance that the turkey you shoot in the fall was not going to survive the winter due to lack of food, predation, or severe weather. Taking a fall bird has the most minimal potential impact on the turkey population. And a small turkey can be a very tasty meal, something you almost never find in a grocery store either.

The best guns for fall turkey hunting tend to be shotguns or small rifles. It may be a 12 gauge, 20 gauge or other shotgun, a shotgun combined with a rifle, or a smaller rifle such as as .22lr, .22 magnum, .17 HMR, a .22 hornet or a lightly loaded 223. Always check your local to laws to know what is legal and what the proper safety regulations are in your area.

Listen to the episode for all the details on strategy, gun choices, and much much more!