Saw a couple turkey yesterday

[Wedge]

I went out deer hunting yesterday morning and I heard the turkey talking to each other all morning long. Watched 'em fly up to roost. I am guessing about 4 turkey in all. When I am was sitting in my treestand.

Well, I had to leave before noon, so around 10 am I left my stand and made my way back to the house. I decided to walk through one field that is pretty overgrown in the hopes of kicking up a deer. Instead of kicking up any deer I kicked up about 20 turkey that were hiding in the tall grass!

10 flew to my left and 6 or 7 flew to my right. Just as I finished counting 2 more took off and flew to my left! I had never seen so many turkeys (they all looked like Toms too) take off and fly like that. When I first heard the rustle of the grass I thought I had kicked up a deer, and then a cloud of black birds took off. I started laughing, I didn't know how else to react. I wished I had had my camera with me since turkey season is closed, have to wait until spring.

Has anyone every shot a turkey that was flying? I have never heard of anyone shooting a turkey as it was flying, only sitting still and calling them in.

 

[Lennyjoe]

Wedge, you should give turkey hunting a try. Its a blast.

I have never shot one on the fly but I know folks that load up for it just in case.

The shell in the barrel is a #5 and a #6 are the next two just in case you have to shoot him on the fly.

Personally, I shoot #5's for turkey. Patterned the best out of my 1400 shooting 2 3/4".

Gonna give several different brands a try out of my Mossberg 835 to see which one patterns the best.

 

[campergeek]

I had the same experience. During fall turkey season I only heard one (1) cluck in response to my own calls. I managed to call in a couple with fighting purrs - one young jake and one big tom. However, they were sneaky, quiet critters who crept up out of my eyesight and I didn't know they were there until I spooked them.

While sitting in my deerstand, however, I was treated to a chorus of turkeys yelping on a far hillside and the response of a bird (with a wierd, raspy baritone yelp) on my side of the valley to my left. I was wishing I'd had my mouth calls with me just for the sport of seeing if I could call in a lonely bird.

(To the game wardens reading, I had no intent of shooting at any birds; just a little off-season live-target calling practice.)

 

[OrvilleYertleson]

I ran into a turkey the other day.
I was walking back to the car empty handed after a morning of hunting, and I scared up a nice looking turkey that ran into some bushes about fifteen feet from me and got tangled up for a couple seconds before running off.

It took every ounce of self control I had to not bring that turkey back....it was thanksgiving morning, and I had been hunting deer all week without bagging anything.

 

[Wedge]

Lennyjoe, I do go turkey hunting and love it. I think it is much more fun than deer hunting. At least I know that we have a ton on our property, now I just need to have 'em stick around for spring

 

[NRA4LIFE]

In Missouri, the fall hunt allows you to take either sex birds. I have killed 4 or 5 on the wing. Where I used to hunt there is very thick cover and the birds are hard to see if the ground cover is still up. I used to make it a point at least once a day to walk the think cover next to the stubble fields in the area. Took a couple that way.

 

[Guyon]

I took one on the wing last year.

I was easing down a gas pipeline road, and durned if I didn't hear scratching in the woods down the hill to my left. I froze, looked down the hill, and saw a jake pecking away. So I crouched down, eased back out of sight, and puzzled over what to do. After a few minutes of indecision, I got back up into a kneeling position and poked my head up over the ridge just to the point that I could see him. Well, he comes puttering up the hill to my left, paying me no mind.

I kind of guessed where he would exit onto the road and so I got my gun ready. He popped out and froze. Just as I drew a bead, he flew. I pretended his head was a quail and let him get about ten yards before shooting. Dropped him immediately--3" #6 HV turkey load. Was amazed that I made the head shot; no pellets at all in the meat. While jakes aren't trophies, they sure eat better than some of those gamey old toms.

 

[Michigun]

Took this double bearded (main beard was 8-1/8†& little beard was 3-1/2â€) tom just this fall, in the rain, in flight, with my Beretta 390, while using Remington’s 3" Hevi-Shot #4’s… distance was 30 yards tops.

Love the turkey hunting here in Michigan!

 

[Guyon]

Michigun, Did you shoot out those tail feathers, or do you just hunt in rough terrain?

 

[Michigun]

Guyon, VERY good question & you may be surprised at the answer… I know I was!

I figured that I had blasted those missing tail feathers off the fan at 1st… I looked for them on the ground but never found them… I was a little upset with myself for wrecking the fan. I took my bird to my taxidermist for a beard, fan & feet mount & was informed at that time that I hadn’t removed any feathers, on the fan, with my shot…

Apparently sometime after the spring breading & into the summer months turkeys go through a type of shedding almost like that of a dog or cat. The fan you see in the picture is all that turkey had grown to date… the shorter feathers in the middle (if you look at the picture again) would have eventually reached out to create the center of the fan. I guess they grow their fan feathers from out to in saving the middle feathers for last.

I have sense read a little bit more on this subject & verified the same as what I was told.

Also, fall turkeys don’t have the color spring turkeys do… I also hear some real hardcore turkey hunters won’t hunt fall toms for the reasons above… they’d rather get’em in the spring with full fans & nicer colors. I'm not one of those.

2 weeks after I took that tom I helped my little (she’s 26) sister take an 8-5/8†bearded tom… all it’s fan feathers were grown in nicely. (That one was taken with my crossbow.)

 

[Michigun]

Oh yeah, don’t have a picture of that other tom, but here's the tom I took this past spring... my best one thus far! He has an 11-1/2†beard.

 

[ballistic gelatin]

very cool!

 

[Guyon]

Michigun, That's some good info on the fall birds that I didn't know. TN has a limited fall season (archery). My neighbor took a hen with a bow last year, but I've never done any fall hunting. Durn nice looking birds in both pics, by the way.

Here's my best bird to date. Got him this spring, and called him in with the box call in the picture. Cool thing is that my uncle made the box call and gave it to me for my birthday. Longest beard was 10 1/4" and when I started cleaning him, I found out he had a shorter beard of 6". Wish I'd gotten a picture of both beards.

 

[Guyon]

Last year, I killed a triple-bearded tom with lengths of 9 3/4", 3 5/8" and 1 1/2"--the smallest just a little stub of a beard in the middle of the other two. I did get a picture of these beards (attached).

Now, among my hunting buddies, we have "Triple Beard" (me), "Triple Dove" (friend who took a triple last time we hunted dove), and "Two Turkeys" (friend who took two toms with one shot).

How would you rank these in terms of rarity? My guess is that it's the order in which they appear. I'm sure quite a few triple-bearded birds are taken. A triple at dove hunting is a pretty cool feat, but not all that uncommon. But two big toms with one shot (granted, he only thought he was hitting one of them) is one that probably doesn't happen all that much. In my book, it would be one to tell the grandkids.

 

[Dr.Rob]

That reminds me.. first time I had a hen turkey come out of her roost and go flapping hell bent for leather over my head...


I went home and got bigger shells!

 

[Michigun]

Very nice birds Guyon!

Too funny Dr.Rob... besides being big, they are also defiantly very tuff birds!