doublegunshop.com - home Forums Not to mess up the picture thread.....

No turkey hunter worth his salt would ever shoot a gobbler in full strut....

Another thing that's always puzzled me is how anyone could think they can shoot a turkey with a shotgun shell loaded with hundreds of pellets and only hit the turkey in the head. Kinda silly don't you think ?

Got anymore "sentiments" ?....because my freezer is full.

Sounds like the big old Tom was a 'shittin' and a gittin'" really fast- they can outrun a deer, outfly and manouevere a goose-- head shots are fine- within range--my partner has a scarce 12 gauge 28" (alright 27&5/8" Kraut metric) drilling with a 7x57mm rifle barrel tucked away under neath it- I use my 12 Smith Longrange 32" Full and really Fuller- 95% of the numbnutz who try to kill turkeys up here carry pumps or autolaoders- the the Raccoon Rangers never check our doubles, any more than they ask us for the three shot plugs in them when we are hunting geese- As long as he isn't carrying CF rifle loads when we are the State land or NF lands, his drilling is just another older 12 double with a long ramrod holding tube under the barrels- but on private farms, where we do 90% of our turkey hunting, he'll carry four handloaded 140 grain Hornadays- he's shot three coyotes with it, and last Spring decapitated a big Tom at 55 paces- his head came off like he was a loser in a Texas Chainsaw massacre movie- he thrashed the ground for 1 minuted, fell over on his side- Adios Mr. Tom--

Remember this=- every deer thinks a non-moving camoed hunter in the woods is a tree stump BUT every turkey thinks every stump is a hunter- survival Baby!!!

jOe: It appears to me from reading all these threads that you are an avid turkey hunter and possibly an expert. As such I want to ask you a question very near and dear to my heart because I am an avid Ruffed Grouse and Bobwhite quail hunter. In this regard, do you believe turkeys are nest plunderers of these upland birds? Have you ever found quail chicks in turkey crops? Some outdoorsmen I am associated
With believe turkeys may be in part responsible for upland bird demise. Do you think there is anything to this? Thx. Buzz

When our turkey season in Georgia opened back in the '80s for the first time in my lifetime, I adopted four little turkey poultes so as to learn their language and at the same time learn from scratch how to work my new turkey call. They all grew up, multiplied and took over my suburban neighborhood. I learned to call well enough, but also learned a good bit about the habits of the big birds.

One thing I learned was that they are almost pre-historic dinosaur-like opportunistic predators. During the years I shared the neighborhood with them, I never saw a cock-roach in the house or the yard. The green anoles that populated my back porch disappeared, even the yard moles were gone. They'll eat anything they can catch and swallow whole, so bobwhite chicks would no doubt be history if they crossed paths with a turkey.

Nevertheless, I doubt that turkeys prey on quail nests or even upon the chicks except in an incidental way. I've examined lots of wild turkey crops in the Spring and never found a baby bird of any kind. My personal opinion is that our quail problems and probably your grouse shortage is more about habitat change and fragmentation than predation....Geo

Ol'man Dunn from Grand Junction "Dunns" told me they put cameras on wild Quail nests at Ames Plantation and said they had pictures of Turkeys plundering Quail nests. He thinks the Wild Turkey was the demise of the Quail around Grand Junction. Only one small problem....the Time line...the Quail were long gone around Grand Junction Tn. before the Turkey got a good foot hold.

I'm like George a Turkey will dine on most anything edible that crosses it's path but I don't think they actively seek out Quail nests.

Some blame the demise of the Bob White on cleaner farming practices I've never agreed with that theory....I think it's just an easy way out.

In my opinion the best fit for the "time line" is the discontinued use of DDT in the 1960's (because it was decimating the Hawk populations big time)combine that with the protection of the Hawks in the 1960's (It probably took about a decade for them to rebound) and the the coming of the Coyote to Tennessee in the late 1970's.

The 1950's book "Hunting with a .22"....in the Chapter by Henry Davis he claimed "the Red Tail Hawk and the Great Horned Owl our worst enemy of game birds" his South Carolina kill log for 3 years beginning in January 1936 was 193 Hawks, 528 Crows.
He wrote of several Sunday drives where he shot over 50 Hawks.

"Kill a Hawk....save 100's of Quail"

I heard they taste just like Chicken.

have noticed that huntable populations of ruffed grouse still exist in areas too cold for turkeys to survive the winter. i am talkin about places such as northern maine, northern minnesota, northern michigan and of course northern wisconsin. above the turkey line, lots of grouse. below the turkey line, not enough to hunt in good conscience.

I agree with jOe on hawks. The sharptails in my area are few and far between but we have plenty of hawks, owls, and eagles here. Elmer Keith was a firm believer in shooting raptors because of their killing game birds. Unfortunately I don't think we will ever get raptors off of the protected species list until the last game bird is gone.

You are probably right...

"Hunting with a .22" Chapter 14.

"Foxes,wildcats,hawks,crows,owls,snakes and their kind must eat not merely in open seasons but year round, and when they take possession of fields and covers, the game vanishes in their maws. This is as in-exorable as the laws of the Medes and the Persians, yet some crack-brained sentimentalists refuse to see it and still invoke the hoary hoax called the balance of nature."

Published 71 years ago...

When I first started hunting grouse in Michigan's Upper Peninsula 20 years ago there were no turkeys in the UP and I remember hearing it is too cold there and turkeys can't survive. Now, however, there are Eastern turkeys in the UP. I first saw some 3 or 4 years ago and this year I saw lots more. So, I'm starting to worry a little bit about these turkeys taking a toll on our grouse.

I think you're worrying for nothing.