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Tactics, tips and a passel of great gear for your upcoming battles with Mr. Gobbler. The wild turkey is an American bird right down to his red, white and blue head. You may recall that shortly after we had that little scuffle with the British a few hundred years ago, Ben Franklin himself wanted to make the wild turkey our national bird. Thank heaven ol' Ben was outvoted on this particular idea. Imagine the wild turkey as a completely protected species. We would be forced to hunt something else, like maybe the bald eagle. Hunting eagles wouldn't be much fun,...

Whether you prefer a 20-, 12- or even a 10-gauge shotgun to go after your spring gobbler, the time is now to pick the right load for maximum effectiveness. You might only get one chance at that trophy bird, so why not give yourself the best opportunity at a quick clean and ethical harvest? There are many turkey choke tubes on the market, and folks often ask me which one is best. I always tell them to pick a choke designed for your gun and the load you plan to shoot. But whatever you do, choose something, because you shouldn't...

Here's a primer on shotgun chokes, Good stuff for the beginner or if it's been a while. Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew presents a couple of short videos here, where he talks about the various shotgun chokes and patterning your scattergun. For the newbie, a shotgun choke purpose is to shape the spread of the shot in order to gain better range and accuracy. Chokes are implemented as either screw-in chokes, selected for particular applications, or as fixed, permanent chokes, integral to the shotgun barrel. See the rest of the shotgun article and video here.

I am a spring turkey addict; I simply love to hunt them. From my first experience in 1964 to this day, hunting spring gobblers is my favorite pastime. THERE HAVE BEEN SOME WONDERFUL advances in the shotgun and shotgun-ammo world for the turkey hunter, thanks to the sport’s great popularity. A shotgun for turkey hunting differs from the standard field scattergun in that we’re looking for a gun that delivers a consistent, small, concentrated pattern of shot at a nominal 40-yard range. The premise may seem simple, but the engineering that has to take place to build such a gun...

As we are speeding into the month of March, many of us “shot-gunners” are thinking about (or should be) preparing for the spring turkey season. I want to caution you about merely grabbing the shotgun off the wall, and heading off to the woods. Success comes from having confidence in your weapon, and we achieve this by doing some shooting and knowing what the gun will do. First, remember that this turkey shooting deal, in the spring, has evolved into something more like rifle shooting than “shot-gunning.” Ideally we are aiming, not pointing the gun, at a small, stationary target...

Willard Gore's no stranger to tough fighting. A Vietnam veteran and a career educator with years of experience in labor contract negotiations, he could write a book. But those were long battles, while his most recent struggle was very, very brief, happening at lightning speed. In fact, the terrorizing suddenness was among the enemy's most dangerous weapons. Gore was attacked by a bobcat. It happened Sunday, March 30, about 6:30 a.m. on a farm in the Defeated community of Smith County. He and a friend, Bill Davis, had gone there to hunt wild turkeys. Davis went to one end of...

Any turkey hunters out there who can give me some tips (outside of checking in the frozen case of the meat dept.) for my first turkey hunt?As of now the I have a limited knowledge of the how and the where that I've garnered from reading different publications.So far I have learned to scout the night before a few hours before sunset to try and find the roosting tree then go back before sunrise. The calls I am going to keep to simple box calls and I have heard that the dang things are real wary of movement.Do they normally...