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We turkey hunt around here. We have a fall season and a spring season. Waiting on the spring season to get here. Dont do much of it, but it is fun and HARD.
I hunt them in Illinois here also, it is very much fun and is very hard.
but it is great to get ou in the timber in the spring when everything is waking up from a long cold winter.
Love to hunt them. Although around here its about as hard to find a good place to hunt them as it is to hunt the birds. Amazing how something so seemingly stupid can humble you so much.
Hard?! I have to regularly chase them out of my damn yard! Last week I had 25 of them standing around staring at my shed like it was some type of turkey movie screen. Damn things are bullies! They're bigger than my younger son and every now and then he has to come inside because the turkeys arrived again. Hell I could just open the bulkhead door and kick a couple down the stairs if I wanted.
Lots and LOTS ! of turkeys here but I don't hunt then, standard rule is I don't kill what I don't eat and to me there not fit to eat, I''d rather have a nice Butterball. Good luck on your hunt I hope you bag a nice tom with a 10inch beard an 1 1/2 inch spurs. :)
They are a lot dryer than the butterballs but I fillet the breast out, slice and fry it. Make a little milk gravy and it is fine eating. I do the same with the thighs but everything else goes in my biggest pot with onion, celery, carrot, and garlic. After a few hours I strain it and pick the meat out. I discard the bones and veggies and put the meat back in the broth with a fresh round of veggies along with bay leaves. When the veggies are about done I put the dumplings in. It tastes better than any butterball I ever met.
I took this picture of the Hen that ate bread out of my hand. I was sitting in a camp chair and this photo is not taken with any close up at all. This is in hunting country In Idaho during Turkey hunting season. We weren’t allowed to shoot them on campground property but you could hunt them less than a mile from this spot. An non resident turkey tag is $62.50 each so I couldn’t hunt any but the Idaho residents at the campground all got there birds in less than 10 minutes of hunting. One of the guys is reported to have used a wire noose on a broomstick and got one that way right near wear the blue school bus is.
There are 15 Turkeys in this picture Three of them are wearing Hats. Just out of the Picture there where over 40 more of the Hatless ones. The big toms were up on the hill side anxiously calling to the hens to come away from us. Then someone let a dog out and all hell broke loose.
In BC they are getting more and more plentiful and becoming a real nuisance . The limit was moved up from 2 to 5 and now to 15. Where there were none at all 15 years ago. They have been re-introduced.