Spring turkey season began back on the first of the month. Now, I haven’t hunted turkeys for several years, but I have many fond memories of those early morning adventures.
Nothing compares to seeing a big, long-bearded tom come strutting towards you. Your heart will definitely pound with the excitement of the moment.
Did you know that in the early 1900s, wild turkeys were on the brink of extinction with fewer than 200,000 remaining? But what a success story: today it’s estimated that there are over 6.5 million birds.
Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be our national bird instead of the bald eagle. He called turkeys the “bird of courage,” but I think the eagle was a far better choice.
Sure, a turkey can change the color of their heads from red to white to blue (very patriotic indeed), but who wants a bird with a long snood hanging down over their beak? Their heads change colors depending on their mood.
Anyway — turkeys can fly up to 55 miles an hour and can travel about 18 miles an hour on foot. They have remarkable eyesight, seeing three times better than humans with 20/20 vision. They can see colors and have a 270 degree field of view.
I’ve told the story of a turkey spotting me in a treestand from about a hundred yards away. I was in full camo and never moved. Then I read that a turkey can see a person blink at that distance. Do you realize how slight that movement is?
Turkeys also have very keen hearing and can pinpoint a sound at a considerable distance. I’ve had turkeys sneak in on me after I made just one call on that old cedar box. They knew exactly where I was hiding.
Did you know you can tell the sex of a turkey from the shape of its poop? Male turkey’s droppings are usually in the shape of a “j” where females dropping are spiral-shaped. Now that’s a fact that I really didn’t need to know.
They say you can tell the age of a turkey by the diameter of the droppings as well. I always told the sex of a bird by the gobble and the age when they were not far from the muzzle of my shotgun.
There’s nothing more exciting than calling a gobbler into shooting range with all 5-6,000 feathers puffed out, its tail fanned out, gobbling and spitting with its wing tips dragging. Don’t be misled: a hen turkey can fan her tail as well. She uses it to woo mates and ward off rivals. Some hens even have beards.
One of the prize trophies on a turkey is its beard. A long, wide, paintbrush-like beard is a true prize to a turkey hunter. My first turkey had a 10-½ inch double beard. He weighed a whopping 23 pounds.
A hen turkey will lay a clutch of 7 to 13 eggs in the brush or tall grass. Once they hatch they are especially vulnerable to cold, wet weather. Many newborns die from pneumonia because they get cold and wet. Polts pick their own food, especially liking insects and can fly in 7 to 10 days. They, like their parents, roost in trees as soon as they can fly.
I never fixed a wild turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. The meat is all dark, kind of dry and a bit stringy. The legs are so tough you shouldn’t even bother with them. Get yourself a Butterball instead. I know — hunting for turkeys is a lot more fun than going to Hannaford’s, but you wife will be a lot happier and so will you.