what's your beef with turkey?

[Mike from MO]

Recent thread asking everyone about their "no-hunt" list, or hunts they had little/no interest in. I was surprised to see a lot of responses listing turkey, sometimes as the only hunt they wouldn't do.

Is it just because of the season (i.e. you'd rather be fishing) or is it something else? I would love a little extra information as to what so many people have against the thunder chicken

 

[mtnbiker208]

The nuisance bird shits in the carport, eats the cats food off of the front porch and they fight themselves in the reflection of our house windows. You can walk up to them and get 20 yards away before they do anything. this is in north idaho where you can shoot 5 a year. I just don't see the challenge. then 50 roost in your trees and land on both sides of your house and just squawk. I might enjoy them if i did not live with them. Had 2 jakes in the yard this morning. I don't like them, but i could care less if somepeople do.

 

[Poser]

I enjoy turkey hunting when I actually put forth the effort, but it has some big downsides:

-it’s a lot of work for not a lot of meat.

-spring days are super long and you have to get up stupid early. I bivied out while turkey hunting last weekend. We were a couple of hundred yards from a roost tree, got up at 5 for breakfast and coffee and we were still late to get going against the sunlight. The later the season, the earlier you have to get up. I know people who get up at midnight to turkey hunt.

-I always kill birds midday, but the morning is what is exciting. If I sleep in and go out at 10 when I’m mostly likley to actually kill a bird, it feels like I cheated, or missed something. Since I didn’t hear the morning gobbling activity, it’s hard to be motivated.

-spring snowboarding is quite enjoyable, so there’s competition for my time.

-it’s hot.

-more often than not, turkeys just don’t make any damn sense at all and, despite your best efforts at hiking, calling, being patient etc, it just seems that the birds disappear and you’re sitting there being hot thinking about the fact that you could be snowboarding instead.

 

[BluMtn]

The nuisance bird shits in the carport, eats the cats food off of the front porch and they fight themselves in the reflection of our house windows. You can walk up to them and get 20 yards away before they do anything. this is in north idaho where you can shoot 5 a year. I just don't see the challenge. then 50 roost in your trees and land on both sides of your house and just squawk. I might enjoy them if i did not live with them. Had 2 jakes in the yard this morning. I don't like them, but i could care less if somepeople do.

Ditto. Cracks me up when trukey hunters come into town all camoed up and saying they have not seen a single turkey and you look out on main street as traffic is stopped to allow 30 of they cross the street. They chase the walkers around town. Then you drive out in the country and find thousands of them in the cattle pastures making a nusenice of themselves.

 

[idahohikker]

Extremely easy to kill at least wherever I’ve lived, little meat, look really dead in pictures, not a large animal... those are part of my reasons.

At this point I’d basically have to be paid to turkey hunt.

 

[JBrew]

I'd probably be against turkey hunting if all I had to hunt were the western species. I think most serious elk hunters would greatly appreciate the Eastern turkey.

 

[elkyinzer]

Rather be walleye fishing
Don't have any vacation time left between fall hunting, family stuff, and fishing
Too many other hunters on public land and too hard to get away from them and not get out of birds
PA's season is a stupid time, it comes in right when the birds are in max lockdown with hens
Late season when hunting pressure slows down and harems break up is usually muggy and buggy
Mediocre eating, farm raised poultry is 10x better
Don't have much good hunting on public locally, my best turkey spots are an hour away
This time of year it gets light really early, I have to wake up at 3:30-4:00 to get there. Hard to motivate myself to do that for a bird.

 

[LongWayAround]

I think some of you guys would be surprised if you put in some days on pressured public land. They can be a very challenging target.

Comparing your yard turkeys to ones that have been hunted is like thinking OTC elk would be a cake walk since they're pretty friendly in Estes Park.

 

[Downeaster]

Can we please respect the non turkey hunters decision to abstain??
For gods sake, who says "I wish there was more competition for birds"???

 

[Chordeiles]

If I could only hunt one critter, for the rest of my life, it would be the Wild Turkey.
Coast to coast and border to border. Spring and fall.

 

[Gearqueer]

Ditto. Cracks me up when trukey hunters come into town all camoed up and saying they have not seen a single turkey and you look out on main street as traffic is stopped to allow 30 of they cross the street. They chase the walkers around town. Then you drive out in the country and find thousands of them in the cattle pastures making a nusenice of themselves.

I understand these types of arguments for sure. For selfish reasons I actually kind of like the fact that Turkeys aren’t super popular to hunt. You can say the same (above quote) about other game species. I live in a suburban area where deer and Canada geese are a huge nuisance. Hell, anyone who’s been to Yellowstone you could ask themselves why the hell would anyone hunt anything at all? What’s the sport!?

For me, when I get out to hunt in more rural areas I still love pursuing turkeys, deer, and waterfowl where they are more predator-conscience. Turkeys are my favorite because of many reasons. It’s great fooling a big turkey in the springtime.


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[16Bore]

It’s not cool for the flatbrim crowd and you won’t get a lot of likes on Instagram. There’s no “look a me and my hard core ways and this big ass pack out” wooo hooo I’m an extreme outdoor dude. And not much to hang on the wall.

I could pop deer while eating Capt’n Crunch in my jammies, so the nuisance thing is kinda funny.

Lotsa high horse riders....

 

[Mike from MO]

Can we please respect the non turkey hunters decision to abstain??
For gods sake, who says "I wish there was more competition for birds"???

Haha--TOTALLY respect the decision, was just curious about the thought process and reasoning behind it.

 

[Mike from MO]

Thanks to everyone for their responses!

 

[Smithb9841]

I’d rather be bass fishing, I’m too ADHD to sit and call. I’ve been Walking around listening and then stalking in on turkeys that’s a little more fun I guess.. oh and lastly they are too much a pain in the ass to clean for what you get... I would say they usually don’t taste good but I got 2 last year and brined and smoked and were the best tasting turkey domestic or wild I had ever eaten so can’t say they aren’t good anymore.. but mainly go back to reasons 2 and 3 haha

 

[NoWiser]

If someone told me I could hunt turkeys or whitetails for the rest of my life, but not both, it would take me all of 2 seconds to put my tree stands in the Classifieds. Every negative thing posted here about turkeys is completely false in my experience. Perhaps I just hunt bigger, tastier, smarter, louder, and prettier turkeys than everyone else.

 

[OXN939]

Thanks to everyone for their responses!

Personally, I don't hunt the flock on my property because, per the wildlife biologists responsible for our area, Turkey populations are down. If I ever did harvest one, it'd be later in the year once most breeding has occurred.

Also, ticks. Neither developing arthritis nor never being able to eat red meat again is on my short list.

 

[bsnedeker]

I think some of you guys would be surprised if you put in some days on pressured public land. They can be a very challenging target.

Comparing your yard turkeys to ones that have been hunted is like thinking OTC elk would be a cake walk since they're pretty friendly in Estes Park.

I was about to make the same comment about Estes park elk!

This is my first year hunting turks and while I see them EVERYWHERE on farms and pastures and in towns I'll be dammed if I can get one to come within range of me out on public. I killed my first jake last weekend and had to do it via spot and stalk.

 

[RazzleDazzle]

Turkey hunting is boring to me. Not enough action to keep me amused. When it all works out and you do your homework and find unpressured birds and you're successful, the feeling is that of zero elation. I find myself standing over a stinky dead bird thinking "cool, but that wasn't all that great." One species I could never hunt again and be perfectly happy, plus I'm not all that excited about the table fare compared to other things I could chase at the time. I'd rather chase big fish. BIG fish.

 

[RazzleDazzle]

It’s not cool for the flatbrim crowd and you won’t get a lot of likes on Instagram. There’s no “look a me and my hard core ways and this big ass pack out” wooo hooo I’m an extreme outdoor dude. And not much to hang on the wall.

I could pop deer while eating Capt’n Crunch in my jammies, so the nuisance thing is kinda funny.

Lotsa high horse riders....

This always cracks me up as well. As if people have to conform to some look in order to axcel at something more than another. I know plenty of "flatbrim" guys and non flatbrim guys that catch and kill everything. Hell I even know a bunch of guys that dont even wear a hat while they catch or kill things but neither one of them have proven to be more "hardcore" than the others based on what hat they wear haha