Turkey

SUCCESSFUL TURKEY SEASONS START HERE.

The wild turkey is an elusive bird. To get the gobbler, get the know-how. Strategies, management and gear for the hunt can all be found right here.

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Hunting in Streamside Management Zones

During bow season in Alabama, I’m looking for good stands of oaks that are producing a good number of acorns. Often I’ll find those oak trees in Streamside Management Zones (SMZs are areas of forests adjacent to bodies of water like ponds, rivers, creeks and intermittent streams that serve as filter strips for surface water runoff.) between two different ages of stands of pine trees.

Deer, Turkey, Mossy Oak

Wildlife Biologists Can Help Hunters

One of the reasons that I believe the wildlife biologist who’s responsible for that WMA can tell you the best place to find an older-age-class buck is that hunters check in their deer and turkeys on the WMA and are supposed to tell the biologists where they’ve taken the animals or birds.

Deer, Turkey, Mossy Oak

Resources for Scouting Public Land

I’ve found that my cell phone GPS is much more convenient for me to carry than a designated hand-held GPS receiver. By scouting in the early season and choosing my tree stand sites, I often can reach my stand site without having to use my GPS.

Deer, Turkey, Mossy Oak

How To Create a Turkey Friendly Property

In the early spring, I go back into our green fields and plant wheat for the turkeys. There’s also clover in many of the BioLogic mixes we plant for deer. We leave some of our ground freshly plowed, because turkeys seem to like fresh earth. I’ll see them bugging in the crops we've planted for them and the mature birds dusting in that freshly turned earth where we don’t plant anything. We’re also conscious of

Turkey, Land Management, How-To, Mossy Oak

Mossy Oak Reflects on Independence Day with Second Episode of Honor

Mossy Oak Capture Digital Productions has launched episode two of Honor. Honor is the second title produced by Mossy Oak Capture Digital Productions that will be shown exclusively on Mossy Oak digital and social media platforms. Episode two, titled Calling With a Hero, tells the story of Corporal Christian Brown of the United States Marine Corps.

Big Game, Turkey, Video, Mossy Oak

The Tale of Taylor’s Turkey

My daughter, Taylor, has been hunting turkeys since she was 10 years old. She is 22 now. As always, Taylor and I hunted together this season. We went to Iowa, one of our favorite places to hunt. Taylor doesn’t do real well getting up before daylight to go out and hunt turkeys, but she gets all fired up about an afternoon hunt.

Big Game, Turkey

The Tale of Grandpa’s Stevens Shotgun

My Grandpa, Bill Ritter (my mother’s dad) had a Stevens shotgun that could always win turkey shoots. When I was 16 years old, my grandpa gave me that shotgun to go to shooting matches and compete with it. After Grandpa gave me the gun, I took the gun to a gunsmith and had the stock replaced, mounted a scope on the gun and had the barrel choked-down to be ready for the shooting matches we

Big Game, Turkey, Firearm

Transitioning from Turkey Season to Deer Season

Probably one of my most memorable hunts this year was a hunt I made with my mom. My dad, Ralph Drury, passed away this year on March 16. All of us in the family wanted to make sure we kept my mom, Lucille Drury, as active as possible. So, I invited my sisters, Barb and Linda, 65 and 66 years old, up to hunt with my brother Terry and me. It was their first-ever turkey

Big Game, Deer, Turkey, Mossy Oak

Turkey Decoys and Texas Turkeys

In between my Alabama hunts, I made a trip to Texas with some friends to hunt Rio Grande turkeys. I had already taken three gobblers in Alabama before the Texas trip. Some buddies of mine from college and I always talked about going to Texas to hunt Rio Grande gobblers, but we’d never had the opportunity. One of my friends knew a rancher in Texas who had some Rio Grande gobblers on his property, so

Big Game, Turkey, Firearm

Blow a Trumpet Call to Bring in Gobbling Turkeys

We used every call in our vests to get this gobbler to come to us, and nothing was working. I thought surely to goodness one of those calls would bring that old hung-up gobbler to within gun range, but I was wrong. Then dad pulled the trumpet call out of his vest and sucked on the mouthpiece to make the sound of a hen turkey. After hearing the trumpet call, the longbeard gobbled.

Big Game, Turkey, Firearm

Planting for game birds: A little goes a long way

Early June is a great time of year to think about getting some food planted for turkeys, quail, or other birds you plan to hunt. WhistleBack is a warm season blend of sorghum, three varieties of millets, Egyptian wheat, and sunflowers. This mix is designed to produce massive amounts of seed and at the same time offer cover for many species of upland birds. WhistleBack contains varieties that all grow and mature at different heights

Big Game, Small Game, Turkey, Conservation, Mossy Oak Gamekeepers

How to Find Turkeys Without Scouting

I have certain areas where I almost always take a turkey every year. If you don’t have time to hunt the pre-season, one of the best ways to find turkey gobblers is to go to the places where you’ve taken a turkey before.

Big Game, Turkey

The Second Turkey of a Five-Turkey Season

Taking that second turkey with my 20-gauge helped me build my confidence and gave me a lot of satisfaction in the gun and the shells I was shooting. I know that hand-loading a shotgun shell takes quite a bit of time, and it’s a hassle for most hunters.

Big Game, Turkey, Firearm

Calvin Perryman Hunts Deep South Turkeys

Much of south Alabama has never had a closed season for turkey hunting. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s, turkeys were revered. Many large landowners protected their turkey flocks, so that they could hunt them in the spring and the fall. Also our section of the U.S. has really good habitat for turkeys, and many of the landowners around where I live do a good bit of predator control.

Big Game, Turkey, Mossy Oak Bottomland, Mossy Oak Obsession, Mossy Oak, Firearm

Obligations of a Grandpa to Pass on Turkey Hunting

I've got quite a few grandchildren, and we start hunting together when all of them are youngsters. I feel like I have a moral obligation to take my grandkids turkey hunting each season. Although I’ve hunted with some famous people over the years, those grandchildren turkey hunts are always the most memorable hunts of every season.

Big Game, Turkey, Mossy Oak, Firearm