Sidebars
Two slam-dunk, late-season turkey calls
Of all the game species with which North Carolina is blessed, wild turkeys are one of a very few that must be pulled into shooting range with a series of calls. […]
Turkey Hunting
Sidebars
Judge a gobbler’s age in the field
Hunters judge turkeys by a collection of characteristics, including weight, spur length, beard count and beard length. Every hunter wants to harvest an old, trophy gobbler, but, knowing a tom’s age is a tough task in the field — before and even after the kill. […]
Small Craft Advisory
Paddle up a gobbler
Late-season gobblers can drive a hunter insane. They become wary of the same old calls from the same old spots in the same old fields. […]
Content
Birds at the bitter end – Late-season turkey hunting requires a change in tactics to tag a North Carolina tom
Spring turkey season arrived for North Carolina hunters a couple of weeks ago, so it’s been long enough for the drive to tag a longbeard to falter when normal tactics didn’t produce. […]
Currents
Proposed changes in turkey regs? Yea!
Pat Robertson reports elsewhere in the magazine about a piece of legislation making its way through the general assembly that would make two big changes in turkey hunting regulations: setting a unified statewide season and reducing the bag limit from five to three birds. […]
Featured
Orange County gobbler with five beards will rank No. 10 all-time in North Carolina
Veteran turkey hunter Brian Sykes of the Caldwell community in northeastern Orange County has had little trouble filling his tags in recent season, but a gobbler he took two weeks ago is a first for him: a 5-bearded bird that ranks in the top 10 all-time in North Carolina. […]
Featured
Will final week of turkey season be the charm for Upstate hunters?
Turkey hunters who have yet to tag a longbeard still have time to score during the last week of the season, and taxidermist Chuck Mulkey of Anderson expects the last week — which ends May 1 — to be the best time to tag a gobbler. […]
Sidebars
Shoot the lookers
Early in the season, gobblers will often be grouped in pairs or larger groups. Seeing several toms coming into decoys gobbling every step can be one of the most exciting sights of any hunter’s season. […]
Sidebars
Bad weather, good hunting
For a species with a brain the size of a walnut, wild turkeys are fairly clever at avoiding the talons or the teeth of predators, but their poor sense of smell allows hunters and other predators to take a few turkeys each year. […]
Sidebars
Bad weather, good hunting
For a species with a brain the size of a walnut, wild turkeys are fairly clever at avoiding the talons or the teeth of predators, but their poor sense of smell allows hunters and other predators to take a few turkeys each year. […]