“Every time I go turkey hunting, I carry a turkey fan — a set of intact tail feathers — with me.” Willie McCutchen said. “I think if there’s one almost-indispensable tool other than calls and camouflage that a turkey hunter needs, it is the fan of a previously harvested gobbler. A wing from a turkey will work for flydowns, but it is limited in use. The tail fan can do anything the wing can do and much, much more. I’ve used it many different ways, and I know that every year I am likely to find a new use for it to help me get a gobbler I may not have been able to otherwise get. It is the single most-utilized non-calling tool in my arsenal of tactics. It’s something that may be considered a bit offbeat the way I use it at times, but it has directly led to the death of many longbeards.”
McCutchen said it’s a great tool, but it’s not the answer to every situation.
“But the use of the real turkey fan is infinitely more persuasive to a gobbler than fake fans,” he said. “I can’t tell you exactly why, but even the best-looking fake fans on decoys are no match when replaced by the fan of a real gobbler,” he said. “Plus, if you use them as I do, a real fan somehow relaxes or takes the focus of the gobbler away from everything else, and you can literally get away with things you otherwise would not be able to do, such crossing an open field. I can’t do that without a real turkey fan. But with it, I’ve done it successfully many times.”
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