Turkeys are found in North Carolina from just a few feet above sea level in coastal counties to almost a mile into the sky in North Carolina’s mountains. According to Marshall Collette of Greensboro, a member of the Quaker Boy and Mossy Oak pro staffs, there’s no difference in the birds, just the habitat in which they live: thick swamp to thin air.
“A turkey is a turkey,” Collette said. “You just don’t have to be in as good shape to hunt him in the eastern part of the state as you do in the mountains. If he’s going to come to you, he’ll come. He’ll come uphill or downhill, and he’ll fly a cross a river if he wants to.
“I’ve climbed mountains to get above a bird after locating him, when I got up there and made some soft calls, he was half-way down the mountain. So I went down the mountain and set up and made some more soft calls, and he gobbled back from way up the mountain. That’s when I told the I was hunting with, ‘It’s time for us to go to the Winn-Dixie if we want a turkey.’
“You’ve got to sit still and wait for that turkey to come to you,” he said. “The only difference is terrain. You can use the terrain to stay hidden, but focusing on where he is can be tough. He can get in a holler and sound like he’s 10 miles away, and you get up to go to him and you bump him up ‘coz he’s so close.”
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