Hunting is often a nice outdoor activity that most people today can enjoy. It is easy to find most people ready to set out on a hunting trip during the various hunting seasons. In this case, we get to look at where to shoot a turkey with a rifle. This is with an aim of making sure that you end up with a great kill on the first shot.
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Where to hunt for turkeys
Before we get to the shooting part, we must be able to know where to get these turkeys. Across the country, there are a number of land managers and biologists who are paid to enhance and create a wild turkey environment so that the turkeys can breed and grow before the hunting can start.
Many people would prefer to go for public land hunting because of the number of such hunting grounds.
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The public lands will often offer a lot in terms of diversity and population so that you can enjoy the hunting experience. The public lands will also have lots of free room to roam around looking for the turkeys making the experience even better.
The only disadvantage is that the public lands would often have a lot of hunting pressure. This means that within a couple of weeks of hunting by other people, it will take time to scout and find a single turkey to kill. You can always opt for the private land hunting for additional experience.
Turkey hunting season
Most of the states would have it that the hunting season begins during spring. The best way is to keep in touch with the various hunting grounds to know exactly when they are opening it up for hunting.
This should give you adequate time to prepare the gear and practice some shooting before going out to hunt. You do not want to hunt with a poor aim as taking out the turkey is often a one chance affair.
Spring is taken to be a breeding season for the turkeys. This will give you an advantage of where to search for the turkeys as they will be making the mating noise. You simply have to follow the vocals to find the turkeys.
The male turkeys will be making a noise to alert the hens where to find it. This means that you will be getting more turkeys coming to one place. The more the merrier for any hunter.
Scouting for turkeys
When it comes to scouting, you can have yourself an early tour of the hunting grounds even before the official opening. Most of the public lands allow the hunters to have a pre-scouting event before the lands are officially open for hunting.
The turkeys are often messy; thus you might always end up knowing where to find them. Start by looking for the turkey tracks in the snow, mud and sand. The turkeys will also scratch the ground as they will be looking for food.
In the places where you get a lot of scratching, then a large flock of turkeys must have been passing through recently, so you are on the right track.
Hunting setup
Whenever you have to hunt for anything in the wild, camouflage is always necessary. This should always help you to blend into the environment so that you can have an advantage of hunting the turkeys. You might need to get yourself a camouflage shirt, jacket, pants, boots and a face mask. There are still a number of things you will need such as calls, strikers, snacks, decoys, maps and your rifle. These things will always give you an edge over the other huntesrs.
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Shooting the turkey
It is crucial that you get to practice your aim with your rifle for a couple of times before heading out to hunt. Most of the time, you need to aim for the head. The head shot is quite effective as you can always count on it being an instant kill. The problem with such shot is that it will always be a small moving target. You can easily do this when you are near to the turkey.
Another alternative to taking out the turkey would by shooting its vital organs. Many hunters think that that the vital organs are at its breast or wing butt. Do it wrong and the turkey will escape even when wounded. Make sure to aim above the turkey’s hip and you will get the vital organs that will keep it down.
Conclusion
You can always expect that the turkey hunting will have a lot of competition, so practice a lot on your aim to end up killing the turkey more often. Another important thing would be making sure that you have the right gear with you at all times. The first aid kit should never miss as accidents often happen while you are hunting. You should now be able to enjoy hunting turkeys with this guide.