My dad used to say that a successful turkey hunt came down to two things: patience and a good gun.
He would tell me that you need the patience for untold amount of target shooting and to perfect your purrs, putts, clucks, cackles, cuts, kee kees, yelps, hoots, gobbles and various other calls that might attract turkey. Like he used to say, “These turkeys won’t just come up a kiss you. They’re not as easy to woo as your girlfriend.” He’s always been partial to puns.
According to him, you also need to be patient when it comes to picking your hunting ground. “After all,” he’s say, “You can’t find many turkeys in a Walmart parking lot. At least, not the kind of turkey we’re looking for.” And once you find the right field, you need patience for finding your flock. Then, per my dad, you need patience for the waiting.
Oh, the waiting. Every turkey hunter knows a thing or two about waiting. As a young child, my dad would just sit there and look straight ahead as I complained incessantly about the waiting. “Make your calls and be quiet,” he’d say.
After the calls and the waiting, then and only then comes the shooting. Here’s where the second aspect of a successful turkey hunt according to my dad comes into play. He loved to say that “forks don’t work on these kinds of turkeys.” This was his “punny” way of saying that you needed a gun, and good one at that.
Every hunter has different needs, likes and dislikes when it comes to weaponry. For this reason, I’ve scoured the World Wide Web to find what I think are the best resources for finding good turkey guns for every type of turkey hunter.
This comprehensive list from from Game and Fish magazine includes details about everything from the reasonably priced Mossberg 500 Turkey THUG to the more costly Remington 11-87 Sportsman SuperMag.
This great list from Outdoor Life provides some options for the price-sensitive shopper. It gives info on guns like the Winchester Super X Black Shadow Field and the Remington Model 870 Express – both of which come in at under $500!
Now, there are loads more lists out there if you’d rather go with another resource. But I found these two sites to be the most trusted and helpful.
Good turkey hunting, folks!