After a pretty intense game of cat-and-mouse this past weekend, Clint Gray and Eric Templet teamed up and eventually put down a six-bearded gobbler Sunday morning in West Feliciana Parish that, once officially certified by the National Wild Turkey Federation, will become Louisiana’s No. 2-ranked atypical gobbler in the all-time record books.[…]
Louisiana’s 2018 spring gobbler season will begin on April 7 in all three turkey hunting areas. […]
• Box calls
Box calls are the loudest of the bunch. On a windy day, it’s best to use one so the sound carries farther. According to Saale, box calls are the most realistic sounding. “To me, a box call sounds like a turkey more than anything,” he said. “It does all of the vocalizations. It’s got a good high front end with a raspy sound to it.”[…]
• Gobble
A tom produces this sound as a way to let the hens know where it is during the breeding season. While a gobble can draw in a mature tom looking for a fight, it can also drive away birds that are less dominant.[…]
Enforcement agents with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries were busy when turkey seasoned opened in all three of the state’s hunting areas on April 7.[…]
The delay of the 2018 turkey season until April 7 has no doubt been an agonizing wait for members of the Tenth Legion, but now this elite group of hunters are in action.[…]
There are plenty of ways to call in a gobbler — but these proven tactics to kill will help you seal the deal.[…]
During a recent hunt in the Homochitto hardwoods of Franklin County, my hunting partner Shane McCullough and I weren’t having any luck luring in a tom. We heard several on the limb, but they were quickly joined by hens and went silent.[…]
“The target area you’re aiming for is about the size of a grape fruit,” Lafleur said. For that reason, shot placement is everything. A heart and lung shot is ideal, but one that disables the bird due with an arrow in the body so that it can’t fly away is also lethal.[…]
Harmon Carson will tell you that turkeys are smarter than you think. He should know — he’s been chasing them from Louisiana to Texas since he was in high school. […]
We have a love/hate relationship with our turkey shotguns — if they knock over a big gobbler on an improbable shot, we love them and take the credit. But if the gobbler runs off after what should have been an easy kill, it’s always the gun’s fault.[…]
A tom turkey carries with him three body parts that most hunters consider trophies in the same realm that a whitetail buck carries an 8-point rack — worth keeping around to remember him by.[…]
If he could carry only a few turkey calls, Charles Hudson recommended taking only the ones you are most proficient with.[…]
Years ago, my dad took me on a trip to look for hunting land in the mountains of West Virginia, and on one piece of property, the landowner pulled out an old cigar box to convince us how good the hunting was on the property.[…]
LDWF data indicate the turkey kill in Louisiana has been on the decline since 2009. I suspect the decline will continue this past season.[…]
Only the fourth turkey Lee Blackmon ever killed will be one he’ll never forget.[…]