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A turkey for the table?

The Columbian
Published: November 15, 2013, 4:00pm

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and if you are bent on having an ultratraditional feast, there is still time to bag a wild turkey.

General turkey seasons open in both Idaho and Eastern Washington next week. Washington hunters can take to the field Wednesday through Dec. 15 in much of the eastern half of the state; Idaho hunters can hunt on private land only in a good portion of the Clearwater region starting Thursday and lasting through December.

Fall turkey hunting is much less popular than it is in the spring, when hunters try to lure large toms into shotgun range during the birds’ mating season. Many hunters liken spring hunting to bugling for bull elk during the rut.

Calling, however, can still be a key tactic in the fall. As the days shorten and the weather worsens, turkeys move to lower elevations and begin to assemble into large groups. That can make them difficult to stalk.

So fall hunters, according to traditional methods, generally find a group of birds and bust it up. Then they hunker down and attempt to call the birds back together. They can shoot both hens and toms.

“I try to locate them just with binoculars,” said Mike Butler, an avid turkey hunter from Clarkston. “I’ll glass an area and find a flock and work my way into them, move in to bust them up and use the lost call, the hen call, to bring them back in.”

Butler said the “kee kee,” “kee kee run” and the “hen assembly” calls are all effective ways to entice scattered birds into range. (Listen to samples of the calls at http://www.nwtf.org/all_about_turkeys/calling_tips.html).

“Basically you sound like a young turkey that is trying to get back with the group,” said Barnabas Koka, Northwest director of field operations for the National Wild Turkey Federation, who lives near Dworshak Reservoir. “It’s like a high pitch, almost a whistle. It’s a young bird saying it’s lost and you just call them back to that location and get them into shotgun range.”

The tactic can be almost too effective. Butler said in the fall, turkeys tend to only fly about 100 yards or so when the group is disturbed. When they are called back in, sometimes they arrive in large numbers and present hunters with a quandary.

“Usually the biggest problem in the fall is the flocks are generally larger and they kind of hang tight. Sometimes you will be in them and there will be 20 to 30 birds and you have to be careful not to pull the trigger or you will knock down two or three birds.”

Koka said another tactic is to locate where the birds are roosting or feeding, and essentially stake them out and ambush one as it walks by.

He cautioned hunters planning to serve turkey on Thanksgiving that the lean meat of wild birds can be difficult to cook.

“People think they are going to get themselves a Butterball,” he said. “A wild bird doesn’t belong in the oven. It’s just going to dry up on you. There is no fat on them.”

“When you cook a wild turkey, you have to make sure you lock in the juices with deep-fat frying or you have to put them in an (oven) bag. If you put one in the oven and try to bake it like you would a normal turkey, you will be greatly disappointed.”

Smoking is also a good way to prepare wild turkeys, Koka said.

Washington allows hunters to take only one bird in the fall, regardless of whether or not they filled their spring tags.

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