Ohio Valley Outdoors Magazine

Spring Turkey Hunting Safety First
By Freddie McKnight

Hunting is meant to be a time of enjoyment, especially when you are able to fool game by calling it in. This is especially true with spring gobbler hunting. I love spring turkey hunting and look forward to playing the “outdoor chess game” with an old longbeard. Trouble is that there is a bit of fear in the back of my mind about it, due to a large number of hunting accidents that occur in this season.

As a Hunter-Trapper Education Instructor, I receive a yearly breakdown of the hunting accident reports from my state coordinator. I just don’t look at these figures without feeling, for peoples lives were suddenly changed because of this accident. During the spring turkey season the clause “shot in mistake for game” follows more than half of all the accidents – a statistic that is much higher than I believe it should be.
How can anyone mistake a 20-pound turkey for the averaged-sized hunter? I don’t know and I hope I never have to find out. The truth of the matter is that there is one underlying factor that has occurred in these situations, one of the golden rules of hunting was violated by not properly identifying the target the shooter was taking aim at. Never, and I mean never should you ever point a gun at something that you are not 100 percent sure is not the quarry you are seeking, let alone pull the trigger on something that “might be a gobbler.”

So how do we reduce or eliminate these accidents? Training is the key. It starts at your local Hunter Education class, but then it is the responsibility of mentors to help you further your woods and hunting education. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the hunter to know the difference between right and wrong in these situations.
Although turkeys are quick to detect motion, which is why outdoor articles and videos promote camouflage when hunting them, I still wear my hunter orange in the woods during the spring. I have taken a number of birds while wearing this color, both in the spring and in the fall, so I am convinced that the color alone does not scare the birds away as many others profess. The lack of movement is the key to turkey hunting success. I don’t care what brand of camo you are wearing, if you move at the wrong time the birds will be gone.

I take off the orange when setting up on a bird, but I keep my hat handy just in case I see another hunter sneaking in. This is the exact scenario where many of the hunting accidents occur. A hunter hears a gobbler or another hunter calling, then thinks he can sneak in and kill that bird. The best thing to do in this situation is to yell at the other hunter rather than move. Once you have his attention, then you can show them your location by using the bright colored hat. It is illegal in my state of residence to stalk a turkey in the first place, to help defeat these type of situations, but that does not stop some slob hunters from performing these acts in the woods.
Decoys are quite popular these days as a way to attract a boss gobbler within range. Thanks to technology, some of these fakes look almost real and many a hunter has taken a shot at someone’s decoy. This sometimes results in the hunter getting shot by stray pellets. My suggestion is to set up the decoy with a large tree or some other obstacle between you and your decoy. You don’t need to be able to see the decoys to allow them to be effective, just position them so that any bird coming in to them will be within your effective shot range. If someone does sneak up in your setup and takes a shot, chances are that the blocking tree or debris will soak up the rest of the shot and allow you to go home in one piece.

Another effective way to use decoys is to paint a bit of orange on them, at the wings and the head. This off color should signal anyone that might think they are real that the birds are decoys. Also you might add a display of orange to the setup, say a band around a tree or something like that to indicate to others that a hunter has set up shop here. As long as the color is immobile, it does not bother the birds.
Successful hunters, myself included, often sling their birds over their backs to carry the turkey out by its feet. While this puts the bird in a very unnatural position, it has also been the cause of several shootings over the years. This is especially true in the late spring woods when things are really greening up. Other hunters have mistaken the bird for a live one and shot both the already dead turkey and the hunter. To deal with this situation, I take an ordinary orange hunting vest and drape it over the turkey. To make sure it stays on during the walk out of the woods, simply pull the wings through the arm slots and it will give you a broad display of the safety color and should eliminate any such shootings.

The ultimate act of safety in the spring turkey woods is part of the rules in my home state. In our game code it declares a legal spring turkey must have a visible beard. If hunters would just wait to aim until they spotted a beard, then most spring turkey hunting related accidents would disappear from the woods. This little amount of time it takes to identify the beard could literally mean the difference between life and death for a few hunters each season. Given the situation, what would you rather do: risk the possibility of spooking a gobbler and not getting a shot or pulling the trigger on something that you think is a turkey? I think the answer is pretty straightforward.
Let’s practice safety out there this spring so that we may all come home and be able to enjoy another day of turkey hunting.

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Freddie McKnight, of Shirleysburg, Pa., is a veteran outdoorsman and has been writing about his experiences for the past 14 years. He’s written for more than 50
publications.
McKnight can be reached at
wmoutdoors@dishmail.net.