"LEARNING AIDS FOR TURKEY HUNTING"

So you've seen tons of turkey last Fall while deer hunting and want to try your hand at hunting this elusive game bird? Or perhaps your friends have told you how fun, challenging. and difficult a turkey hunt can be and you want to test your skills. Either way, I must warn you first, don't do it unless you are willing to also make your spouse a turkey, season widow. because this sport is highly addictive! The average Michigan turkey hunting success rate is usually just above 25%. It's not usually an easy (although that can change on extremely private property, where the birds don't get hunted much), but if you enjoy a challenge to your woodsmanship. calling skills, and marksmanship, turkey hunting is for you,

There are many ways you can familiarize yourself with turkey hunting equipment, calls, and tactics before you even step foot into the turkey woods. There are instructional books, cassette tapes. videos, workshops, and outdoor courses that can greatly advance your knowledge and prepare you for many of the circumstances that you are likely to encounter on your hunt.

"Steps Along The Hunters Path" is an excellent source of reading material. It covers turkey hunting tactics and tips given by several different authors who reveal their valuable tricks and experiences, This paperback also has helpful information from different authors on deer. bear. and elk hunting too. It was put together by Glenn Helgeland of Target Communications. Glenn had the unique and great idea of putting in text what his seminar speakers spoke about on stage at the many deer & turkey shows lie puts on nationwide. This book is good reading!

Cassette tapes can be helpful if you want to practice your turkey calling to., and from work (or in the privacy of your garage if your spouse has anything to say about it). When I was a kid, I learned how to call off of an instructional 45 record and box call. Cassettes may go the way of the record dinosaur too someday, but for now it is a great source of calling instruction. My company, A-Way Hunting Products offers an instructional cassette called "Turkey Calling Made Easy". This cassette teaches you how to use all of the various calls on today's market including box calls. pushbuttons, slates,, mouth diaphragm, and locator calls. The cassette also gives instruction on understanding turkey vocabulary, calling tactics. and even has a practice along session. (Although this cassette can be bought outright, look for the A-Way ad in this magazine for a Free Offer). Quaker Boy also produces a very well thought out instructional cassette tape that is similar in content to the A-Way tape. You'll bear other techniques and theories in this one.

It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I believe it. How often do you read the directions on a package? If you're like me, you rip open the package and try figure it to figure out first. Well this leads us to videos. You can sit back and learn a lot without leaving the comfort of your couch. Videos can be one of the best sources of information., but be careful to choose an instructional video rather than a straight hunting one if your intent is to learn. Although the straight hunting videos are exciting and entertaining, you are often left thinking, "what did I learn?" "Gobbler" produced by PSE is not a bad video to check out. Billy McCoy. a championship caller from Georgia gives pretty good calling instructions on this one. After the calling, you are taken on hunts with PSE executive Pete Shepley. This video can be rented at many video stores.

With "knowledge seekers" in mind, A-Way Hunting Products also has a new for "98" video being released called "Turkey Tech University" This 90 minute video (all shot outdoors) includes scouting. decoy use, calls, calling instruction, and every other aspect of turkey hunting & calling from beginning to my personally developed advanced tactics. You are even taken along on some of my guided hunts to show you some of the tactics in action.

Turkey hunting workshops are another great place to learn and ask questions from experienced hunters. These workshops are given throughout the state by hard working groups like The Wild Turkey Hunters Association, National Wild Turkey Federation, and other sportsman groups. A workshop will usually consist of a knowledgeable expert that may show a slide presentation and/or give a talk on turkey hunting. The speaker will usually also give a calling demonstration a( some point in the presentation too. This is a good time to learn the calling and ask questions. Jay's Sporting Goods in Clare usually puts on two such workshops a year. even offering gun patterning at their second workshop. Check the wild turkey application guide (given out at your local sporting good shop) for the dates and the workshop nearest you.

I have often thought to myself after giving a seminar that it would be even more fun and educational to follow up the in door seminar with a hands on outdoor seminar. There was nothing like this that I knew of, so last year I decided to put one on. It was awesome! After an indoor slide presentation and calling demo which included a practice along session, I along with 25 attendees put on our boots, and '*hit the woods" for some serious hands on scouting and locating. I was able to show, them the various turkey sign
LEARNING AIDS FOR TURKEY HUNTING

and how to read it right then and there, They were also taught how to set up on gobblers, decoy use, calling in the woods. and safety,, The calling in the woods even taught me a thing or two about call selection that I didn't know before. I sent my assistant guide, Chet Loar of Beaverton out to 100 yards away from the group. I then radioed him to try different calls from his current position., then sent him further. We were hearing the calls from the turkey's perspective. We found that certain calls held their sound integrity better than others at different ranges. Some calls sounded bad up close (higher pitched calls), yet sounded true from a distance while other good sounding up close calls (usually raspy c alls) sounded like a barking dog at the longer distances, these did not hold their sound integrity well. We did find that it was very easy to call too loud in the woods. I also had Chet use a gobble shaker call pointed toward us, then away to show how easy it was to misjudge the distance of the gobbler depending on the direction lie gobbled in. I even walked away with a better understanding on distance guessing after that performance. We actually got an unexpected chance to guess the distance on the real thing as we actually had gobblers answering our calls and coming in on both sides of us. (I wonder what The gobblers would've thought had they actually walked in close and seen 25 camouflaged stumps in the woods?) My intent was not to attract turkeys since this was an area that I hunted, and did not want to make them call shy when it came time for the hunt. Oh well, it did get all of our hearts thumping a little harder, in fact I think the gobblers heard the loud thumping of our hearts and figured there was a marching band in the area, cause we never did actually see them. Since my outdoor course was such a hit and I had to turn people away, I'm going to offer two outdoor classes this ),car. I keep the class sizes small (25 people) so I can better give personal instruction to each individual. This class is the next best thing to actually hunting turkey

Learning this fine sport is a never ending process, no matter how many books you read, videos you watch, or years you hunt You will, and should always try to learn something new. Never be content or overconfident in your skills because sooner or later (usually sooner), the wild turkey will humble you There is a mountain of information at your disposal to better prepare you before your hunt. The work you put into your pre-season preparations will better familiarize you with the many situation that you will likely encounter in the turkey woods, and hopefully lead you on the road to a successful hunt.

Target Communications- WI. 1-800-324-3337
A-Way Hunting Products- MI. 1-989-435-3879
PSE- AZ. 520-884-9065
Quaker Boy- NY. 716-0,62-3979
Jays Sporting Goods- MI. 517-386-3475