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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1642 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 8, 2026

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Are there any turkey hunters here? I'm getting old and beat up enough that deer hunting is losing its shine, but I really like having a freezer full of game.

How is turkey hunting? It always feels like it's a sea of trigger happy nut jobs out in the woods, but I've never actually done it.

i'm getting old and beat up enough that deer hunting is losing its shine

Why/how? I just turned 30, I've never hunted but I've always wanted to (I'm a decent shot and I've never actually practiced, just messed around in ranges with friends who owned firearms), I've just never pulled the trigger (lmao).

Is this something I should actually get around to doing sooner rather than later? I would like to kill and butcher a mammal once in my life at least.

You're plenty young enough. My grandpa hunted into his sixties and only stopped because he had shoulder surgery for something unrelated and never recovered enough to handle the recoil. My hunting club has guys in their seventies, but they get the young guys to haul their carcasses and skin them for them. They are, to be clear, not rabbit hunting.

I have permanent damage to one knee, one shoulder, one hip, and my neck from past injuries. I also have some pretty wicked arthritis to top it off. While I can drag a deer carcass multiple miles through the snow, it hurts more now than it did when I was in my 20s.

I feel that

Depends on when and how. If you join a club, guys do it into their 80's. If you're trying to hunt on your own, well, how much awkward, ungainly carcass can you personally haul through a mile of woods?

Random tangent: I remember when I was a kid at the hunting club, hearing a pair of adults talk about a third guy who couldn't make Deer Week that season for some reason. And one of the guys says "Damn, you only get 60 or 70 deer seasons in a lifetime."

Just one of those lines that's always stuck with me. There are only so many opportunities.

Do you know what time it is?

Fall Turkey hunting, yes.

Spring turkey hunting is a different animal, you will be calling the Turkey in. This is a very high skill endeavor and you probably need somebody to teach you. You also need head to toe camo; veil, camo boots, gloves, no hunter orange, because you’ll probably be on the ground and turkeys see color very well. On the plus side they can’t smell. IMO you’re better off dove hunting if you want to switch to mostly birds.

I assume you're referring to the upcoming spring turkey season. I can't comment about nutjobs because I only ever hunted in the woods behind my parents' house, though a redneck out of central casting stole our flagging pins for a proposed new trail during spring turkey a few years ago, so they're evidently territorial about what other people should be allowed to do in a state park. I haven't done it in a while because it got too frustrating. I'd be over at my parents' visiting and see up to 40 turkeys moving across the back yard, though they all disappeared as soon as the season started. In about five years of semi-regular hunting I got one turkey. The breast meat is fine but I didn't bother with the legs. A friend told me that they're a lot leaner than farm-raised turkeys and tougher as well, so they'd have to be braised for a really long time just to keep them from being inedible. The thing about deer is that you only need to get one to have a freezer full of meat, and my unscientific observations have shown that I'm about as likely to get one deer as I am to get one turkey. I should add the caveat that I gave up hunting over a decade ago when I realized that being in the woods was more enjoyable when I didn't have to carry a gun or worry about being quiet.

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