Spring's Toughest Challenge: Making the Case for Bow Birds

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In a high-tech world where every aspect of life — including hunting — seems to get easier all the time, why would you want to intentionally make things more difficult? Well, as a wise man once told me, “Nothing in life comes easy, and those things that are hardest to obtain are the most satisfying in the end!” This statement could not be more true than when it comes to turkey hunting.

Most turkey hunters, myself included, grew up chasing the kings of spring with our shotguns in tow. We cut our teeth wielding 3-inch magnum shells loaded up with No. 5 or 6 pellets, ready to blast the first redhead that strutted into view. Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with this, and I’ll be the first to admit shotgun hunting a turkey is a ton of fun. But imagine combining the thrill of gobbling toms in the spring with the excitement that bowhunting elk gives you. This is what drives me to turkey hunt with my bow in hand, and if you’re ready for a bowhunting challenge like no other, I suggest you pick up your bow this spring and do the same.

The Perfect Antidote

Turkey season is the perfect antidote to a long, cold winter, and there’s not much I would rather do on a fragrant spring morning than chase gobbles. Turkeys are very vocal creatures, and the sight of a mature tom strutting into view is more than enough to make even the most experienced outdoorsman’s heart pound.

From Atlantic to Pacific and Canada to Mexico, wild turkeys can be hunted in lots of places using lots of different tactics and weapons. Considering the variety of landscapes turkeys inhabit — from Rocky Mountain ridgelines to the desert Southwest and Eastern hardwoods to Mexican jungles — and the fact that spring turkey tags are relatively easy to obtain, you can literally hunt a lifetime without running out of new turkey hunting adventures to experience. Turkey hunting is also quite affordable compared to pursuing big-game species such as deer and elk, making turkey hunting a pastime that is easily accessible to the common man.

Turkey hunting gives you the option to employ a variety of hunting methods too, from traditional sit-and-call setups with full-sized decoys to spot-and-stalk (where legal) or using a tail fan or bow-mounted decoy to lure birds in. No matter the method you choose, I challenge you to name an animal that rivals the hunting fun offered by wild turkeys.

Given all the turkey-hunting options at your disposal, you may ask, “Why would I bowhunt a turkey?” Well, for starters, it’s an awesome challenge! But there’s more to it than that. I love to bowhunt turkeys because it allows me another season of bowhunting! After deer season ends in the winter, most of us hang up our bows and don’t think too much about dusting them off until summer, when it’s time to start practice for the next deer season. Well, spring turkey seasons provide a perfect excuse to shoot that bow year-round and take it back into the field sooner than later.

As with any pursuit, the more you bowhunt, the better you’ll get. Shooting in February and March in preparation for spring turkeys helps keep your shooting skills sharp, and getting out in the field in pursuit of turkeys helps you hone hunting skills that will also come in handy during the fall. For example, turkeys have notoriously good eyesight and can easily spot even the slightest movement. Move even slightly as a bird approaches and, BOOM, it’s gone! Cross a ridge on the skyline while turkeys are feeding in a nearby field and, POOF, they’ll catch you up there and run in the opposite direction! Bowhunting turkeys will teach you that every move you make it critical and may carry serious consequences. As I said earlier, practice makes perfect, and there’s no shortcut to learning when to make your move or draw your bow when hunting turkeys. You just have to get out there and learn via good, old-fashioned trial and error.

Turkeys also have an extremely keen sense of hearing that allows them to detect danger and use a variety of vocalizations to communicate with other members of the flock. A turkey can pinpoint the location of a sound, making bowhunting them rather challenging. In order to get into bow range, a bowhunter must make all the right moves, sounds and maneuvers. Learning what calls to make and when to make them forces us to be fully immersed in the moments we are bowhunting these amazing animals.

I’ll be the first to tell you bowhunting turkeys will result in a lot more failure than success, but every one of those failures is a learning experience that will make you a better bowhunter! I owe a lot of my western bowhunting success on elk, mule deer and antelope to skills I learned while bowhunting Eastern turkeys “run-and-gun” style back home in Ohio. I have turkeys in my backyard and can hunt them and practice my skills all spring. So, when my 10-day elk hunt arrives, I’ve already made many stalks and honed my skills during the spring in preparation for fall.

Fill Your Bag of Tricks

When it comes to tactics for bowhunting turkeys, a mixed bag of tricks is your friend. The use of a strategically placed ground blind, often in the corner of an agricultural field or food plot with some decoys placed within easy shooting range, is probably the most popular and proven technique for consistent success. However, I personally find the long hours of waiting often required with this tactic to be taxing on my patience. That’s why I typically prefer ditching the blind and chasing the flocks with a mobile approach. A run-and-gun style works especially well when a tom is henned up and won’t come close enough to your setup. By taking the action to him, you can often slip in close enough for an ambush, or call him in from a short distance in order to get your shot.

Unlike deer season, when an opportunity at a great buck may only come once if at all, with turkeys, the opportunity to arrow a bird can happen once every few days or five times in the same morning! Most turkey flocks will include multiple male birds, and this gives you the opportunity to hunt many different birds over the course of a season. This makes for a far more relaxed endeavor than chasing a single, mature buck in the fall. After all, if you mess up an opportunity on a gobbler that catches you approaching or drawing your bow, you can often regroup and get back on that same bird or another on the same morning. So, have fun, try new things and understand that failures and messing up are part of the equation here, and that the potential to rewrite the story in your favor could happen 5 minutes later.

Without a doubt, bowhunting turkeys will make you a better bowhunter and provide you with more opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. Good luck this spring!

Veteran bowhunter Clint Casper has taken dozens of longbeards in multiple states across the Midwest. A regular Bowhunter contributor, he lives in Ohio with his two sons, Easton and Keaton.

AUTHOR’S NOTES: My preferred equipment for the 2024 turkey season included a Mathews Lift 29 bow outfitted with a QAD Integrate MX2 arrow rest and Easton 4MM Axis Long Range arrows tipped with SEVR Titanium 2.0 broadheads. I used a Primos Double Bull 360 ground blind, Avian X Jake and Hen decoys and slate and mouth calls from Woodhaven. I also relied on Maven optics to glass birds during my hunts and Moultrie Edge Pro cellular cameras to monitor my hunting areas remotely.

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