4 Turkey Bowhunting Tips – I’m quickly approaching 100 gobblers taken with a bow, something I might accomplish this very spring. That journey started back in 1984 with a compound bow holding steel buss cables and shooting aluminum arrows. There were no pop-up blinds, no mechanical broadheads. It was considered a bit of a parlor trick back in those days. Today, given a modicum of shooting skill and a decent piece of ground to hunt, bow-bagging a spring gobbler is easier than it has ever been.
Tip 1) Shoot Mechanicals
A big part of today’s higher turkey-hunting success is the mechanical broadhead. When I abandoned my shotgun and began bowhunting turkeys seriously, I sadly lost as many birds as I bagged. Restricted to the fixed-blade broadheads of the day, we tried adding washers or small-game stars behind conventional broadheads to impart shock on impact and hopefully discombobulate a bird long enough to allow a running pounce. We filed notches into one-piece broadheads to slow penetration, hopeful to leave the arrow in the bird and prevent flying or running through brush. Still, we lost birds.
Everything changed when Rocket Aeroheads released its first viable deployable-blade broadheads—unlike the sketchy swing-blade designs that had appeared before, as early as the 1950s. These modern mechanical designs cut wider wound channels, while also imparting some small degree of shock. They turned the marginal hits that often result due to turkey’s baseball-sized vital areas and shifty nature into killing shots.
For the average bowhunter wielding average energy (60-70 pounds at 28-30 inches) one of the first things you should do if you’re serious about finding turkey-hunting success is adopt a three- or four-blade mechanical broadhead with a 1 ½- to 1 ¾-inch cutting diameter. If you are shooting more energy, or prefer a two-blade mechanical, 2-plus inch mechanicals are certainly welcomed. Without an aggressive mechanical broadhead every shot at a turkey becomes a gamble.
Tip 2) Adopt a Pop-Up
4 Turkey Bowhunting Tips – Pop-up ground blinds have made turkey hunting with bow a high-odds proposition instead of a matter of luck. I’ve killed at least half of my spring gobblers off the ground while wearing a ghillie suit, employing extreme care during the draw cycle, and even by pursuing lightly-hunted birds, but pop-up blinds make turkey hunting almost easy.
The biggest challenge in killing a called-in gobbler with arrow is the highly conspicuous maneuver of drawing your bow. Turkeys are especially adept at detecting movement, and a pop-up blind serves to shield that movement. Thay allow you draw your bow when you are ready, instead of when it is absolutely necessary, and generally allows you to call gobblers in closer for higher-odds shots.
This isn’t all rainbows and unicorns, as shooting from a pop-up presents its own challenges. First, you’ll be required to shoot while kneeling or sitting in a blind chair/stool. If this is something you are unaccustomed to, you’ll need to invest in some dress rehearsal to ensure shots go as planned. There is also the issue of the need to shoot through blind windows or shooting ports. Since the arrow rest sits a couple inches below the sight there is a real danger of clipping the bottom of the shooting window, ruining an otherwise perfectly-aligned shot. After years of bowhunting from pop-up blinds I still make a habit of pulling my head away from anchor and double checking arrow clearance before taking every shot. Practice, again, heads off these issues ahead of season. Too, do a draw check before your gobbler arrives, ensuring your top limb/cam clears the blind roof while drawing and especially after cutting the shot.
There is also the disadvantage of having to carry a 20- to 25-pound pop-up in the field, complicated during run-n-gun hunts in rough terrain. I’ve found its easier to stuff the blind in a full-sized camouflage backpack—usually a Badlands—along with the rest of my gear, especially when hunting wild Western mountains.
Tip 3) Calling All Toms
4 Turkey Bowhunting Tips – An important thing to remember is that championship-caliber calling is not required to lure a gobbler into bow range. Keep it simple and you will call in your share of birds. I know there are those who don’t want to hear this, but turkeys aren’t all that bright and that in the wild—not the calling-contest stage—less calling is typically best. My basic approach is to call just enough to keep a gobbler moving my way—no more, no less—using basic yelps 98 percent of the time.
I proceed by “taking a gobbler’s temperature.” If a gobbler responds to aggressive calls, continue. If he begins to clam up or especially fade, back off and try subtler calling. And don’t be afraid to let a tom sweat. Often, if a gobbler “hangs up,” I’ll simply quit calling altogether, which often results in him coming to hunt me. In the natural world, hens go to the tom, not the tom to the hen. You are reversing the natural order of things, so playing hard to get is sometimes a solid game plan.
Tip 4) Decoying Decorum
Decoys are another misunderstood part of turkey hunting. I have called in and arrowed more gobblers than not without decoys. Decoys have their place and can lead to slam-dunk shots, but they can also hinder your efforts. One problem is that decoys often cause toms to stall out of range, waiting for the hen to come to him in his full strutting glory. Setting decoys 20 to 25 yards away can result in gobblers strutting at 50 or 60 yards. For this reason, I deploy decoys right out my blind windows, hoping to close this gap. Also understand, gobblers will generally maneuver to face the hen during approach, so pointing decoys away from the approach route can coax a gobble to swing closer to your blind.
Unless operating in a target-rich environment like Nebraska or the Dakotas, I find gobbler decoys often cause problems, as they can intimidate subdominant toms and cause them to keep their distance. I’ve had much better success placing a jake decoy hovered over a submissive hen decoy, sparking jealousy and aggressive approaches.
Brass Tacks
4 Turkey Bowhunting Tips – When you have done everything right the entire success of your hunt comes down to your ability to center a baseball-sized vital area under pressure. First, you must hone your shooting skills, and this includes a perfectly tuned bow producing clean arrow flight. Second, this requires knowing your limitations, or let’s say, an honest assessment of your maximum effective range. Don’t take a 40-yard shot out of desperation if you can’t even accomplish this during calm backyard practice. Bide your time and attempt to coax that gobbler into a range that gives you confidence—whether that’s 25 yards, or even 15. Remember, pop-up blinds point-blank shots realistic, but an application of patience is typically required.
For more turkey tips, check out Turkey Hunting Tactics
