doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Turkey season is almost upon us.

If success is measured by pictures of dead turkeys and total body counts, I predict SKB will end up raising jOe's hand and declaring him the winner, as distasteful as that would be to him.

I have no problems with responsible and ethical hunters using TSS or other alternatives to the time-proven use of large bore shotguns hurling large diameter lead shot. But far too many people seem to think new technologies can compensate for their inabilities to shoot well or call a bird into ethical range. We see the exact same thing with guys who use compound and crossbows at excessive ranges. Nobody posts photos of game they've wounded and lost. I have no doubt I can kill a deer with a .22 rimfire or a turkey with my spring piston .177 pellet rifle. But that doesn't mean I should. And I would still rather take my chances with biting down on a piece of lead versus a stray piece of tungsten carbide.

I agree with you, Keith. Also, I think one would be hard put to argue that jOe is not an expert when it comes to turkey hunting. After several years on this forum, it is pretty obvious to me that Homeless jOe is an expert turkey hunter and therefore his opinions on turkey hunting I find worthwhile.

Buzz, better has always been the enemy of good enough. If practicality were the sole consideration, I doubt we'd be using doubles, subgauge or otherwise ,and we'd buying our turkeys at Publix rather than hunt them in the woods. If I wanted the most firepower available in the turkey woods, I'd probably still be carrying my 12+ lb. Ithaca Mag 10 or my Ithaca NID Magnum 10 at 11 lbs. Is a .410 better than a 12 gauge on turkeys? No, but with certain limits, inside 40 yards and picking the shot at a stationary bird, it is good enough with the right load. There was a legendary Southern turkey hunter, the late Kenny Morgan who admitted killng over 500 turkeys. Towards the end of his life, he used a .410 SxS. He used lead loads with a twist: he placed a cork between the front and rear trigger. When he pulled the front trigger both barrels fired. I have a distinction I bet even our forum's God's Gift to Turkey hunting, Porchman, can't claim. With the exception of 28 ga. and 16 gauge I have an All Gauge Slam turkey hunting. I have successfully missed with 10 ga., 12, 20 and .410. If someone wants to hunt with an 8 ga. where legal, more power to them. Other than in this thread, there isn't much controversy among turkey hunters on the use of TSS vs. lead--maybe with rock salt. There are those who criticize Winchesters Longbeard's advertising of "killing power to 60 yards" which cuts against the grain of longtime turkey hunters, most anyway, who draw the line in the sand inside 40 yards.
Right now the big controversy in turkey hunting is the use of strutter decoys, some motorized, and "reaping". "Reaping" or "fanning" is where a hunter crawls towards a gobbler holding a real gobbler's fan in front of his face and shooting the bird which often will run towards the fan. I don't hunt with decoys or reap. Some folks with mobility issues need decoys and I am glad for them to do so. Those who "reap", I dunno....could be some kind of death wish. Frank, aka Porchman, kills a lot of birds in the fall where poults, hen or jakes, are legal in TN. That doesn't mean he enjoys the sport more than anyone here, and it doesn't give him any high moral ground to dictate what others shoot within the law or hunting ethics.
Steve, there have always been two kind of folks, those who say they can and those who say they can't. They are both right. Gil

What you say in terms of the tool you want to use makes perfect sense to me Gil. I say, more power to you. As long as it�s legal, I say use what you want to use. Personally, I�d get satisfaction from killing a turkey with a .410 too (also, I used to think it would be impossible to miss a turkey with a shotgun until I missed one once that was on the run).

Buzz, if anyone ever tells you they've never missed a turkey you can bet they haven't shot at many. My young neighbor looked at me like I had three eyeballs when I told him I had just missed one that morning. "How could you miss a turkey??" he asked. Few days later he had a sheepish look on his face and told me he missed one that day as well. If someone has never missed a turkey, a miss is just around the corner. Gil

My experience is the best way to miss a turkey is to hit a two inch sapling that was between you and the turkey. Somehow, the sapling seems to become invisible when you aim at a turkey...Geo

Gil....No truer words have ever been spoken. A can do attitude goes a long way in the hunting fields as well as in life in general.

I am only amazed that nobody seemed to bat an eye when LGF said that he had shot hundreds of lions in the ass with a dart.

LGF has been around a longtime. The fuzzy object in the right corner of the photo is a darted lion he posted 7 years ago. Catch and release lion hunting. He's carrying a .470 Searcy.

Well at least it looks like he is carrying his 410 turkey gun to go check on him. And the rounds on his belt to appear to be heavy metal.