Thanksgiving is just a week away, and I’ve been thinking it is time to go on a turkey trot. A wild turkey trot. Oh sure, I could run down to the local supermarket and pick up a Butterball or a Jenny-O, but what’s the fun in that? I’m thinking it might be fun to go out and bag a wild turkey for the Thanksgiving table.
Again this year, because wild turkey populations are in such good shape, the Department of Fish and Wildlife is allowing hunters to bag up to four wild turkeys during the long fall season. According to the regulations, hunters with the appropriate tags, hunting in the right areas, can bag two beardless turkeys, and two turkeys of either sex during the fall season, which is now open in many eastern Washington counties, through the end of the year. Each tag costs resident hunters who have a small game license $15.
90 each. So, for less than 50 bucks you can bag enough birds to feed the whole family, plus guests. Not that it is as simple as stumbling out into the forest and shooting the first turkey you see.
Hunting wild turkeys any time of year is never easy. In the spring, only turkeys with a visible beard can be taken. Almost all the bearded turkeys are males, better known as toms.
About the only way to take a tom during that time of the year is to call one in by sounding like a lonesome hen looking for love. During the fall it is a whole different ballgame. This is the time of year when turkeys bunch up into good-sized flocks, lots of times hens in one big .