If you haven’t missed a turkey with your shotgun, chances are you haven’t turkey hunted much. As with any hunting endeavor, turkey hunting brings its own unique challenges–hitting your target being one of them. With nearly two decades of turkey hunting experience, I’ve certainly had my fair share of misses and a few body shots on birds.
My most memorable miss was when I was a teenager, a handful of seasons after my dad first started taking me out. I’d hunted several seasons without getting a bird in range of my youth model 20 gauge. I was feeling frustrated with how challenging these big, half-witted birds were to harvest. Bird numbers at the time in northern WI were quite low, and finding a hot tom often required a lot of miles. We’d finally got on a bird around mid morning, we set up quickly in a red pine stand, and he came in after a few yelping sequences from my dad. We had a hen decoy out, but when the tom saw her he was nervous and he hung up just out of range. I pinched off a shot when he stretched his neck, fearing that the gig was up and he was about to run off. Sure enough, he ran off. I don’t think I even grazed a feather on that shot, but I remember feeling like I wanted to give up after I blew one of the only opportunities we had. In this situation, I feel pretty confident that I missed because I didn’t anchor the gun to my cheek or line up my iron sights. Heck, the bird may have actually been a touch out of range too.
Not fully shouldering your gun or anchoring your cheek on the stock
This might seem like common sense, but I think this happens to hunters more often than we realize. If you’re hunting with open sights, having your gun seated correctly to your shoulder as well as placed correctly against your cheek is extremely important. Often, when a bird comes in to view you may have to move your gun as he approaches from the side rather than in front of you. When this happens it is crucial to move your shoulder as well as your face to avoid tilting or angling your gun and aiming where you do not intend. Another solution to make anchoring more quick and familiar (if you’re a deer hunter) is to put a scope on your gun. Adding a scope to my turkey gun has drastically increased my accuracy and confidence.
Shooting through brush
When you’re finally anchored but the bird breaks strut just behind a patch of brush, it’s easy to think he’s going to throw out a couple of puts and high tail it to the next county. However, if he’s at the edge of your range and there are any obstructions, the best outcome from a hasty shot is likely a poorly hit or wounded bird. As hard as it is sometimes, the most ethical thing to do is wait for a clear in-range opening to avoid not only missing the bird, but unnecessarily wounding him.
Shooting out of range
As with shooting through obstructions, shooting out of range leads to a lot of missed opportunities. This can largely be resolved by patterning your gun, knowing your equipment capabilities, bringing a range finder on your hunts, and being patient when a bird approaches.
With a few simple adjustments and a bit of self restraint in questionable setups, you can likely avoid many potential misses on turkeys this season.