Christmas Turkey

Paul Scott

Paul Scott

Active member
Hello Guys,

thought I would share this with you, it a new one on my list. In 2010 I was looking at this site and there was a lot of talk on turkey hunting. Any way thought I would like to see som etof those birds first hand.

So I bought some eggs and put them in my incubator and hatched outr a few and the same again this year. when they were 10 weeks old we put them out in the wild with our pheasants on the farm shoot we run. we had a ban on shooting them last year but this year it was reduced to a 50 pound fine that went to the local air ambulance service, non were shot as they seemed to leg it as soon as they heard us approch.

so we said that two could be harvested this christmas as l,ong as they were flying, I know not like you guys hunt them but this is the english take on it, next summer we will try calling one or two up.

so any how last saturday we had a pheasant day and it was a bit of a quiet day I was an end peg in the afternoon and only two pheasants came my way. i was just waiting for the horn to blow as the beaters had passed me. when all of a sudden over a small lane of trees comes this packing box of a thing. after a second of thinkijng what it was i realised it was one of our turkeys. it tock two 20g to drop it properly.

unfortantly the dog that returned it was a springer spaniel and had never seen this pheasant on steriods before so lost some of its feathers returning it to the picker up.

any way a new one for me, we are having it for supper next saturday on our other shot..

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That looked like a great hunt. Your idea of a bonus bird is a grand way of ending a very successful day. Congrats. By the way, I like your hunting attire.
Al
 
Paul,

Congrats on bagging your turkey. From your description it sounds like a very organized method of hunting as opposed to some of the pheasant hunts in my local area. I would suspect that you fellas have very few if any gunshot injuries during these hunts? Sadly I can't say the same for some of our hunting seasons.
 
Paul,
that is a great story. I had heard that they did not do well as released birds here when they started the reintroduction back 30 years ago. Guess it works fine over there for you. Sure must have given that spaniel a pause when it came up on that thing! Enjoy Dinner.

Bob
 
Was fun, we lost one or two within the first weeks the ones that forgot to roost of a night time and this Summer I lost 3with in 2 days they were good healthy birds when I put them out so think it was shock,of moving I had been feeding them pellets and there was only wheat in the pheasant pens so may be that was it. But once you get over the first 2 months they seem to do ok, smacking the foxs with a Lamp and a 243 gives them a better chance as well.
 
Paul maybe gadualy transitioning them to local crops from the pellets would help. After watching the Holland & Holland video is it pretty traditional for you all to hunt in ties and tweed? Interesting that your hunts there seem to be more of the "gentlemens" type hunt. Is hunting ground pretty much flat farmland? Do yoou have to work with a gameskeeper?
 
Was fun, we lost one or two within the first weeks the ones that forgot to roost of a night time and this Summer I lost 3with in 2 days they were good healthy birds when I put them out so think it was shock,of moving I had been feeding them pellets and there was only wheat in the pheasant pens so may be that was it. But once you get over the first 2 months they seem to do ok, smacking the foxs with a Lamp and a 243 gives them a better chance as well.

Paul,
I had a good hunting buddy of mine in Alaska that what put moose down with his 243. I'm sure it must do a great job taking care of a vixen.
Al
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Wow, that's neat having successfully released and harvested your own turkeys. I've wanted to take one out of the air like that, just never flushed one close enough when the season was open. Enjoy that meal!
 
243 is the smallest deer rifle you can use in England so often we will sit up first before we go lamping, we have a lot of open downland no cattle or people otherwise my 222swift with silencer also works pretty well. When I lived in Oxford had a little shoot and 243 was just to noisy so the swift got lots of use often the foxs were cross dressers and would disguise themselves during daylight as roe ducks or muntjac..;-)
 
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