I do not know my way is the best way or the worst way, I hunt out of a blind because it is the way I am forced to hunt at this time, though I am having a few surgeries over the next year in part to try to get back to hunting on the ground and not in a blind. Let me say I hate crossbows not because of the implement itself, (though I do not view it as archery) it is because every single person I have personally met has bragged how they can take shots with a crossbow on deer at 65-125 yards, most claim 100 or more. That is bad for us archers, we get blamed for it.
Now when I first started hunting turkey everybody I know told me I was nuts, they were all lifetime deer hunters and thought that turkey were a waste of time. My only introduction to turkey hunting was some of the old Primos videos. I knew no one that did it in person so I did what they did, I got me some decoys and went out and found a tree to sit against and called like crazy. Then I had my car accident, I lost 17 years of hunting because of some meathead not paying attention to what was going on in front of him. The Spring after my accident I tried to hunt, I had 3 turkey within a foot of me while I was in an old Ameristep Outhouse blind (I could not longer sit still because of pain so started to use the blind) I had one pass on one side of me it's wing touching my blind, the same thing on the other side of me including the wing touching my blind and the third I could hear his wing against the backpack I had sitting behind my blind. I thought I would get my first turkey there, I had one stop picture perfect and stare at me for almost a minute but I could not get the front end of my gun up because of my back injury, it put me in a very deep depression, I did not think I would ever hunt effectively again, I got rid of all my hunting videos because they hurt to much to watch because at that time I could no longer do the things I loved. Thank God my doctor finally found some meds that helped me and that I found out about this website while watching a NWTF calling contest on Facebook, you guys helped me a lot with getting back to what I loved and I got my first turkey with advise I had gotten here.
So what does all that babbling have to do with anything? I will back anybody that is doing things in a safe and ethical manor, offer any advise I can and do whatever I can to help a person to hunt any way they want so long as it is done with a love for the game, not a kill at all cost attitude, in a way that is not a detriment to the future of the wild turkey and does not put the hunter or others in the field in a position that somebody is likely to get injured.
I lost it for 17 years, I lost the best years of my turkey learning years, I am behind the ball in experience and knowledge because of it and I realize it shows. Because of that reason I want us to start to work together, stop all the infighting, work against the anti's the way we work against ourselves here and in other places and stop working against ourselves in here and out there, if we do not we are going to lose it because of ourselves and I don't want to see any of your lose the ability to hunt, weather it be because of an injury or because we were at each others throats and did not see them coming to sink a dagger in our back and take it away from us.
I do indeed think there should be better laws or ethics to protect the wild turkey, I would love to see no shots over 40 yards regardless of your load, (I have seen to many videos of turkey shot at longer ranges taking longer to die or end up injured) I would like to see reaping ended not only for the safety reasons but because all the videos I have seen of it show it truly does compromise a wild turkeys defenses, I am not completely against lowering the limits to try help the species recover, I would like to see no shooting hens, in my mind to kill a hen is to kill the future of the species.
My hunting method is not better than yours, yours is not better than mine, they are just different methods to the same end, lets work together to help one another even if we may not agree.
