Wanting to go to out of state...

[jbennett]

Never hunted out of state before and will hopefully be in a position financially by spring 2013 to give it a try. I live in MS and want to try to get some info on a state not too terribly far from me where I can do some public land hunting. I'm a turkey hunter and realize that  I'm probably not going to get much of a response if I get any, but I also don't have the money not to exhaust every effort to obtain useful info. I'm leading towards Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, or Kentucky. "Clueless" is an understatement! If any of you guys have any advice (however vague it may be) please pm me or reply.

Thanks!

[Spring_Woods]

Out of those you listed I have hunted Kentucky. I can attest to the hunting being pretty awesome. A
Some of my friends that work and hunt there (from ohio) tag out there about every year.

[habitatmd]

I'm not trying to keep you out of Mo, but wanted to give you an honest report.  We actually had a decent hatch last year, so it may be decent next year.  With that said, the hatch wasn't spectucular, it was simply better than what is had been.  On top of that, the hatches have been poor for the last 5 or so years.  Bottom line, the turkey population is down. 

Also, public ground gets some pretty good pressure.  Now...there are still plenty of areas with birds and plenty of birds are still killed on public ground.  If you choose Mo, I can try to point you in a direction or two.

[wkyhunter]

Hey there, I'll try to add a little to the mix.
I live in Kentucky ( western part) and will say that the hunting can be great... but we are not overly blessed in this part of the state with quality public land. We do have LBL ~100,000 acres in KY, but if you do a search on it, you'll find more that hate it than love it and you can only take 1 bird on the KY side. Today was the last day of hunting there and it's been the worst year I've had there that I can ever remember, very little gobbling . There are other smaller areas scattered around this end of the state, but they all are hit/miss. I've heard the DBNF ( Danial Boone National Forrest ), central/eastern part has some good spots , but it takes reasearch to find them.
I've hunted Missouri and had good and bad luck there. They are blessed with substantial public land, but as noted above several years of low hatch survival have put a big dent in there population. Also, I've got to admit the 1pm closing time and only one bird the first week kinda bugs me.
Don't have any info on the others you listed.
I will say if you'll put in the time online, you can find an amazing amount of information that will help you.
Good Luck!!

[TRKYHTR]

MO and KY both have Eastern turkeys like MS has. If I were you I would check out KS or OK so you could kill a Rio and then have 2 different subspecies under your belt. I haven't hunted either of those states but I do know that KS is full of Rios and there is alot of public land WIHA that hold lots of turkeys.

TRKYHTR

[Turkeyman]

Of the states you mentioned I've hunted MO, OK and KS. If I could only hunt one of them it would be KS. They have Easterns in the extreme eastern part of the state then you get into a Rio/Eastern hybrid from there west to about the center of the state or so then Rios west of that. Plenty of public land if you include the WIHA lands. Hunt all day and you can kill both birds the same day. Plus, the Rios and hybrids tend to be more loud-mouthed which is always great to hear.

Next year I'm tentatively planning to hunt WI, KS and MO out west before NY and PA back east here.