Ok, so you bagged a turkey! Congratulations! Often times, turkey hunters often wonder how their trophy stacks up against other turkeys. The National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) has an official wild turkey records program.

According to the NWTF, the purpose of the program is to provide hunters throughout the world with a permanent record keeping system that will preserve information on all legally harvested wild turkey taken in the spirit of fair chase.

The records are maintained for Eastern, Florida, Rio Grande, and Merriam’s subspecies. The Eastern subspecies is found in Tennessee. Weight, beard length, and spur length are considered to determine a total score for wild turkeys. (more…)

Turkey hunters should get plenty of calling action this spring, based on field reports of an abundance of Rio Grande gobblers observed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists.

“I have been getting reports from many of our field biologist and they all agree that this is going to be a good season in Rio Grande turkey country due to the 2007 spring and summer rains and mild temperatures,” said Jason Hardin, TPWD turkey program coordinator.

“Some of the guys mentioned last year seeing new poults as late as August. That probably means these birds had ample opportunity to re-nest two to three times over the summer. So, there should be lots of jakes seen, making it a fun year to call in lots of birds. There will be plenty of mature gobblers, as well, so hunters should not hesitate to get in the field.”

Rio Grande spring turkey hunting season opens in the North Zone March 29 and runs through May 11. Special youth-only weekends are set for March 22-23 and May 17-28. The South Zone opens March 15 and runs through April 27, with youth-only weekends set for March 8-9 and May 3-4. (more…)