me and my close friend decided to bowhunt for toms this year. we have both only been hunting turkeys for about 4 years each. we have 2 spots to hunt. we came up with this crazy idea to hunt them with bows, not an easy task, since we will only be shooting toms, no jakes. to make it even more difficult, we want to videotape it. we are both 16, so any help you can extend to us will be greatly appreciated. thanx.

"For every dented car with blood and hair, we gain one pro-hunting vote."

Well Ko,The hardest part is gettin the bow drawn back without gettin busted.I'd suggest some decoys .Hopefully he will give the deke his attention takin it off of you.Also I'd have one guy do the callin and the other do the shootin.The ideal situation would be to have him in full strut with his backside towards you.With his head tucked and his fan between you and him it will give you a chance to draw and also offer you a good target. Good Luck.

I have to assume you have all your regular shotgun turkey hunting gear (vest, calls, camo, maybe decoys, etc.). Do you have all of your archery gear?

I will not get into archery equipment for now until you answer the above. Personally I use everything the same as my archery deer hunting.

Two things I feel you'll need for archery turkey is a blind and decoys. I use a wall blind made of 25' of burlap camo cloth that I wrap around trees and branches. The pop-up blinds are great too but can be restricting. The decoys will get those toms to come in just a little closer so you can get a 10-20 yard bow shot.

Check out, http://www.bowhunting.net/wildturkey...efault.htm#top

Also check out http://www.turkeyhuntingsecrets.com under the articles section.

There is an article in Turkey and Turkey Hunting magazine on using bows for turkeys in the new March 2003 edition. Good luck!

Edited by - BOSSTOM on 02/02/2003 08:18:13

i am a shotgun turkey hunter. i have dekes, and calls and all. i shoot a PSE bow with about a 60 lb. peak weight. i shoot spitfire Pro 100 grain 3 blade meachanical broadheads on top of 30" aluminum arrows. will this be good for turkeys? i may also be getting a new matthews bow this month, so if i feel i shoot well enough with that, i may hunt with that. i can shoot everyday after school in my backyard, so i can get lots of practice. a blind is a good idea. i have a lot of camo burlap. i could set one up real quickly. thanx for the website. any other info would be great thanx.

"For every dented car with blood and hair, we gain one pro-hunting vote."

any other help from anyone? How about you Lefty?? tell me of your bow equipment. thanx

"For every dented car with blood and hair, we gain one pro-hunting vote."

You can check out two pictures of my wall blind in my turkey hunting photos.
http://community.webshots.com/user/rjllewel

As I stated before, I use everything the same as my archery deer hunting and I've been shooting the same old bow and aluminum arrows for 9 years and the bow was already used. I'd be the last person to get all anal about if it would kill a turkey or not. To me it is about shot placement not speed or blade size. What I'm not is a mechanical blade fan but that is because of my setup not yours. I love the fact you're still shooting alum arrows!

As for the blind setup, I remove all the leaves/sticks from behind the blind so moving is not noisy. I shoot from my knees or on one knee. You can get away with a lot of moving behind the blind but you have to stay low.

Lefty: i still shoot them aluminums. have no reason to really change, since my pse bow was a hand me down and is like 10 years old. it shoots pretty slow. especially shooting alongside my friend in my backyard. i am going to order my turkey mckenzie after i get back from vacation. just took $100 out of bank. i want to set up a full 3-d walk-thru course in my backyard. with my new bow, i will probably end up shooting carbons, but what ya gonna do? that blind looks nice. thanx for the pics. i can build something like that easily. the turkeys roost in the same trees every night, so setting up early should be no problem, since i know there pattern pretty good.

"For every dented car with blood and hair, we gain one pro-hunting vote."