What I do is get hot or boiling water dip the bird in this. Bring it back out and start pluckin. Keep doin this till the whole bird is cleaned. Works well for me, maybe will work for you too.

IS there anough meat on the legs to bother with skinning them? If i get lucky and happen to bag a tom I'm planning on just filleting out the breast just as I do a pheasant. But I'm unsure on the legs.

When you cook a thanksgiving turkey do you breast the bird or cook it whole? Wild turkey is not any different. Just breasting a bird is a waste but that's my 2 cents. Most people I know breast birds because they do not like to gut them.

I agree with the cleaning of the bird, but I never cut my beards off like he did there. I grab it firmly about an inch down & just pull it off. It comes off clean with no extra flesh or skin to trim.

titleist, there is alot of good meat on the legs, and also on the wings....granted, they aren't as big as a Butterball....the leg and wing meat are darker colored, but tastes just as good as the white breast meat....tnichols, I agree with you also, just breasting the bird is rather wasteful, and no I don't particularly care for gutting turkeys....but, you can skin the bird, fillet the breast out, cut all the meat of the legs and wings, and pick over the bird getting all the meat you can and you'll have enough there to feed several....when I do the filleting deal, I deep fry the nuggets in seasoned flour......a great meal, especially when you find some morals on the way out of the woods and wifes happy cause you only need one pan.