Turkey hunting is 'rocking fun'

Someone said that elk are where you find them.

The same thing goes for turkeys.

The gobblers that roam the Panhandle’s broken scrub and timber meadows, river breaks and creek bottoms, have also been called poor man’s elk.

“Hunting them is a lot like hunting elk,” Mark Carson said.

Carson is the Clearwater Region’s head conservation officer, and it was in his region decades ago, on the Craig Mountain Wildlife Management Area that some of the state’s first wild turkeys were introduced.

Carson doesn’t consider himself a turkey hunter, although he has called his share of toms from Southeastern Idaho to western and central Idaho, harvested them and then carried them out of the woods.

“It’s kind of a lazy man’s elk hunt,” he said. “I can throw one over my shoulder and walk out of the woods. I don’t have to call three of my friends to help me pack out the meat.”

In addition, Carson said, hunting toms is relatively low tech. Grab a gun, some shotgun shells and turkey calls and head out to the state’s seemingly ubiquitous public lands.

“It’s rocking fun,” he said. “It’s just as exciting as calling an elk.”

But there is another reason hunting tom turkeys is easier than elk hunting. In many places, Carson said, people want you to kill the birds that flock to their property, roost in their barns, dig in their gardens, eat their pet’s food and otherwise just make a nuisance of themselves.

“With many people it goes from ‘I really like turkeys’, to ‘I really don’t like turkeys,’ really fast,” Carson said.

That translates into landowners often allowing hunters to enter their property to kill spring toms..

For hunters who plan to chase toms when the season opens next month, Carson has a few pointers. Although he lives in Lewiston, he tells hunters to head north for the best turkey hunting.

“In Idaho it seems like the farther north you go, the better it gets,” he said.

That is because turkey populations that began with birds planted around Lake Coeur d’Alene and Pend Oreille really took off, while populations elsewhere, including Craig Mountain, grew more slowly.

Hunt edges, Carson said. And follow the snow line. It usually means the fresh grass left in its wake is green with tender shoots and that is where the turkeys will hang out.

“They move up in elevation as the snow starts to leave,” he said. “Especially on the south-facing slopes.”

Learn how to use a bunch of calls including box calls, slate calls and diaphragm calls and then take them to the woods and talk turkey.

“Even if I’m not very good, I can usually call in a tom,” he said,

But hunters can also intercept small flocks of birds as they move from a roosting area to a feeding area.

“There are lots of ways to hunt turkey,” he said.

Although lingering snow in some units may limit access to hunting areas, overall snow at lower elevations should be minimal when the April 15 general hunt opens in the Panhandle. The spring youth turkey hunt runs from April 8 through April 14.

Turkeys are found throughout the Panhandle Region, except in the mountainous units 7 and 9. Good hunting opportunities can be found on public land adjacent to private land in lower elevations, especially in units 1, 2, 3 and 5. Good opportunities for turkey hunting are also found on Fish and Game’s Craig Mountain Wildlife Management Area south of Lewiston, as well as state and federal land, private agriculture land and corporate timber land.