February 24, 2023 Optics for a Turkey Gun- Shotgun Scope or Shotgun Red Dot By: Justin Hunold With today’s purpose driven Turkey Guns, Turkey Chokes and Turkey Shells choices a plenty we are sling patterns tighter than ever. We are able to carry longer, set up better and shoot further. Not only are the guns, chokes and shells better but Turkey hunting is becoming more and more refined. From basic lead, to plated, duplex, heavier than lead and TSS shot we are sending shots that pattern as tight as baseballs at 25 yards and sometimes even further. Even though most modern turkey guns come with some form of fiber optic sight on them we should be thinking of those as a backup system. If you’ve spent the time, money and effort to get a gun specifically to chase turkeys, that gun should wear a modern optic. What kind of shotgun scope should you use on your turkey gun? Why? Let’s look at shotgun optics choices for turkey hunting. Why should you run an optic for turkey hunting? The simple answer is precision. When you were out in the field with a simple high brass , heavy game load, full choke and bead you had to know where that gun patterned. This was likely a large pattern by todays standards and you have to keep it in mind everytime you pull the trigger on a Tom. Now, we are shooting ultra tight patterns out to ranges well beyond sixty yards and we need to know where that shot is going to be. Most patterns are the size of a baseball at twenty five yards with today’s gear, so if you’re off by three to four inches you missed. And who wants to think about where to hold to center the pattern. Sight it in, hold the dot on the spot and press the trigger. The rest takes care of itself. Simple and effective. Also, when you’re shooting at longer ranges a bead or even rifled sights are likely covering up way more than they should be for you to place those pellets where they have to go. With a scope or red dot you know exactly where your point of aim is. Be sure of your target and beyond, it works a lot better if you are sure where your projectiles will be hitting within reason. What optic should you have on your Tom tagger? A lot of that is personal preference and hunting style differences. We all have our opinions but there are a few reasons for both a red dot and a LPVO (low power variable optic). Let’s look at them both and help you decide Red Dots When we are looking at the first and more popular category of scopes for shotgun we come to Red Dots. There are three types of Red Dots, Reflex, Prismatic, and Holographic. A few years ago I would have said Prismatic sights were the route to go, but more and more reflex sights for shotguns have taken center stage. Holographic sights are great, but tend to be a bit more expensive. Prismatic’s still have a place but for most folks the benefits and price point of a reflex sight is where it’s at in the turkey woods. Why would you use a reflex sight for a shotgun chasing Tom’s? Adjustable brightness, for when that cloudy spring dawn turns into a sun baked backdrop on an open field, red dot sights for shotguns leave you the ability to quickly adjust the brightness of the reticle. Also weight, a reflex sight is a great lightweight option for those long hikes along oak ridges looking for gobbling birds. Precise, no matter who is behind the reflex sight, no matter what angle the glass is at, no matter what eye dominant or hand dominant position that shooter is in, if the dots on the target it will hit there. Wherever the dot is is where the shot will end up. This isn’t the same for any other sight style other than holographic. This is a real advantage in the turkey woods where non dominant hand shots are somewhat common. Also, take your kid or wife or friend out hunting, hand them your gun knowing that if they put the dot on the spot you have to worry not. LPVO A while back you would see a lot of the famous TV hunters putting the smack down on gobblers with Turkey Specific low power variable optics. For a lot of folks there has been zero reason to move away from these. Let’s look at why you want a scope on your turkey gun. When that Tom hangs up in that open field at 65 yards and you know your TSS is still plenty deadly at that range, you can crank that LPVO up to 4x and place the crosshairs or dot on the waddles, knowing the EXACT placement. What about shooting through that little gap in the brush at his red, white and blue head? Yup, these are the best cases for a scope for turkey hunting. A fairly new option for LPVO’s that might be an interesting addition to some folks for turkey hunting is an illuminated single dot or reticle in conjunction with the standard reticle available with a lot of these models. Still using a red dot to anchor you to that head poking through the brush, but this time with a bit of magnification, which is right up some hunters alley. The limiting factors for a more traditional shotgun scope are weight and field of view. Obviously, a variable scope is going to weigh in the range of pounds comparatively to even a tube style prismatic sight which tip the scale in ounces. The other area where a red dot, especially a reflex sight, does a bit better a job on a turkey gun is in the field of view category. The almost non existent ring you will perceive on a reflex sight leaves little to the imagination. Meaning you will see your Tom and everything else going on around him, to make the safest, most accurate, and most ethical shot possible. Our Turkey Guns come with proprietary bases for mounting optics, and even though we have nice fiber optic beads on the barrel we suggest you use that base to mount the optic of your choice. When running and gunning for turkeys there is a lot left to chance, exact aiming and shot placement shouldn’t be one of them. We do our best to give you every reason to put the best shot on that bird possible, whether that’s with the optic mounted on the included base or a quality fiber optic bead. Let’s be honest we wouldn’t build a base and include it with every Retay Turkey gun if we didn’t think you should be giving a good quality optic a try. Put the dot on the spot and worry not.
February 17, 2023 Turkey Shells What shells Should You Chase Toms With This Spring By: Justin Hunold Let’s start from the very beginning, it’s the very best place to start. Ben Franklin’s pick for our National Avian Emblem, Thanksgiving Dinner Star, and befuddler of spring hunter the Wild Turkey, they are tough to kill. So, when we are chasing them a lot of the focus has been put on the gun and choke combo, optics, calls, camo and energy drinks. What is the actual thing that does the dispatching though…the ammo. Let’s look at the anatomy of a turkey shell and also what shells you might consider running this year. What are the components of a shotgun shell? This is interesting because when I started chasing turkeys almost 30 years ago the answer was shoot them with a high brass 3” magnum #4 in a full choke. In all honesty, that hasn’t changed a ton during the ammo shortages of the past few years; plenty of birds were being chased with a similar set up, but Turkey Shells aren’t just beefed up game loads. Generally if we start at the front of the shell, you will see a crimp. The crimp is what holds all the shot and other components in the shell, you can have folded or rolled. Folded crimps will have a familiar star pattern in the folds. Rolled crimps will have a flat disc facing out with the edged of the rolled shell holding it in place. Either will work just fine, but more and more you see top end turkey loads with rolled crimps. The reason that is the case is the rolled crimp allows for a touch more internal volume for components ie. shot. Inside the shell you will find the shot, in lead or similar shot 4,5,6’s tend to be the most popular sizes of buffered lead in the shells.A lot of states will limit your shot sizes to those coinciding numbers, shall not be smaller than a 6 or larger than a 4. Often in a turkey load the lead is plated with a harder metal such as copper. Shot will have buffer between it. This helps the pellets not bounce off of each other during flight therefore retaining their roundness and stability. Those two components are housed in the wad. The wad is simply the plastic cup that holds the shot and buffer in place as it goes down the barrel. The wad sits on top of the powder and the powder sits on top of the primer. All of this is housed in a hull or shell. Shells come in three sizes for 12 gauges and two for 20 gauge (for our purposes). Both guns will support 2.75” and 3” shells, some 12’s will also take a 3.5” shell as well. Always check the gun for the length of the shell it will take. With that the longer the shell the more total components will fit inside of it, in the form of powder and shot. So a 3.5 inch 12 gauge supports a lot more #6 shot than a 2.75” 20. So after that history lesson what makes a Turkey Load different? Generally, turkey shells will have as much shot as possible in each size shell. Where as a 3” #4 duck load might have an ounce and an eighth of shot, a turkey load will likely be filled with more than an ounce and a half of the same size shot. You don’t need to lead a turkey, so with plated lead shot and more of it being pushed out, velocity on turkey shells is normally slower. It doesn’t need to get there fast, it just all needs to get there and as densely as possible. With a waterfowl load you likely want a large ish pattern that has few gaps, say about 30” , a turkey shell should be delivering all of its shot very tightly. Often that need for a lot of shot delivered in a tight area leads to companies leaning on a high pellet count and high quality buffer to make that happen. Now we get into the zone of shot composition. What are the pellets made of? This is a lot like our evolution of waterfowl shells articles. The difference is there is almost no non toxic requirements (California withstanding). Meaning lead has dominated Turkey Shells for a long time. But when it comes to shotgun shells for turkey hunting, lead is not your only option. Tungsten, Bismuth and other denser than Lead have made their way over to turkey hunting. This started a long time ago with the original Heavy Shot, but with the advent of some advancements in turning out higher grade heavier than lead shot and better components there is a real swing to these new options. All forms of TSS or Tungsten Super Slam shot have made their way into retailers and chambers of guns alike. When you may have stepped down to a 6 shot in the past to increase pellet count , you can now shoot a #9 and when that #6 lost it’s steam at 40 yards that TSS in #9 is still plenty lethal at 60 and beyond. But that comes with a price tag. Normally TSS from any manufacturer is going to top $10 a shell. And shot sizes that small aren’t legal in all places. If you’re a dedicated Turkey hunter and you can constitute the price tag of the TSS shells and proprietary choke that should be used by all means send them down range. They are a devastating combination for spring Toms. Yet, do not discount a great shot shell stuffed with plated #4,5, or 6 shot. More of that will take to the woods than TSS this spring and it has killed mountains of turkeys over the years. With modern buffer, powder, Shot construction and shapes, and even duplex or combination of all of these shot sizes and materials together turkey loads have never been more potent. And with that, don’t fall into the bigger is best mode of shot shells. More and more folks are shooting heavier than lead options in 20 gauge when putting big strutters on the ground. Often a 3” option will pattern better in a given gun than a 3.5” shell of the same manufacturer and style. But with that there are a lot of people who carry a 12 gauge stoked with 3.5 inches and 2 ounces of hellfire. Cause you can’t kill them too dead. And at the end of the day all of this is about putting those tough Toms on the ground for good. We are lucky hunters to have so many options.
January 27, 2023 Should I Hunt Turkeys From a Blind? Thinking about hunting birds both in and out of the box. By: Justin Hunold A lot of Toms are fooled with Hub Style blinds every spring. There 15 yards in front of you just outside of that window your decoys look perfect. They look so good you have to remind yourself to not shoot your strutting decoy. With the blades of last year’s dry grass and the newly greened up version moving in the wind, you see Him lock on to your imitation flock out in the field. And like a young man sowing his oats that Tom is on his way down to get some, either a fight or a romp. This is the way of Turkey hunting from a modern pop up blind. Turkey Calls are very similar to ones from decades past, but the variety and reliability is a lot better, and yes decoys continue to look better and better with modern materials and finishes, and we even understand the spring Turkey better due to continued research, but one thing likely helps kill more birds every year than the modern pop up blind……but it saves a bunch too. Why should you be Turkey Hunting from a pop up blind? There are a lot of reasons to hunt from a blind, they hide your movement, they give you concealment in places that are wide open, they protect you from some of the elements, Turkey’s basically don’t react to them at all and they can help you stay patient. Let’s dive in on Who’s What, When’s, Where and How’s of Hunting Turkeys from a Blind. One main reason to hunt turkeys from a pop up blind is because turkeys dont adversely react to them. Not long ago when you saw a flock strutting in the middle of a field day after day and you couldn’t access them or if you could there was no cover to hunt them from they mine as well have been in a zoo. They were in a spot you couldn’t kill them in. The blind changed all of that. A camo blind standing up in the middle of the field will definitely not fool a whitetail and likely you won’t see a coyote or another predator unless that blind has been there a very long time or is adequately brushed in. When it comes to beards and spurs though, you can pop that thing up and hunt from it that morning. Ground Blinds make places that lack cover huntable for Turkeys Toms and Hens alike seem to not give a hoot about a pop up blind suddenly appearing in a spot it wasn’t yesterday. So, field hunting turned into a big option over the past 20 years when it wasn’t really on the radar much before that. If you see a Tom puffed up in the middle of the field every day, that bird is likely killable with a pop up blind and access to that field. Hunting in comfort is another great reason to hunt out of a blind. Rain, snow, sleet, and hail a blind can make you into a regular USPS mailman. No matter the weather you can generally hunt in relative comfort from a blind. This keeps you concentrating on the birds and not how miserable you feel. It also lends to your patience. Warm, dry and concealed tends to make a hunter stay put rather than feeling they need to be up and moving to stay warm. Sometimes staying in a spot is the key to the game. Impatient hunters save a lot of animals every year. For the reasons listed above Blind hunting is a great way to introduce new or young hunters to the game. A kid can be free to move a bit more in a blind, they can also have a tablet or even a couple games or toys to help pass the time. Teaching kids to hunt is a big undertaking. I believe that there are times this is best done with a compromise of toughing it and making it a bit more comfortable, a blind is a great middle ground. This is the same for newer hunters. Great teaching moments like how much you can move, what it’s like when Turkeys come in and a shot is imminent, judging distance, watching animal behavior can all be taught from a blind in a way that might not happen leaning against a tree. Plus for someone maybe not used to navigating the woods in the dark or at all a destination or home base is a great way to increase confidence. There are a couple instances when that blind that proves deadly so many times is the bane of a hunter’s existence in moments. One story that is told over and over is causing a malfunction in the weapon of the hunter in regards to the blind. This predominantly happens with a bow, the hunter forgets how many moving parts there are and a limb hits the blind, or the sight clears the window but they don’t estimate for the inches difference in arrow height at the shelf and next thing you know they have a new broadhead hole through there camo house. It can happen to a lesser extent with a gun but be aware of your windows in a blind. The other instance is when a bird sneaks in and won’t come around to the side a hunter prepped for a shot. This is when a hunter is generally cursing the blind and thinking that they could have had that bird if they weren’t pinned down inside but running a gunning outside. As a rule of thumb, I keep three windows open to help with this and the more dense the cover the less likely I am to be in a blind. At the end of the day the situation that surrounds the birds are the contributing factors in deciding whether or not to use a blind. Early in the season, with colder, wetter weather and birds heading to fields to get in that ever escaping sunshine, I’ll be in a blind. Having a new hunter with me, Blind time. When birds might be pressured and quiet, I’m more patient in a blind. In my opinion there are a ton of times you shouldn’t be in a blind. But every turkey hunter should own one or two and they should have them ready to go for the situations surrounding the birds.
