Bowhunting Broadheads For Turkeys

© By Othmar Vohringer

Very few game animals are as challenging to kill with a bow and arrow as the wily wild turkey. The turkeys phenomenal eyesight and constant weariness of their surrounding makes them extremely challenging for a bowhunter. Once shot with an arrow a turkey can take off flying never to be found again, unlike deer, they leave no blood-trail to follow.

Killing a turkey and keep it on the ground depends on two important ingredients. These are; using a broadhead designed to do the job and shot placement. Having said that, I might add that I take it for granted that you can shoot a bow and have sufficiently practiced hitting the bulls-eye ten out of ten times at your maximum distance.

With more bowhunters trying their hand on turkey hunting, broadhead manufacturers came up with a vast array of special broadheads designed to kill turkeys instantly. Over the years I have found that mechanical broadheads, due to the bigger cutting diameter, worked better for me than other designs. To that end here are a few of my favorite turkey broadheads.

Arrowdynamic Solutions Guillotine Fixed-Blade Broadhead: This is then only boradhead from my selection that I have never tried out. However the reviews I read and firsthand accounts I have heard seem to agree that this is the ultimate turkey hunting broadhead. This is a fixed blade broadhead with a cutting diameter of a staggering 2.1/2 inch for the 100 grain broadhead and 4 inch for the 125 grain head. As the name suggests this broadhead is designed to lope the toms head cleanly off. Hence it is aimed directly at the turkeys head, not the body. Caution though if you want to make full body mount of the your gobbler this is not the broadhead you want to use.

NAP Spitfire Gobbler Getter: New Archery Products broadheads have long been my personal choice for all kinds of bowhunting applications. The Spitfire Gobbler Getter comes in 100 and 125 grains and a 1-3/4 inch cutting diameter. The Gobbler Getter features a shock inducing blunt point that knocks the wind out of any gobbler. The large super sharp cutting blades will cause maximum hemorrhage to ensure instant death.

NAP Bloodrunner 3: Is a uniquely designed broadhead that delivers field point accuracy out of the box with a cutting diameter of 1.1/2 inch this broadhead is potent turkey killing medicine. The Bloodrunner is a hybrid mechanical broadhead design that provides a low 1 inch profile in flight and expands upon impact on the target to the full cutting diameter that stays open all the way through the vitals.



Using a quality broadhead is only one equation of making a killing shot on a gobbler. The other is shot placement. Turkeys have a small kill zone and in addition a strutting tom can be quite deceiving when it comes to picking a spot for a lethal shot. Thanks to the courtesy of Hoyt Archery and Gone Wild Outdoors we can show you an excellent video on the subject of shot placement. In the video you also will see some of the broadheads in action that I reviewed above.

Discuss in the comment section below what turkey hunting broadheads work well for you. If you have a story to tell about your turkey bowhunting adventure contact us.

Use A Boat To Hunt Turkeys

© By Othmar Vohringer

Click on image to enlarge.

Public land turkeys are not dumb, at least not the ones that survived two or three hunting seasons. When the hunting season opens and the first wave of hunters enter the turkey woods the big toms head for places that most hunters don’t go too. I learned that lesson a few years ago hunting in an Illinois state park. On one side the park borders run along a river that had a wide sandy beach interspersed with lush patches of grass and agricultural fields. It was from there I heard most gobbling occur in the mid-morning. The problem I faced to get to these birds was that there was no way to get to the gobblers without being detected by them.

What to do?

You've heard the saying; “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” I had the will and I had the means. My will to get to these turkeys was by way of the river and the means to do that was my Lowe 1436 jon-boat.

Here is how you make hunting turkeys from a boat work.

Before we go any further it might be a good idea to advise you to read the hunting regulations before you use a boat to hunt turkeys. Not every U.S. State or Canadian province permits turkey hunting from a boat but in most cases you can use a boat to get into an area.

Look at a map:

I love Google maps and use them regularly for getting a birds-eye view of the area I intend to hunt. Arial maps show you the topography along the river shore and you can zoom in very close to the point where you can make out exact details in the landscape.
Look for potential strutting zones along shore line, such as strips of sand, agricultural fields and such (see image above where I outlined some possible strutting areas along the river shoreline).

On the water:

Get on the water before dawn, if you put the boat in upstream of the hunting area you can let the boat drift downstream, navigating with a paddle. If you put the boat in downstream of the hunting area use an electric trolling motor to navigate upstream. I don’t know if the noise from a gas outboard motor would spook turkeys, but I rather would not take that chance and prefer the silent approach. Stop frequently along the shoreline and use a locator call to elicit a gobble from a tom. During the mid-morning hours look for strutting gobblers along the shoreline too.

Get ready to hunt:

When you hear a tom gobble beach the boat quietly in a cove or around a river bend and sneak between the tom’s location and the mainland to block his way inland. Set up as close to the gobbler’s location as possible and start calling. If you spot turkeys on the shoreline, get ahead of them until you’re around a river bend or are otherwise be able to prevent the birds from seeing what you’re doing. Beach the boat quietly, grab your gear and loop back. Employ regular turkey hunting tactics as the situation requires.