Iowa Turkey Hunt

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BrowningCitori

Member
A friend was nice enough to invite me to hunt eastern turkeys in SW Iowa. After many years of turning him down, I finally applied for a tag and headed east. It was great to be in the eastern hardwoods in April. Especially when there were 5-10 toms gobbling on the roost. One morning I had 10 toms strutting within 200 yds of my setup. Too many live turkeys around for them to have any interest in my setup. The birds were call and decoy shy but persistance paid off. My friend killed a very nice bird and I killed this little 24 pounder. Luckily the weather was great during the hunt and the wind and rain didn't show up until the tags were filled.

We only had a cell phone with to take photo (my mistake) and unfortunately there is one loose feather on the bird. Other than that a perfect hunt and always great to see and old friend.
 
Fantastic big bird.
 
UGUIDE said:
Very nice bird. That's the great thing about Iowa Turkeys, 24 lbs is small. I hear they get upwards of 32 lbs for a mature Tom.
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Not sure 24 is small, but my friend did say that when they first re-introduced birds there, the jakes were weighing 18-19 pounds. Now that the habitat is staturated with birds they are quite as big. He shot what I think was a 2 year old that weigh 19.

Interesting to note, a local asked what a turkey tag cost an out of stater. When I told him, he said you should get 3 turkey tags when you buy a license but every pheasant should require a tag and cost $50 each. That pretty much sums up the number of pheasants in that part of Iowa. We saw one rooster, while I was there, and my friend was surprised to see it. Sad, that used to be good pheasant and quail country, the weather and floods have been hard on bird numbers there.
 
It's definitely bad in parts over there. The Losse Hills are still decent, not good by any means. Nice bird though. Much nicer than some I've seen here around central Iowa.
 
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