How to Attract Turkeys

The season just can't seem to make up its mind. After nine inches of snow piled up during a two day storm, temperatures rose into the upper 40s, with a day or two of sun, and all the snow melted, excepting a few small patches on the north side of the garage and shed. Temperatures dropped, and the water and slush turned to ice. For the first time since my wife bought them in 2005, I used slip-on shoe cleats when I walked to the mailbox. Then, more melting, and today more snow. The cats's spring fever has melted away as well, and only one - our long-haired tabby - has spent any time outside.

Even the wildlife seems confused about the seasons. During the warm patches, the wild turkey and deer stayed up in the hills, not bothering to come down for a few apples or stale bread. But, somewhere, it must be turkey season. Earlier in the year, I bought some boots over the Internet from Mack's Prairie Wings, in Stuttgart, Arkansas. Nice boots, good price. Well, today the mailman brought Mack's "Turkey Season, Spring 2011" catalog. I'd never looked through one of their catalogs, so I flipped through the pages with some amusement.

They've got a full 10 pages of wild turkey decoys and calls. I suppose that hunters need these kinds of visual aids to trick the turkeys and lure them to their demise. We've just got to walk outside and the dozens of turkeys scuffling for snacks in our lower pasture come into the driveway hoping for a handout. Now, I admit that stale bread and old Cheerios don't make for much of a diet, but they make more sense to us than paying for specialty turkey food. In their catalog, Mack's offers Vita-Rack Beard Builder to "maximize beard strength and length, enhance feathering...and increase body weight and stimulate improved reproduction and overall health." You can also get and plant Turkey Gold Chufa, for which turkeys will "scratch for hours to get at these small tubers." Good for their exercise as well, I suppose.

These are on the same page as hunters' turkey feeders. OK, now I get it. Spread the feed, fatten the turkeys, then shoot them. Seems easy enough. Of course, not as easy - or cheap - as walking out the front door and bagging a turkey as it's begging for stale Cheerios. Glad I'm not a hunter. Too easy.