The Turkey Hunter Podcast With Andy Gagliano | Turkey Hunting Tips, Strategies, And Stories

In this episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast, I discuss 3 unconventional turkey hunting strategies that you may have never tried.  These 3 strategies are a bit unique and are not necessarily strategies that you will want to try every time you go into the turkey woods. These strategies are designed to get you to think about ways that you can mix up your turkey hunts to counter the unpredictability of wild turkeys.  

If you are going to kill turkeys, then you need to find turkeys. One of the best ways to do that is to use locator calls to help pinpoint the location of a lovesick Tom.  In this episode of The Turkey Hunter podcast, I discuss 10 types of locator calls and some tips on how to use those calls to get better response from turkeys. Listen in as I talk crow calls, owl calls, hawk calls, gobble calls, peacock calls, pileated woodpecker calls, rooster crows, turkey calls, and coyote howlers.

In this episode, I share 5 random turkey hunting tips that will hopefully help you to save money, stay safe while hunting, and to kill more turkeys.  

You've done everything right on that early morning hunt, and that turkey you've been working steps into range for your 12 Gauge. You get your cheek down on the buttstock of the gun, aim, and slowly squeeze the trigger.  Now what? In today's episode I'm going to discuss what to do after your shot. There are several safety concerns that are addressed in this episode. If you watch lots of hunting television shows, then you see lots of hosts of those shows do these things incorrectly.  Hope you enjoy the show, and thanks for tuning in!  

LIsten in to this special alligator hunting episode of The Turkey Hunter podcast where Jeff Gregg shares the story of harvesting what could turn out to be the new record alligator taken on Lake Eufala in Alabama. This gator topped the scales at 920 pounds and measured in at approximately 13' 6". The gator yielded over 200 lbs of meat for Gregg and his hunting partner, Scott Evans.  Enjoy!

In this episode, outdoor writer and photographer, Steve Hickoff, shares some Fall turkey scouting strategies to help us locate turkeys before we venture into the woods with a gun this Fall. We discuss some of the turkey sign that we are looking for in the Fall, some preferred late Fall and early Winter food sources, and typical turkey habitat during that time of year.    

J. Wayne Fears is a well known and well respected outdoors and shooting writer.  In this episode of The Turkey Hunter, J. Wayne shares some of his knowledge of the tranformation of turkey guns over the past decade.  We also talk about common reasons why we miss turkeys and what to look for when patterning your turkey shotgun before season. In addition we get to hear the story of J. Wayne's most recent successful turkey hunt.

In this episode of The Turkey Hunter podcast, I talk turkey hunting gear and being prepared at the drop of a hat.  If you call me and tell me that you know where a gobbling turkey is and that you'll pick me up at the corner gas station in 15 minutes, I'm going to beat you to the gas station by ten minutes. And I won't forget anything that I need. I give a list of all the things that I have in my turkey hunting container and how I rarely am without any of the essential turkey hunting gear that I need to be successful in the spring woods.

Turkey hunting is filled with myths that instill magical powers in wild turkeys.  "Turkeys have x-ray vision. Turkeys can do this.  Turkeys can do that.  Turkeys are better than you are. Etc, etc, etc."  These myths get into our heads while we are hunting, and sometimes prevent us from pursuing a bird that we could actually kill if we made an attempt at doing so.   In this episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast I tackle three of these myths that pollute our brains while we are in the turkey woods in hopes that we can put these myths to bed and get on with slaying turkeys.  

Joe Hutto is a naturalist, artist, and author who imprinted two clutches of wild turkey eggs. Joe wasn't prepared for how this experiment of gaining acceptance into the inside world of wild turkeys would change his life. For two years, Joe spent nearly every daylight hour with this flock of birds, witnessing and documenting their transformation from young hatching poults to full grown adult wild turkeys. Joe's notes of this transformation were put into book form in Illumination in the Flatwoods. Several years later, Joe's book was made into a documentary and aired on PBS. The documentary entitled, "My Life as a Turkey" won 3 Emmy's. In this episode of The Turkey Hunter Pocast, Joe shares with us more about his experience raising the turkeys as well as provides us some behind the scenes information about the book and the documentary. If you want to learn more about the behavior of wild turkeys (and if you are a turkey hunter, then you definitely should be a student of the bird), then you'll want to listen in t

Corey New with Combat in the Wild and The Turkeyologists is on this episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast sharing tips on how to take better video footage of our turkey hunts.  With the popularity of video on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, more and more hunters are sharing their hunts with friends and loved ones via social media so that they can enjoy the success as well.  Videoing hunts is also a great way to extend your season if you live in a state with a short season or low bag limit.  If you are going to take the time and put forth the effort to video a hunt and share it with your friends and family, then you should also put forth the effort to take good video. Listen in as Corey shares with us the 3 Cardinal Sins to avoid while videoing our turkey hunts, and set up tips as well.

In this episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast, Bob Eriksen, Regional Wildlife Biologist with the National Wild Turkey Federation, shares with us some tips that we can put to use on our hunting properties to improve the habitat for our turkeys. We discuss prescribed fire, planting crops, improving brood and nesting habitat, wildlife habitat management plans, and cost sharing programs available for landowners who would like a plan for their properties. If you want to hear, see, and kill more wild turkeys, then you need to improve the habitat on your hunting property so that you'll increase the population and your opportunities for harvesting a trophy bird.  Bob teaches us a great deal of what we need to know to make those improvements.

JT Byrne's passion for Fall turkey hunting with dogs is apparent in this interview. JT shares with us the history behind the famous Byrne line of Appalachian Turkey Dogs, the benefits of using dogs to turkey hunt in the Fall, and some exciting Fall turkey hunting stories as well - my favorite of which is the story of his dad's last turkey hunt.  Listen in to this week's very entertaining episode about Fall Turkey Hunting with Dogs with JT Byrne.  I hope you learn as much as I did and that the interview sparks an interest in trying out the sport if you get the opportunity. As promised during the interview, the links mentioned towards the end of the show are below: American Wild Turkey Hunting Dog Association Byrne Turkey Dogs Facebook Group - This is a closed group, and you'll need to apply to join. Turkey Trot Acres - Provides guided turkey dog hunts in New York.

In this week's episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast, Sally Morgan with Morgan's Americana shares her excitement about her husband, Kenny's, new book entitled America, Wild Turkeys, and Mongrel Dogs. Kenny Morgan passed away in 2011 after finishing the manuscript of his second book.  Kenny's vision for this book was for it to be a coffee table book that people would be proud to display in their homes.  After Kenny's passing, Sally took up the project of completing the book in Kenny's honor, and she certainly made Kenny's vision come to life.  The book is a coffee table book full of Kenny's turkey hunting stories, amazing photography of nature, wild turkeys, and photos from Kenny's childhood. Listen in to the interview, and then I'm sure you will want to pick up your copy of the book while there are still some available.  

The number of women hunting and fishing is growing each year for great reasons. The same reasons why men have been hunting and fishing for years. The outdoors is an awesome place to spend the morning or afternoon, and enjoying the outdoors with a gun or rod and reel in hand makes that morning or afternoon even more awesome. More and more women are picking up on that fact each year, and they are also enjoying being part of the "Farm to Table" movement that has swept the country over the past several years.  Brenda Valentine, The First Lady of Hunting, shares information with us to help us introduce women, and new hunters, to the sport of turkey hunting. If we take care to introduce others to turkey hunting the right way, we will create turkey hunters for life, and Brenda goes over some of those tips that we can use to introduce others, especially women to the sport that we love so much.

In this episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast, Tes Randle Jolly, who is a very well known wildlife and nature photographer, shares information about photographing wild turkeys.  Tes' work has been in numerous magazines, books, websites, and advertisements. Tes shares with us how photographing turkeys can teach us patience and make us better turkey hunters. She also shares with us the one thing that she has learned while turkey hunting that has made her a better turkey hunter, and she shares with us the story of her most recent successful turkey hunt. If you want to reach out to Tes to purchase her work or to ask her some additional questions, you can find her contact info on www.jollysoutdoorvisions.com. Listen in to Tes and me while we talk turkey, and I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did putting it together.  

Traveling out of state to hunt turkeys can be very exciting and a ton of fun. These out of state trips can be a way to extend your hunting season or increase your bag limit opportunities.  They are also a necessity for completing a Grand Slam. They can, however, also be a lot of stress and be very expensive if the trip is not planned out properly.   In this episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast, I share 6.5 steps that you will want to follow to plan a turkey hunting trip out of state so you can be sure that you are getting the best experience possible for your investment of money and time. Click here for the blog post where I share 45 questions to ask a turkey hunting outfitter.

Even the best turkey hunters odds of success are greatly diminished when hunting in an area that has a low turkey population. In this episode I share some tips that we all can use to increase the nesting success, as well as the brood rearing success, on our hunting properties.

Preston Pittman with Pittman Game Calls shares his knowledge of how to best care for your turkey calls so you can get years of use out of them. Preston tells us how to condition our calls during the season so that they are ready to play while we are hunting, and he also tells us how to store our calls so that they are ready to be put into service next year as well. We also get to hear the story of Preston's most recent successful turkey hunt and the one or two keys that made that hunt successful.

One of the best ways to learn how to have more success while turkey hunting is to learn from the experiences of others, as well as your own.  In this episode of The Turkey Hunter Podcast, I share 7 lessons that I feel are worth taking away from my 2015 turkey hunting season. These 7 lessons will not only help you kill more turkeys, but they will help to serve as a reminder as to why we are in the turkey woods in the first place.