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Turkey Hunting
2024 Georgia Turkey Season Dates
Kids, Mobility Impaired: March 23-24
Public-Land: April 6 – May 15
Private-Land: March 30 – May 15
* Two gobbler per season limit; one-gobbler-per-day restriction.
An eight-bearded gobbler was recently killed in Marion County that should become the new No. 3 atypical Georgia gobbler of all time. The bird scores 186.22 and is currently going through the certification process by the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in Edgefield, S.C. The NWTF is the gate keeper for turkey records. Nick Mandese, of…
Michael Waddell and Georgia gobblers go back a long way. His love of turkey hunting and the skills he developed as a master caller and hunter when he was a teenager opened the door to an extraordinary outdoor career that has been going strong for over 20 years. And even though his love of turkey…
By Justin Lance Opening day of the 2020 youth season, I took my son Benton turkey hunting for the first time ever. We had prepared and worked on a setup and how to shoot and where to aim for the prior two days leading up to turkey season. I tried to prepare him for long…
Surprisingly, there wasn’t a single truck at the gate when I pulled into the parking area in one of my favorite old spots. I had gotten there early in hopes of beating the crowd. It was only 4:15 a.m., but I was still surprised. I sat there in the truck for another 15 minutes rethinking…
As biologists propose changes for the next several Georgia turkey seasons (see page 14), hunters have been hitting the woods for what could be their last mid-March turkey chasing for at least a couple of years. April is when hens go to nest, and that typically leaves love-struck gobblers in search mode—and callable. That’s the…
Changes to the 2022-2023 turkey seasons were the most significant proposals in WRD’s hunting regulations package presented to the DNR Board on March 23. All of the proposed hunting regulations would take Georgia hunters through the next two hunting seasons, beginning in the fall of 2021 and running through turkey season 2023. For years, southeastern…
Coastal landowners, guides and volunteers gathered over the youth turkey weekend to host eight kids with The Outdoor Dream Foundation (ODF) as they searched for longbeards. The ODF’s goal is to connect kids and families suffering from chronic or terminal illness with the outdoors. The entire hunt was funded thanks to a local turkey contest…
The alarm sounded at 2 a.m., and it was briefly a bit aggravating. Then I remembered the reason I had set it for such an early hour. We were going turkey hunting, but we needed to leave earlier than normal to drive the 2 1/2 hours to a place we had never hunted. My good…
Let’s talk about turkeys. Again… I can’t tell you how many times over the past five years I’ve talked about this goofy looking critter. I love turkeys, and I love hunting them. Every good turkey hunter I know has spent more time than they’re probably comfortable with being questioned by me about turkeys. Do you…
Two decades have passed since poult counts began to shift downward and hunters begin to cry about worsening conditions in the turkey woods. Southeastern biologists, researchers and hunters have come to the same table to discuss the issue, and we now find ourselves on the cliff of what could be pretty drastic changes to Georgia’s…
Turkey Recipes
Peanut Butter Wild Turkey I must admit that I was apprehensive when a friend asked me to try his newly discovered dish. Once he showed me the ingredients, I realized it was a take on a popular Oriental chicken dish. And it is wonderful! 1 turkey breast 2 tbsp salt 2 tbsp white sugar 2…
Turkey Stuffed Bell Peppers 6 bell peppers 1/2- to 3/4-lb. dark-meat turkey 1 diced onion 3 cloves minced garlic 15-oz. can diced tomatoes 1 cup frozen whole-kernel corn 1 cup cooked white rice Shredded Pepper Jack cheese 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1 Tbsp salt 1 Tbsp black pepper Choose bell peppers that will stand up…
It can be downright chilly at the start of the turkey season, and that’s when most turkeys are taken. Why then not whip up a turkey stew that the whole family will enjoy on a chilly evening? 1/2 wild turkey, shredded 4 red potatoes, quartered 1/4 stick butter 1 large onion, diced 4 tbsp. garlic…