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North Carolina’s statewide spring gobbler season runs from April 12 to May 14. The daily bag limit is one bearded bird, with a season bag limit of two.

Mitchell Johnson, 32, attributes hard work for the success he has experienced in competitions and with his call company, but he also lists another reason.

Mitchell Johnson feels that when hunting a field, too many hunters set up too close to its edge. Try this approach: position decoys about 15 to 20 yards inside a fence line and a hunter another 20 yards or so back. Look for trees that lie in deep shade. The decoys should keep an approaching gobbler’s eyes from wandering too much. Once the tom steps inside the fence line, he will be within range.

For more tips on taking wild turkeys in the Carolinas, visit these links on NorthCarolinaSportsman.com and SouthCarolinaSportsman.com:

For a species with a brain the size of a walnut, wild turkeys are fairly clever at avoiding the talons or the teeth of predators, but their poor sense of smell allows hunters and other predators to take a few turkeys each year.

Early in the season, gobblers will often be grouped in pairs or larger groups. Seeing several toms coming into decoys gobbling every step can be one of the most exciting sights of any hunter’s season.

Very few wild turkeys are “easy” for hunters, but some are easier than others. Those gobblers that gobble at your first call on opening day and sail down within shotgun range fit in this category, along with the ones that respond the way any turkey hunter would expect them to and wind up 30 yards off the end of your shotgun barrel within 30 minutes.

In many places, spring means many things to many people, but for the diehard hunter who calls the Carolinas home, it’s full of sitting, listening and stalking a gobbling tom. It’s turkey season, and the millions of acres of public land across the two states are perfect places to bag a longbeard. Even though public lands receive a lot of hunting pressure, a hunter who knows the ins and outs of hunting them has a good chance to bring home a 20-pound bird.

The Lightning Crow from Flextone Game Calls produces ultra-realistic, natural sounds that can be heard for miles. This long-range turkey call forces even the most tight-lipped birds to expose their position. The flexible body also allows the user to manipulate the tone and pitch to sound like multiple crows, making it an ideal locator call for crows also.

TriStar Arms has released their new Raptor ATAC Turkey shotgun patterned in Mossy Oak Break Up camouflage. It features a picatinny rail and ghost ring mounted sight, a fixed pistol grip and a fiber optic bridge front sight. The gas operated 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun will come in a 24-inch barrel with a 3-inch chamber, and will utilize a removable choke system that is fitted with Beretta Mobile threads and will include one extended turkey choke tube.

In turkey hunting, preparation is everything.

So thinking about you guys (and gals) who get all heated up over feathers in the spring, I thought I would write about patterning — and cleaning your guns.

I have a 12 gauge, 2 ¾-inch-chambered barrel I had cut off years ago to about 25 inches and had the gunsmith install screw-in choke tubes.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s annual wild turkey summer brood survey has some really bad news for turkey hunters: poult survival this past summer matched an all-time low.