Turkey Hunting

North Carolina turkey hunters produced the second-highest harvest on record during this past spring’s season, taking 17,932 birds, an increase of 104 over the 2015 season.

Guide Karl Helmkamp said many hunters who don’t have access to private lands will give up on game lands after the first couple of weeks of turkey season, and that is a mistake. 

Not many turkey hunters are fans of The Notorious B.I.G., but if they could see guide Karl Helmkamp’s Biggie Smalls strutting jake decoy in action, they might reconsider. Complimented by Helmkamp’s mastery of the diaphragm call, as seductive as his namesake rapper’s smooth lyrics, Biggie is as smug as plastic and feathers can be and has lured many an unsuspecting gobbler to an early death. 

Robert “Sandy” Brady of Reidsville bagged an eastern wild turkey gobbler in Rockingham County the last day of the 2016 hunting season. 

Although the bird weighed a modest 17 pounds, sported an 11 1/8-inch beard and 1 3/8-inch spurs, it nonetheless is a North Carolina and world-record for the type of weapon he used, a sling bow.

Sherman Thompson took his two sons hunting during the youth season, and it was a day none of them will ever forget. Austin, Thompson’s 14-year-old son killed a triple-bearded gobbler, and 12-year-old Levi killed a jake.

Brant Grady learned a lesson about how badly even a small, rusty wire fence can ruin a turkey hunt on April 16, but he capitalized on the lesson, and bagged his trophy gobbler on the following Monday near Hurdle Mills in Orange County.

North Carolina has another state-record turkey, and a Kannapolis woman has her second state record.

Tammy Tucker killed a double-bearded gobbler on April 23 in Cabarrus County that will become the state record with the N.C. Bowhunters Association as soon as scorer Joey Thompson’s paperwork is accepted. 

Trap Hill’s John Money is an avid hunter and has spent enough time outdoors to have seen numerous bearded hens and white gobblers over the years, and he’s killed his share of what most hunters would consider trophies, but he killed a true, record-book trophy on April 30 when he shot a bearded hen that is the new North Carolina NWTF record.

When Chris Hensley of Morganton took his 6-year-old daughter Teaghann turkey hunting on the second day of youth season, he had intentions of setting things straight from her hunt the day before, when she shot a jake with her .410, drew a few feathers, then watched the jake run off. The second hunt had a happier ending, as she killed a gobbler with a 10-inch beard.

One of the two gobblers that had been responding to Karl Helmkamp’s calls since daylight had gone silent for a while, presumably paired up with a hen, but the other kept gobbling even when he switched tactics and only answered its calls.

Ashley Maiolo of Franklinton said female hunters without male hunting mentors should not fret and should not fear taking things into their own hands. The self-taught huntress has been hunting deer and a number of other game for the past 10 years, mostly on her own with information she’s read in publications such as North Carolina Sportsman Magazine. 

If you ask Bryan Alexander of Morrisville what could make his hunting season any better, he will laugh and tell you nothing. He guided his 13-year-old daughter on a turkey hunt during the youth season, and she killed her first turkey, a gobbler with a 10-inch beard and 1 1/4-inch spurs.

Wild turkeys with beards measuring close to 10 inches long are considered trophies.

Especially if the bird carrying such a rope hanging from its chest is a hen.

Sam Thompson of Boone has taken his wife, Carrie, turkey hunting once or twice a year for some time now, and while they’ve had some close calls, they’ve never been able to get her on a gobbler. That changed this year on April 16 when they each killed nice longbeards on the same hunt.

A Greensboro hunter ended a year-long quest last week when he killed a rare, silver-phase turkey gobbler on a hunt in Stokes County.

Roger Rumley has been an avid turkey hunter for many years, but he’s already decided that this year has been his best turkey season yet, hands down. He doubled up on birds with his younger son on April 9, then duplicated the feat with his oldest son on April 14. It’s an experience he never imagined would happen.