Americana Outdoors E-Magazine - May 2022

Turkey hunting offers a wide range of hunting styles and options. You can run and gun, sneak through the creek bottoms, field edges, and brush, and other times it requires patience to sit and wait out wily old toms near feeding, strutting, or water- ing areas. The best part of it all is that the options are endless and depending on where you are (and your personal preference), you can hunt them with compound bows, crossbows, shotguns, handguns, or whatever feels most comfortable for you as the hunter. During a recent Texas turkey hunt, it was all about the water leaking from an old cistern creating a muddy watering hole among a stand of mesquite trees where I set up along with cameramen Kevin Giesecke and Gentry Appleget. With toms, hens, jakes, and about every other critter passing by this spot we were never bored. We captured a lot of great interactions, evaluated some new products, and finally took a tom that I will remember forever. I decided to be patient after covering some ground, not seeing many signs, and not hearing a bird anywhere the day before. We created a few brush blinds, got comfortable in the early morning light, and were treated to gobbles all around us as the day started. Using a mix of decoys, soft calling, and patience. We had several encounters during the morning hunt but most of the mature toms were in love with hens and went away from us. Fig- uring they would be back later in the day, we took a mid-day break and were back in our mesquite blinds for the afternoon. The result was encounter after encounter before sealing the deal on a big old Rio that will now be etched into our memory forever. You can watch it all unfold right here. A TURKEY HUNT TO REMEMBER by WADE MIDDLETON

The HIVIZ TRIVIZ® Turkey/Deer Sight gave Wade a clear sight picture to take down his Tom.

Wade had plenty of conversations with the nearby turkeys using a combination of RedHead Turkey Calls from Bass Pro Shops & Cabela’s.

Can you quickly spot which one is the real bird. Check out the seleciton of turkey decoys from Bass Pro Shops & Cabela’s.