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Turkey hunters wanting to add a little more challenge to the sport are turning to archery gear for spring gobbler season.
The statewide season begins May 4 and most hunters carry a shotgun to the field. But hunters can also use long bows, compound bows and crossbows for turkey hunting.
Daniel Bevevino of Russell, Warren County, has hunted turkeys for about three decades and has taken the sport to the next level with his archery gear.
The 41-year-old has been archery hunting since he was a teenager and had been successful getting turkeys in the fall while archery hunting for deer with his compound bow. He’s also enjoyed hunting with a shotgun for spring gobblers for years and switched over to archery for the spring hunts in 2021.
“I decided I wanted to challenge myself,” he said about hunting with primitive gear. “Turkey is my No. 1. I love chasing big bucks, but turkeys are my favorite."
His largest spring gobbler weighed 25 pounds.
“He had a 10-inch beard, a real thick paintbrush,” Bevevino said. “I won a heaviest bird contest that year with that turkey."
For turkeys, he prefers to use a crossbow as it doesn’t require as much movement as compared to having to draw the string of a compound bow when the turkey is close. For broadside shots, he aims just under center of the bird and keeps the range of his shots limited to under 40 yards.
When it comes to the broadheads for his arrows and bolts, he’s using a 100-grain 2-blade Grim Reaper mechanical broadhead with about a 2-inch cutting diameter.
“Some guys are using crazy broadheads with fixed blades that have a cutting diameter of 4 inches, but I'm not sure if they’re any good as far as hitting the bird anywhere other then the neck or head, where the ones I'm using will work just fine in any of the shot placements,” he said.
Persistence is the key to getting a spring gobbler. “You can go three weeks and it just be crap every day and that next day, it’s just like they read your script. They come running in hot and fanning,” he said.
Bevevino uses a variety of calls including mouth, box, slate and glass designs. He mostly uses mouth calls but likes to have other options for finicky birds.
“Sometimes birds that are out there 60 to 70 yards will gobble but won’t move. It doesn’t matter what I throw at them and then I pull out my slate and hit that fighting purr all crazy like two jakes twisted up or two longbeards twisting up necks and sometimes they will come running in to see what’s going on,” he said.
The big thing he said about using a call, is to not get over excited and call too much. “Less is more and more is less,” he said about call frequency. The goal is to get the gobbler to come to the hunter and not have the gobbler think the hen is on its way and it holds up.
If a gobbler is responding at anything he hears, such as a crow or a owl, even a car door slamming if you're close to houses, then Bevevino likes to work his calls.
“I have fun with calling such as cutting hard and fast or purring really intense to the point that bird is double and triple gobbling just to make the experience one to remember,” he said.
Once the bird gets to within 100 yards, Bevevino stops calling completely because most times the bird will continue looking for the hen that you’re imitating.
“He'll say to himself that 'I can’t see her so she must be a little further ahead,' so he'll commit another 30 yards and still nothing, so he'll come another 20 or 30 yards and by then its usually too late for him cause he's in range,” he said.
Mary Jo Casalena, turkey biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said “it’s a real challenge,” about those using archery gear to hunt turkeys.
“My tip would be to use a blind and a decoy,” she said about concerns with hunter movement. “If you can’t use a blind, definitely use a decoy because you definitely want to distract that bird as much as possible from you."
Another tip would be to have a second person do the calling that’s not sitting by you.
In the fall turkey season, she said there is a growing number of hunters taking deer with their crossbows, possibly while archery hunting for deer.
In 2023, 7% of the total fall harvest was from a vertical bow and 18% percent was a crossbow.
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Bevevino encourages hunters to get out there and challenge themselves to something different.
“It’s a lot more challenging than using your old trusty 12 gauge because once it comes together for you and you harvest your first bird, whether its a Jake or a long beard using a crossbow or a compound, you'll enjoy the thrill," he said.
One of his best tips for setting up on a bird using a gun or a bow is to make sure that your set up is in a place where when the gobbler presents himself over a ridge or thick area, he's already in range. He also likes to use portable and homemade blinds to help hide from the turkey that’s scouring the area looking for hens.
“It will happen, you just have to put your time in,” he said about planning to hunt many days to outsmart a wise old bird. “Last but not least good luck to you all this season, be safe and take a child hunting,” he said.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him atbwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook@whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram atwhipkeyoutdoors.
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