Turkey-hunting season opens today
The echo of shotgun blasts will ring across the ridges and valleys of the Rome region today as hunters don their camouflage in search of the elusive turkey.
The season extends through May 15 with a limit of three gobblers per hunter.
Ben Winkelman, director of the Rome-Floyd County ECO Center, has been an avid turkey hunter for decades and introduced his two sons to the sport almost as soon as they were able to tote a shotgun.
“The biggest thing about turkeys is that their eyesight is about seven times better than humans and that makes it extremely challenging,” he said. “Their eyeballs are on the sides of the head so they can just see about 280 degrees around their head. It’s just awesome peripheral vision.”
Winkelman said turkeys can detect any kind of movement the hunter might make.
The former wildlife technician with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources said the crazy late winter weather may also impact opening day success for hunters.
“It got really warm early and then it turned back cold again so that shut them down a little bit,” Winkelman said. “North Georgia is still real strong as far as the turkey population, so it so should be a good season.
Charles Hight, a longtime Rome turkey hunter, said the most fun during turkey hunts is simply the calling of the gobblers.
“Anybody might luck up on a deer but it takes a lot of special expertise to get
a turkey within close enough that you can make a clean shot,” he said.
Turkeys are also creatures of habit and seem to be in the same places at the same time on a day-to-day basis, Hight said, so scouting for turkeys in advance is important.
“You want to know where they roost in the morning so you can get there while it’s still dark and be in the approximate area,” he said. “The other nice thing about turkey hunting is it’s good all day. It’s not like a lot of other hunting that is better early in the morning or late in the evening. They move around all day long.”
Hight said the turkey population is one of the true success stories of the DNR in repopulating a game animal across the state.