Safety
Basic rules for safe turkey hunting:
- Identify a turkey’s head and beard before aiming.
- Never shoot at sound or movement. Assume it is another hunter until you can clearly see a turkey’s head or beard.
- Wear hunter orange when walking through the turkey woods.
- Use hunter orange to identify your hunting location.
- Wrap an extra hunter orange vest around game when carrying it.
- Dress defensively. Never wear red, white, blue or black while hunting turkey.
- Stay calm and rational. Never let excitement, nerves or panic rule your behavior.
- Learn distances; 30 yards is the limit for a clean kill.
- Be sure of your target and what lies beyond.
Hunting Accidents
According to the National Safety Council, hunting is a very safe activity. In fact, hunting results in fewer injuries per 100,000 participants than do many other sports, including cycling, bowling, golf and tennis. However, you must always use good judgment and take responsibility for your actions.
If you are involved in a firearmsrelated hunting accident, the law requires that you identify yourself and render assistance. Failure to do so is a Class A misdemeanor.
There were two non-fatal firearms-related hunting accidents during the 2007 spring turkey season. As you will see, simple carelessness and failure to identify game can result in injury, and in some years these acts have resulted in death. Don’t make the same mistakes these hunters made.
- April 16, 9:45 a.m.—A 13-year-old boy dressed in camouflage and carrying a turkey decoy stopped in dense cover to pull his call out of a pants pocket. A hunter 45 yards away saw the movement and fired. The boy fell to the ground and yelled, “Don’t shoot anymore!” The boy then ran to the nearest house and called for help. The shooter fled and has not been identified. The victim had 26 pellets lodged in his body.
- April 18, 7:45 a.m.—A group of four hunters split up to hunt
separate ridges. Two headed northwest, and two went northeast.
The first pair of hunters sat down facing west in front of small trees when they heard birds. The other group also heard turkeys gobbling to the west. Thinking that their buddies were farther north, the second pair unknowingly moved toward them and sat down in front of a large tree—40 yards east of the first pair of hunters.
When one of the first pair of hunters heard a turkey behind him, he looked behind the tree. As he moved his head, his father—one of the second pair—fired. The pellets struck his 39-year-old son in the head, body and arm.
