In the interior region of British Columbia, more specifically the Kootenany region. Some areas can be described as having a large wild Turkey problem. These Turkey's harass livestock (chickens, ducks, even pigs) by eating there food and aside from humans they do not have many natural predators especially in the valley we were heading.
I was in shear amazement of the amount of Turkey's that rotated through our friends property. In the early morning from roughly 6AM - 9AM we saw groups of usually 10-15 birds coming through every 30-45 minutes to attempt to steal food from the chickens and ducks on the property. We were armed with a 17 HMR rifle and a 12 gauge shotgun but it was abundantly clear that these birds were extremely hard to kill. In fact multiple birds took at least 2 shots to bring down. We ended up getting our limit in minutes, having to shoot 2 of the 3 birds more than once to actually kill them. The biggest Tom of the bunch, which was the one we shot first, took a shot from the 17 HMR, this bird proceeded to fly up into a tree where it took 2 more shots to bring this bird down to the ground.
It was a pain to clean and field dress them and I had heard mixed reviews on the taste of the meat, with quite a few people describing them as being overly gamy in taste. My first instinct was to dry brine these birders for a week in a vacuum sealed bag, and than hot smoke them on my smoker. The result was phenomenal and by far some of the best smoked bird I had ever tried. Hoping to get out in the spring and take another limit for the smoker!
