Wisconsin Wild Turkey Slam

What is a Wisconsin Wild Turkey Slam?

During the fall 2007 wild turkey season it occurred to me Wisconsin has a turkey season during all seasons; spring, summer, fall

and winter, there is no end to the turkey hunting opportunities in Wisconsin.   I’m sure some enterprising employee in the state’s tourism department will declare Wisconsin the “Wild Turkey Capital of the Nation” or maybe even the World!   Hmm, perhaps that would not be good and I should post about the lack of turkeys on a opening weekend 2014?  But I digress.

Back to the Wisconsin Wild Turkey Slam.

In an effort to get away from the pressure of shooting the biggest, longest bearded and spurred turkey in the woods.  Instead attempt to kill a turkey in every season of the year.  The concept begin to glow and the more I thought about it the more I liked it.  Nothing wrong with bagging the oldest, biggest and most dominate bird in the woods it’s just that “trophy hunting” sometimes does things to hunters and not all good.  Above all hunting should be fun and if you are not having fun go do something else.

• Here’s how the Wisconsin Slam Works:
• Tag a turkey in each season- spring, summer, fall and winter in the same year, any wild turkey counts.
•  When the spring season is open it is spring, no question there.
• Summer lasts until September 22 in 2014 so the window to get a summer turkey is opening day Sept. 13 to Sept. 21.
• Fall starts Sept. 22 and continues to December 31.  Lots of time to get the fall bird except there are many other distractions as in other things to hunt.
• Winter starts December 21 and goes to the December 31 when the Wisconsin turkey season closes.  Vic and I go a New Year’s Eve turkey every year.

You can double check my dates here.

Why even do this slam?

In my case I became immersed in trophy deer hunting for a couple of decades and yep quite successful at it.  Walls are full and there are boxes of big antlers in the shed.  Same thing with spring bearded turkey hunting.  Yes, I had lots of fun and I’m not about to discourage anyone from pursuing trophies.  It is more of a personal thing for me as it slowly dawned on me that focusing like that was changing me and I did not like what that was doing to me, as in what I was becoming.  Now a days I don’t compete in any hunting related contest.  Rather I create my own goals.  Humans need some goals for motivation and I’m no exception in that department.

Please remember while hunting – have fun however that is defined by you and only you.