I’ve been chasing wild turkeys, both with a shotgun and a camera, for more than 40 years, but April 2022 was my most satisfying spring hunt ever.
The history of the wild turkey in Ohio is one of boom and bust. A bird of mature woodlands, turkeys thrived in pre-settlement times when our state was 95% forested. In 1915, a researcher by the name of Wright, after reviewing records from the 18th and early 19th centuries, wrote, “In all the United States, no state had more turkeys than Ohio and her neighbors.” Just how many wild turkeys existed in the Ohio country hundreds of years ago is anyone’s guess — a million, perhaps?
