Bow shooting tips

Turkey anatomy plays a big part in determining shot placement with a bow. Knowing where vital organs like the heart and lungs are will help you make a clean shot.

Sometime getting to the vital organs may mean going through bone. In fact, a shot to the spine will drop a turkey quickly. But turkey bones are very strong, despite being hollow. That’s why many experienced archers prefer shooting a bow with a heavy draw weight, often the same setup they use for deer and elk hunting.

Head shots, the most popular turkey shot for shotgun hunters, should be avoided by most bowhunters. Not only is the target very small for a bow, but the heavy broadheads created for such head shots are not the most stable in flight.

Here are some of the most common and effective shots for a turkey bowhunter to take:

  • Turkey position: Standing erect, feathers tucked tight to the body, head extended and facing straight away from you.
  • Best shot: This stance exposes the entire spine, from head to tail. Take advantage of this with a spine shot, one of the quickest ways to dispatch a bird.
     
  • Turkey position: Tom in full-strut, facing straight away.
  • Best shot: This position elongates the body cavity, making it possible for an arrow to slice through most of the vital organs. For the fully-fanned facing away shot, put the arrow where all the tail feathers converge, right about at the anus.
     
  • Turkey position: Tom in full-strut, facing you.
  • Best shot: Wait until the bird is standing still, then put the arrow where the featherless part of the neck meets the feathers of the chest.
     
  • Turkey position: Standing upright, feathers tucked in, facing you.
  • Best shot: Put your arrow where the beard comes out of the body for an upper heart, lower lung shot. If centered, the shot might also sever the spine. This is not a good shot if a bird is nervous and more likely to jump.
     
  • Turkey position: Standing upright, feathers tucked in, facing broadside.
  • Best shot: Follow the legs straight up the body, putting the arrow in the center of the bird’s body. This will ensure a heart shot, with the arrow traveling into an open triangular region that’s created when the bird has its wings tucked in. If you hit low on this shot, you’ll bust the femur or sever tendons, meaning the bird can’t jump to take flight. If you hit high, and are using enough poundage to break through the humerus and scapula, you’ll hit the spine and lung area.
     
  • Turkey position: A tom is in full-strut, standing broadside.
  • Best shot: This can be a tough one. The stance is deceiving because the feathers are puffed up, the head is retracted and the tail is fully fanned. This makes it hard to decipher how the skeleton is situated and where the internal organs are. The most common miss is shooting too high and hitting nothing but feathers. Avoid this by drawing an imaginary line from the base of the neck to the base of the tail. Draw a second line straight up from the legs. Shoot where the two lines intersect and you’ll have a straight shot to the heart.
     
  • Turkey position: Quartering-to or quartering-away
  • Best shot: There isn’t necessarily a good shot unless you know turkey anatomy very well and are an accomplished archer. Better to wait until the bird moves into a more accessible pose.

Practicing shot placement

Practice all you can on 3-D targets. There are 3-D turkey targets in standing, walking, and strutting positions, and all make for excellent, and realistic practice.

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