Where to aim when arrow hunting a turkey

Even when turkeys are big bird their vitals organs are just smaller than a softball, thus proper aiming is critical to hunt turkeys using an arrow.

Unlike gunshot hunting where there are many balls impacting turkeys body infringing several injuries which lead the bird to death, when you are hunting using an arrow there's only one shot and just one chance to kill down the bird, thus aiming remains a critical skill.

But you need not only to know where to aim but also how vital organs position changes according to birds position. It's not the same to shoot a turkey facing you than one strutting, so a detailed knowledge is mandatory to put the arrow just where you need to.

On this regard the most effective but also the most challenging shot is to the head. 

Even smaller than the heart-lungs area, a turkey head is not an easy target, however if you are able to hit the bird on the head, results will be devastating for that turkey, but missing will leave you with almost no chance to catch that bird again.

In order to facilitate things, if you are planning a head shot the best thing you can do is to get proper cover, make calls and wait patiently until the bird gets close enough to have a shot you can never miss.

Certainly that's a good choice but you won't have a chance for an accurate, close range shot everyday, thus you need to know were to place an arrow to kill a turkey on longer ranges.

From the broadside the best reference is to see the last wing joint usually pointing to the heart, thus aiming just a little bit ahead of last wing joint usually leads to a killer arrow.

However things dramatically changes when the bird is strutting. On this case the best choice is to draw an imaginary line in front o the bird legs and aim just to the point where this line intercepts the wind crease. Usually an arrow there will be lethal.

But if you catch a turkey giving you its back, it will be better to aim to the area where all the "vent" feathers point to. A shot on this area will drive the arrow straight on the chest cavity infringing a lethal wound. In fact if you are lucky the arrow will cut the bird spine leading to an instant dead.

Finally if a turkey is looking straight to you the best place to aim is between the beard base and the neck base. This shot will impact straight on the heart and once again, if you are lucky enough, the spine will be cut too.

As you may see hunting a turkey using an arrow is more challenging than using a gunshot, but at the end you will be satisfied with all the effort to achieve success and probably will love to hunt turkeys using bow and arrow once and once again.