Spin-off to the AR hunter in Catman's video ... BUT, I am curious as I've never done it (although I'll fully admit that I've thought about it a BUNCH) -- what specific situations would warrant a limb launch?

For the longest time (and I'm only talking a few years ago here that I found out), I actually thought it was totally illegal to shoot a gobbler out of a tree here in AL... Found out that it's not...

I had a public land gobbler I was hunting with a buddy that was coming to my calling, and then when he got w/in about 75 yards or so, would fly up in a pine tree to look down on us... Had I known THEN what I know now, I do believe I would've limb launched his *ss... I told a long-time turkey hunter this, and his rule was to let their feet touch the ground off the roost in the AM; after that, if they fly back up during the day, they're fair game...

BGD

Yep I done it once on a border roosted the evening before. When he started gobbling, on of the local dicks comes beebopping down the trail locked and loaded looking for the bird. It was either run him off or one of usbwas gonna kill him. I blew him down. Don't feel bad about it either

I don't see a reason to. Now I am new to turkey hunting so I have more questions than answers, but the fun for me is chasing the bird and trying to get him to do something I want him to do so I can win the game.
Maybe after I've been hunting them a few years they will make me hate them enough to do it.

To me, turkey hunting is a chance to "play the game". Shooting them off a roost and sitting on a greenfield waiting on a silent bird are about the same. Neither one is the game I'm looking to play.

I've limb launched one. Turkey was on the ground for the first shot...... He flew up in the tree above him. Second shot folded him off the limb. A very hollow diaphragm thud when he hit the ground. I'm from Arkansas so of course I've done it

Something like what Rockhound sound is completely understandable.
Or if a gobbler flew the trees to you early morning.

I don't consider that the same. Once a bird has been hit, you chase him down and finish him off by any means, whether he's in a tree or not.

Turkey that you have called to that gobbles from roost tree and then flies to a tree within shotgun range is a justified use of deadly force in my book

But ask Preacher. He is the true authority on limb launching.

Yep. I agree

I've done and like it. That's a game. Roosting him, going in WAY before daylight, watch him blow up an gobble on the limb then roll him down. Calling them up is fun too but off the limb is a harder to accomplish.

Top cat has a point there

I won't shoot one off the limb on roost. But I have finished off one that I wounded on the first and second shot. Bird came in and ducked his head at last minute he started flying straight away after the first shot, second one hit the body and he made a last ditch effort and pitches onto a limb. I snuck around two big tree's and folded him about 50yds away 20ft up. That's the only way I would kill one but don't think bad of anyone that launches one off of roost especially these southern birds that's not easy to do.

I hunt mountains where birds don't roost within 200yds of the night before and no way to pattern them. In my 22 yrs chasing gobblers I've had one chance to do it and I didn't react fast enough to take the shot... but u better believe I'll do it if I ever get the chance. A 2nd time?..., who knows but I want to do it at least once.

Never shot a gobbler off the limb, but back in my fall hunting days we walked right up in the middle of probably 100 hens and poults in the pitch black dark by accident. We are sitting there shooting the bull trying to catch our breath and hear stuff falling around is in the dry leaves and look up to see black dots everywhere. We checked lethal shooting times and were almost in it then. They started pitching out 15 minutes later away from us so we commenced to filling our tags. Ain't much different than shooting squirrels except they make more racket falling out and hitting the ground.

If ive been after one for long enough and i get the opportunity he gone. He will have to have really pissed me off though.

You serious Clark?

My thoughts too. The only thing harder about it is waking up a little earlier.

I hunted one this year that had me mad enough to shoot him off the limb with a .300 mag. But I wound up killing him so it's all good

I've shot two off the limb in my 50 years of turkey hunting. Both were wounded on the ground and flew to a tree, one of them was 100 yards from initial shooting and the other was 400 yards across a bean field. Both were found by listening for blood drops.

I have not, and would not, shoot an uninjured bird from a limb. Low class and uncalled for in my personal opinion. Much like ground shooting into a covey of quail.

Years ago in Chambers Co we had an old feller from a neighboring club come over and shoot the bull with us every now and again. He came over one day and was telling us about this hardheaded gobbler that had been whipping him good all season. Said he would get above him on a big hill and could watch him in the tree until he flew down. Totally joking, I looked up and said "I tell you what I'd do Charles. I'd shoot him out of that tree with a rifle".

The next morning me and my buddy are sitting at the gate waiting on the first gobble of the morning. Then the sound of a 300 Win Mag broke the silence.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Here's my story...I suppose I was 12 or 14 and my grandfather had taken me hunting one afternoon. He set me up in a spot and went off and set up just out of sight. This side of dark, a gobbler came along and pitched in a limb behind me and to my left. I was on the ground with my back against a tree and very, very slowly turned, shouldered the shotgun left-handed (I'm a right handed shooter) and knocked him off of the limb. I don't feel bad about it at all.

LOL

I've had 3 or 4 memorable mornings where I was set up within shotgun range. Always by accident. I would never get that close on purpose. As posted elsewhere, I personally think shooting a healthy bird off the roost is a loser move that will surely result in a jinx. I wouldn't hunt with a feller that would.

perzactly^^^^^

brother and I walked over 1 1/2 miles into a wooded low area in Oklahoma to get near a pre dawn gobbling bird. Accidently got waaay too close, like 20 yards and he was in a small tree. We watched him gobble, then fly out of sight!!!! Sure as hell wasn't going to limb his arse.

Some of y'all's responses reminds me of Jerry Clower's Coon Huntin' Story where he talks about giving the coon a "sportin' chance" by not shooting it in the tree but climbing the tree & throwing it out into the pack of dogs...

"Give every coon a sportin' chance... That coon has the option of whoopin' every dog in the pack & walking off... Give everything a sportin' chance"...

I'm an American citizen; the 5th amendment gives me the right to avoid self incrimination.

Roost shooting gets such a bad name because of the way turkeys have to roost in bunches in the west. There just ain't many trees so they roost in big droves. You can see then in the trees even at night. Guy I'm hunting with now was fussing about his last group of hunters from TN shooting up a roost and ruining it.

But as Ike said, one that flys up into a tree to check out a hen is cheating and deserves to die. I was about to shoot one around 10 years ago when he decided to fly up in a tree and look for the hen. That didn't work out well for him.

When we first got turkeys to hunt back in the 60s, the idea that you shouldn't shoot a turkey out of a tree had never occurred to anyone in our group. They shot them with rifles; why would you not shoot him in a tree?

It takes a while to develop a turkey hunting culture and get people to agree on the rules. Some places never seem to do that.

I guaran-damn-tee you if I somehow wind up within shotgun range of one tomorrow morning that's still up in a tree, there is no way on God's green earth I'm waiting for him to hit the ground and risk losing him. I'd take that as a sign from the Lord that he has finally chosen to have mercy on me and give me a bird and I'll limb-launch his azz so fast it'd make your head spin. These sumbitches have fooled me, humbled me and whipped my azz for 5 years now.....it's personal.

I got a good laugh out of your frustration, it was almost like I could feel it.

Fooled me all year...haven't killed a single bird this year

Yep. It's easy to be "ethical" when there's 3 more around the corner, or if you've killed 150 birds or both.

I've never shot one of the limb, but I don't disparage someone that would.

Hell I might shoot a Jake off the limb in the morning.

damn ... this thread is really gettin' good now!! LOL

When I was in hs, I watched a flock of turkeys fly up to roost right beside a logging road. I marked the spot good and told my dad that night that I was gonna slip in amongst them before daylight the next morning and would be sure to kill one. I knew some of them were gobblers, and I figured I could either shoot one out of the tree or shoot him as soon as he hit the ground.

My dad was against the idea. Not due to anything about ethics; he was sure I would spook the turkeys trying to get so close. I was confident I could use the road and not make much noise, and I begged, and he finally gave in and told me to try. Bear in mind this was about 1969, and I had killed only 3 or 4 turkeys in my life.

I got up at 3am the next morning and followed the road to a tree I had picked out. It started getting light and I could hear drumming from a couple of them. I was trying to turn a squirrel nest into a turkey, when I spotted a gobbler going into strut in a tree right in front of me. I didn't waste any time and tried to shoot his head off. I guess I shot right over him; turkeys flew in every direction and my gobbler sailed out of sight. Still don't know how I missed him.

No. It's knowing the exact tree he is in, walking in with no light, sitting motion less for 90 minutes, then killing the bird. If I shoot a big buck or bull elk I didn't call in is it less of a kill. I think not. Kinda like saying killing a turkey at over 30 yards or a buck at 400 is in some how unfair. To each his own. I have killed dozens I called in and watched my share of ones I called in die from another hunters gun. I sleep well at night.

I guess it's whatever your comfortable with.
You don't shoot a turkey or a dove off a limb, but it's ok to do it to a squirrel. You don't ground shoot quail but you do turkeys. I guess limbing a turkey would be about like shooting a duck after it lands on the water. Kind of takes the fun out of it.

Nothing wrong with shooting dove off a limb or ducks off the water.

I grew up in a family of meat hunters... less shells it takes the better. Guess I'm not cultured enough to have grown up hunting with folks who added their own versions of game laws they can judge other hunters against.

As for ducks, most folks who talk about not shooting ducks off the water don't have the public land hunting skills to get them into the decoys to even have opportunities to do that... and are the same ones skybusting at birds 80-110yds they have no chance of hitting except for that one stray golden bb that connects about every 5 yrs and keeps em slinging steel and educating everything on the water. That's another thing I could see as situational, if a fella has some prime timber hole where slow flying puddle ducks come in on a string then wait for higher percent kills shot when they are close and in the air.

... stepping off my soapbox now

I, and most of the turkey hunters I knew then, didn't limb birds back in the 60's when I counted it a good season if I heard 5 er 6 gobblers alll season and hadn't killed but a couple of birds.

Sorry to put you on that soap box fella. Ain't nobody ever tried to add their own versions of game laws especially put them on others. I was brought up with a set of guidelines and I stick with them. To each his own.

It's interesting how even back then turkey hunting ethics evolved differently depending on the area. I won't call the man's name, but you know the place where I grew up and I'm sure you knew a fellow from there whose family owned 12,000 acres. I used to hear the stories of all his turkey hunts. One morning he was on his way to a gobbling bird and heard a different gobbler putting at him. He saw his beard against the sky and blasted him out, and all the other hunters in the group talked about how lucky he was. He carried an M-1 carbine in the truck with him when on the farm and had a gobbler run out of a pasture and fly up into a tree. He got popped out.

Everyone in that group carried a scoped rifle and a shotgun. The particular guy I'm talking about eventually quit fooling with a shotgun and hunted strictly with rifle. There was another guy in that group that was a prominent attorney who I'm pretty sure you knew. I remember how impressed I was when he got an article printed in The American Rifleman explaining how turkey hunting was done in AL. He even included his 30-06 recipe that he used.

I'm sure everyone in that group eventually reached the conclusion that it's not sporting to shoot a turkey with a rifle or shoot one off the roost, but there was no turkey hunting culture at all back then, and they didn't know about our "rules" we have now.

For the record, I wouldn't dream of shooting a turkey outa his roost tree and have been that way for decades. But it ain't the way I was brought up. My dad used to say that all was fair in love and turkey hunting.

Your Dad sounds like a very wise man, PCP

BTW, FOR THE RECORD, I did not post this thread to get IDEAS about how to limb launch birds... I was simply posting a "hypothetical" question about turkey hunting situations in which one WOULD consider limb launching a bird, if all else had failed...

BGD

^^^ Fantastic!!! You could also take some blackened seasoning with you & just eat the bird in the woods!!

I want some

The YouTube video of the Professional Russian shooting his AA-12 with Dragon's Breath shells never fails to entertain...

Wonder if I could limit out on limb launches

I do not think it's unethical.

That's a strong word in my opinion. A lot of things I would consider unethical but shooting a animal out of tree wouldn't be one of them.