Early Season Public Hunting

[turkeyhntr]

Does anyone know of any good places to go for early season and public turkey hunting...?

[Multidigits]

Yatesville WMA, most any of the reservoir WMA areas can be good as well, especially if you transport out of a boat.

[teacher]

Don't know where you are located or how far you will travel, but Clay is a great spot for early season and first week of regular season. It's where I'll be.

[turk2di]

First off you must know that any public turkey hunting, especially early season, will be elbow to elbow. Having said that, Peabody WMA in west central ky, Pennyrile State park near Dawson Springs is decent.

[east ky 9 pointer]

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[east ky 9 pointer]

yatesville is 1 of the best public turkey places around eastern ky

[Valley Station]

From reports from many on this site, turkey are thick as fleas in eastern Kentucky and with hundreds of thousands acres of public hunting, that the place to go. Daniel Boone National Forest is huge(500,000 or so acres) , South Fork , Begley, etc.
If you are physically fit, you should be able to get a bird to yourself.
Beats havin' you and 5 or 6 other hunters fallin' over one another at Peabody.

[teacher]

Hunted Clay last year the whole season and only seen two other hunters.

[jdixon]

Break out your flint-lock muzzleloader and head to the Pioneer Weapons area. Fair number of birds, very little hunting pressure ever.

[Xi Bowhunter]

Doesn't barren river lake and rough river lake have WMA's? Can you hunt those for turkeys? Anybody have any idea:confused:

[Multidigits]

Doesn't barren river lake and rough river lake have WMA's? Can you hunt those for turkeys? Anybody have any idea:confused:

Barren is fairly good hunting, and Rough has a lot of turkeys in places. Both have designated hunting areas. Most people think you can anywhere below the red line on the lakes, but you can't. Nolin is the same way.

[Xi Bowhunter]

I should know more about rough than I do, since I live about 30 mins from there, but I have never heard of anyone hunting up there. I knew they had a WMA, but I have no idea where it is.

[Multidigits]

Most of the hunting areas are in the backs of the creeks. You can find maps in most bait stores to show or stop by the Corp office and pick one up. they might be available on the 'net if you search.

[Xi Bowhunter]

http://fw.ky.gov/kfwis/viewable/ruffriver_lake_ph1.jpg


This may help for anyone who is intrested.

[Hammer]

xi, I killed a bird last year at barren. He wasn't easy to kill, and he was at least 3 years old. Took me 40 minutes to get him out and to my vehicle because of the terrain! My access to it was through private property. It was crowded opening day with box calling idiots working the roosted toms, and I never heard a shot, lol, but after that, I only heard a few other hunters.

multi, your post has me a little confused about the red lines. Where I was last year, the private property bordered the Corps of Engineers property. Every 25 feet or so there was a sign with their contact number on it. I called while I was in the field to make sure I could hunt it, and they said no problem, that the F&W rented that property for public access. Are you talking about the primitive only area at Barren? Thanks.

[Multidigits]

The red line is an elev. mark completely around the lake. On Nolin and Rough you can't hunt anywhere there is a community, which is a lot of the area on the main lake. The Corp. office will have a map with the hunting zones marked. Our group killed several birds off of Barren in the past 4 years. Long walk back to where we hunt from the parking area though. Never saw another hunter in 4 years there--always after opening day.