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Ocellated turkey

Vermin93

Vermin93

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I was at the taxidermist/processor today picking up some sausage and he had these two ocellated turkey mounts on the wall. I did not know what they were when I saw them. He explained to me that they live in a certain area of Central America / Mexico. Very cool looking turkeys, if you ask me. Has anyone here ever hunted them?

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The east tn regional director of the Nwtf took a group last year.. They said it was an unbelievable experience and all harvested two birds!! I would call him !!
 
I would love to hunt them. Saw two hunting shows on them. One, they called a little, and spot and stalked them in the jungle, and the other one, they shot them off the roost with a flashlight! Guess it was legal down there
I would make sure your guide uses the former method
 
doubledownranch said:
I'd love to kill one, but I wouldn't step foot in Mexico. Not for a bird.
Click to expand...

Nor I, went down there 8 or 9 years ago on a fishing trip and it was getting bad then, wouldn't take the chance now.
 
I was fortunate enough to take a trip down last spring to hunt the Ocellated turkeys. There were four of us went and each took two birds. The Ocellated is in the Yucutan Peninsula of Mexico. We hunted about three hours from Cancun. The birds live in the jungles down there. The colors are absolutely amazing on these birds. The two birds completed the World Slam for me and was the best hunting trip I have ever taken. I liked it so much, I am returning this spring with eight others during the first two weeks of April.
As far as being dangerous to travel there, It's not at all. I think most of the danger in Mexico is out in the West area around Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
If anyone is interested in making a trip for the Ocellated bird PM me and I will get you the info.
Here is a pic of my two.
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those are the coolest looking turkeys I have seen... thought it was somehow a turkey/peacock hybrid at first.
 
I went down in 2011. The state of Campeche is the safest area of MX. Stayed at a ranch in the jungle.

Two ways to hunt them there. One is in the jungle. The other is to hunt the German Mennonite land. It suprisingly looks like TN agriculture land, only with huge epiphytes hanging from trees and the occasional jaguarundi crossing the roads.

In the jungle we had trail cams set out and caught all kinds of cool animals including jags, puma and tapir.

If you're going you better do it now. I have a taxidermy friend that does a lot of exotic stuff. He said the feds are really cracking down on confiscating salted pelts, etc... shipped into the country. For no other reason than to harass hunters.
He is actually looking into hiring taxidermists in MX to do the mounts there as it is less hassle to bring a mount into the US than a hide.
 

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