Strut & Slate

Strut & Slate is built around one reader, the person walking into their first spring turkey season, and its promise is the turkey hunting gear a first-timer actually needs. It runs six sections in the order that buyer meets them: First Season, which separates the starting kit from what can wait a year; Turkey Calls, covering box, pot, mouth and push-button calls plus locator calls, call kits and the accessories that keep them working; Decoys & Blinds, with hen, jake and motion decoys, combo sets and ground blinds; Guns, Chokes & Loads; Vests & Gear, taking in vests and seats, camo, face masks and gloves, boots, binoculars and the small things that make a long sit easier; and Gifts for Turkey Hunters. Every pick carries a skip-this-if line naming the hunter who should not buy it, which is the part most beginner guides leave out.

Picks follow the standards on this hub, and Strut & Slate makes its math checkable. Scores come from a published First-Season Score with fixed weights and exact scoring bands, so anyone can check the math, and the inputs are the makers' own pages, instructions and published standards, with every spec linked back to the page it came from. Where a maker does not publish a number, the page says it is not published rather than guessing it. Chokes and loads are handled the same way, with constrictions, load ratings and shot sizes taken from the makers' own charts. As an Amazon Associate it earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to the reader, purchase links are marked, and commissions never set a score or decide a pick; no brand pays for placement.

Strut & Slate belongs to the Hunting & Shooting group of the network, next to Decoy & Drake for waterfowl season, Sounder & Scope for hogs and night hunting, Cam & Canopy for the cameras that scout a bird before the opener and Grind & Cure for what happens after the tag is filled. It is live at strutandslate.com. Its footer names Iron Mako Media as publisher and links back to this hub, and its About page carries the Mike M. byline, so a reader can verify who is behind it in one click.

Strut & Slate is owned and operated by Iron Mako Media. It follows the same editorial standards as every site in the network and carries the network-wide affiliate disclosure: like every Iron Mako Media site, Strut & Slate earns commissions on purchases made through its links, and this hub carries none.