Since I wasn't able to fight off the urge to watch all my turkey hunting DVDs and started watching them at the end of November....I've got to watch many field hunts and hardwoods hunts. I always find my self looking and wanting to see the hardwood hunts the most. Not sure if it's because the majority of hunting I do is in the hardwoods....but there is just something special seeing a gobbler strutting and gobbling to you in the woods! I do hunt fields some but I would say I easily hunt in the woods 95-98% of the time. But I will take a field hunt as long as I'm out chasing my passion and addiction! I was wondering if others prefer one over the other I know if I had a choice it would be a hardwoods hunt every time. How about you?
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That's hard to say depends on where the birds are .I kinda like them come strutting threw the hardwoods its different when they come strutting across fields but have to say most of my good birds long spurs where what I call field gobblers .
Make me no difference. Where ever he wants to die is fine with me.
Hardwoods, pines, fields, cut overs, mountain ridges, swamp, or any other terrain or land type you can think of is fine by me. I like going to his home field and it makes no difference what it is like. My 835 hits just as hard in hardwoods as pines and so on!
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Quote from: guesswho on December 09, 2014, 03:14:23 PM
Make me no difference. Where ever he wants to die is fine with me.
Yep....Just like Mr. GuessWho said!
Where ever the bird is at.
I'm with everyone else I'll go where they are but there is just something I love about a hardwoods hunt! I love it!!!!!!!
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Quote from: hunter62 on December 09, 2014, 03:09:51 PM
but have to say most of my good birds long spurs where what I call field gobblers .
Hunter62....I agree with that I have killed and called in some big field gobblers!
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Hunt more pine plantation and fields but prefer hardwoods.
Hardwoods all the way! Bout the only time I hunt fields/open terrain is when I'm in KS or SD.
I have killed a couple in my day and it seems the hunts I remember the most were in the hardwoods. I can recall a couple hunts down in the Mississippi swamps when gobblers were coming in strutting and gobbling by the huge water oaks and creek with the sun coming up behind them....Dang I love to relive those hunts.
Hunter22....I think I can remember all of them also! It's crazy but I have spots on the property I hunt in VA that is on my list of Wanting to work a turkey to that specific spot. There is a lot of big ridges and flats down there and I've called many of a turkey into those flats....thinking about it makes me long to be there!
God bless
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VA Birdhunter, please don't think I am just picking on you to post behind you. No sir, because I really do think you are a swell guy and a great woodsman and turkey hunter and we both hunt grouse. Yea, when I saw this thread: Field or Hardwood, it caught my attention. Because, I am a hardwood hunter on the Chattahoochee National Forest in North Georgia; to be exact. For the last forty-years, every gobbler I have killed; has been in big remote mountain hardwoods. So, you see I am with you about enjoying watching gobblers strut through the big woods. There was a ten-year period, when I too hunted fields in Middle-Georgia, as well as the hardwood forest of North Georgia; and that too was after I had previous hunted the first nine-years of my turkey hunting in the Chattahoochee Forest; when American Chestnut logs were lying everywhere on the forest floor back in the nineteen-fifties. Now, if you add up all these years, you see, I have been in the turkey woods for a long time.The first mountain gobbler I ever saw strutting; was up on top of an old American Chestnut Log; a good four-foot in diameter. There were three hens scratching in the leaves fifteen feet away from the log,which the gobbler was strutting back and forth out the log.
Those flats you mention, are what I term a "CALLING PLACE". Again a long time ago, I learn there were certain places in the forest, which gobblers come to, more willing, than just anywhere. May I suggest for you to go on the GON Forum.com, then scroll down to Turkey Talk. Click on that title and then scroll down to Herb McClure---"A Season For His Book". Hopefully, you will enjoy the read. Also, pull-up GON MAGAZINE.com, which is their December magazine issue. Scrolling down their web-page to: "A Magic Time For Grouse", by Herb McClure is a grouse story forty-years ago, you may enjoy too.
Seams like all the posters are interested in is just the killing, any way they can; which is how most young hunters today want to hunt; that's my opinion only.
herb mcclure
Herb....thanks for the information I will look those up today and read them! Thank u sir!
I like what you call those flats "calling place" cause that's exactly what they are!
God bless
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Hardwoods, love em
I don't like to hunt fields because that's the only place I can guarantee other hunters are.
I will take hardwoods any day!
Wherever the turkeys are and the season's open.
I perfer hardwoods, but most of my hunting is fields.
for me it's the hardwoods
I hunt hardwood bottoms 99.99% of the time. It just seems natural to hunt them there. Perhaps it is the sound of the gobble bouncing off the tree trunks.
Quote from: silvestris on December 10, 2014, 07:58:13 PM
I hunt hardwood bottoms 99.99% of the time. It just seems natural to hunt them there. Perhaps it is the sound of the gobble bouncing off the tree trunks.
Those gobbles rock in the hard woods especially in a deep holler!! I can't wait to here one sound off again!!!
God bless
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As others stated, I love hunting in any terrain, but I must admit that hardwoods are my favorite. I especially enjoy hunting hardwood river bottoms. All the swamps, sloughs, gators, and cottonmouths intimidate a lot of hunters, but it just adds to the challenge for me.
My vote goes to Hardwoods for a couple of reasons. The few times I've hunted in a field they would hen up just out of reach. Now don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful thing to watch them strut back and forth, but it does get aggravating to sit motionless for so long just to watch them walk off. Now back to the hardwoods. As others have mentioned, there is something about hearing that sound coming through the timber. But I would say the biggest reason is because hardwoods is becoming a thing of the past around here, unless your on Government land. So anytime I get a chance to walk through a bunch of big Oaks, I take it. It's a shame that what was once some of the prettiest woods around, isn't anything but pine thickets now.
I love to hunt them in any terrain but I started hunting them in steep hardwood ridges and I hope that's where I finish. Field birds are fun to play with but timber birds are fun to hunt!
Hardwoods are getting harder to come by in my part of the world. Pines and cutover rule the landscape, but I do like hunting hardwoods when I run across them. Fields are more of a novelty to me as my home ground doesn't have very many. When I get the chance to hunt ag fields or pasture land, I really enjoy getting to watch birds reactions to my calling. In the pine thickets I'm use to, once you see him, he is in range. I really miss the large tracks of hard woods I hunted in the early 90's before everybody logged.
I can't think of anywhere I wouldn't like to kill one besides a barn yard.
Since moving to CO then MT, my only hardwoods hunts are when I go home to visit in IL. In CO we killed birds in the Mountains in a mixture of timber and mountain parks along with one bird in a cottonwood riverbottom. In NE its been the Pine Ridge so a mixture of ponderosa pine and grassy ridges. In MT its been country similar to NE. I've also killed a couple birds in a SD plains cottonwood riverbottom. I'd like to go back and hunt more birds in each of those places.
I cut my teeth on Shawnee NF hardwoods birds, so those would still register as my favorite. I'll be there again this spring waiting before daylight to hear those hard thunderous gobbling Easterns. Thats another thing, you don't realize how loud an Eastern in the hardwoods sounds until you hunt these western birds for a while. I'll darn near jump out of my skin when the first bird rattles off close by.
Prefer the hardwoods but love the combo of hardwoods with pipelines going through them....
Quote from: tomstopper on December 12, 2014, 08:36:55 PM
Prefer the hardwoods but love the combo of hardwoods with pipelines going through them....
Tomstopper....I agree I like hardwoods with right always cut through them for gas and power lines!! Can be some really good spots!
God bless
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I started hunting big hardwoods, but that land sold. I was forced to switch to hunting a powerline cut where a pine plantation met mixed hardwoods. That set up made for some limited sight distances, but any gobbler I saw was in range. I had a lot of birds come close and never show or pass behind me, which is also pretty thrilling, shot or no shot. It taught me the importance of sitting still and using any cover and shade to my advantage. The landowner decided he wanted to start turkey hunting, so he took over that spot (nice, huh?), which forced me to hunt the timber again. By scouting with binoculars from a tree stand after deer season, I learned that terrain changes can help funnel turkeys through an area, which I used to my advantage starting that next spring. The landowner stopped leasing that land to me the week before turkey season, so I had to scramble to find new places to hunt. I ended up getting permission to hunt a soybean field that had been harvested the Fall before. I had success the only time I got to hunt it, because that land also sold out from under me. Now, I hunt hardwoods again, but these border a field. I don't have rights to hunt the field, but some of the turkeys I have killed used that field to get to my position before I shot them.
At the time, I wasn't real happy about being forced out of so many places. I had to adapt and learn to hunt different types of terrain & cover. It also taught me the value of scouting. In the long run it made me a more versatile turkey hunter.
Hardwoods are probably my favorite to hunt, but heavier cover with limited sight distances where the turkeys are suddenly right beside you is a real exciting way to hunt. I'm fortunate to have a few different places to hunt closer to home without fear of them being sold.
Jim
For every turkey I have killed in a field, I have killed at least 10 in the woods. In my case , that is often piney woods not just hardwoods. Field turkeys are frustrationg.
hardwoods cause that's what I hunt
I have no preference. I'll hunt 'em up wherever I get a chance to. But I have killed 2/3's of my birds in fields or open grassy areas.
Quote from: Ruger M77 on December 14, 2014, 10:40:21 AM
hardwoods cause that's what I hunt
I'm like you Ruger M77 my properties have almost all hardwoods....its what I've hunted most of my life. I have hunted and harvested some birds in fields just not nearly as many as the woods. The Hardwoods is calling me! 3 1/2 more months...can't wait!
God Bless