If you had one piece of advice to give to someone about turkey hunting what would it be?
I'll start with something that I read in an article when I first started hunting and that is "When in doubt, wait it out".
Many times when I had first started turkey hunting I have been set up mid morning calling in 15-20 minute intervals, got bored, and got up to walk and try to get a bird to gobble and before i made my first step heard the unmistakable sound of that hollow putt. Unless you have a great reason to get up (i.e.-you sit down in a bed of deer ticks) then wait it out.
Post a tip of your own lesson you had to learn the hard way and maybe it can help someone this spring.
Well since we already have a post exactly like this one it can be deleted I suppose... Its my first day
My advice, only call from where you think you can kill him.
:welcomeOG: soky
Slow way down and enjoy it all.
When you think you have waited long enough wait some more .
Know when to be quiet. I used to over call just to hear the gobble. If he didn't gobble I thought he was going the other way. Now if he gobbles and answers my calls I make him come looking for me.
Get a good butt cushion and use it. There is a time a move, and learning when and where is something that only experience will teach you, but you'll kill more turkeys being patient than you will by "making it happen"
He's no longer gobbling doesn't necessarily mean he's no longer there.
My one piece of advice is this: put away everything you ever read from others regarding turkeys and turkey hunting. Go out, find some turkeys, and learn to hunt them in your own way. Scout as much as you can. Get around turkeys until your understand them, and then go out and kill them.
My reason for saying this is that so much of the knowledge I gained from reading the turkey greats meant next to nothing to me when it came to hunt them. More often than not, my head was filled with preconceived notions of what I should be seeing that I could not understand what was being presented to me. It took years for me to see turkeys as they really are. I must always fight to see things with fresh eyes, and not judge them just as a repeat of something I have seen another year.
I'll never forget giving permission to a pair of turkey hunters to hunt my place a few years ago. They were from Ohio, which at that time did not have turkey hunting past Noon. They were fairly new to the sport and came out for an afternoon hunt on my place. They came in well before sundown, exhausted.
"How'd you do?" I asked. I was surprised to see they didn't have a turkey . I'd heard several shots.
"Great." said the younger one. "I was showing Pops about Running and Gunning."
"Oh?"
"Yes, " said the old man. "I've never seen anything like it. We'd walk through the woods until we heard turkeys and then we'd sit down and call like crazy to them. If we didn't hear anything in half an hour, we'd get up and go at it again. We had luck, but it was all bad. Just as we got up, there'd always be a turkey just ready to come in and we'd scare him. One of us would get a shot, but those old gobblers were sly."
"It was just like on the tape I watched." said the kid. "' Cept the gobblers always came quicker on the tape."
As best as I could tell, they'd called in a flock early in the afternoon and scattered it with the first fusillade and then chased that flock all over my 200 acres as they tried to regroup-- all because the kid had seen this tape on Run N' Gun tactics. The flock had finally escaped to land to our south and that is what had caused them to come in.
Call him to where he wants to be, not where you want him to be.
Make sure your gun is patterned!
Scout pre-season, pattern birds, know where they are roosting, where they go after flydown once you have this figured out you just need to set up in a good vantage point between the roost and where they wanna go after flydown..subtle calls every 20 minutes, when a bird responds, go silent and wait....like some other guys here have mentioned, wait and then wait some more..patience is the key, don't try and force something to happen. Patience............
Learn to be patient and sit still. I mean really sit still!! Moving at the wrong time has let ALOT of turkeys live another day.Also don't call too much. Sometimes the best move is not to call.
My best advice is that there are no absolutes in turkey hunting. Yes, it's easy to call too much. At other times, that's what's needed. You do have to learn to be very still while at other times you may have to make a very quick move. Like when his head is behind a tree. So many variables, but some things are consistent.
Hunt hard and hunt often ( Just try and not lose your job or wife). Walk over one more hill, even when you are tired.
When you think it's time to go home, hunt one more hour. When you think you should get up and relocate, sit another thirty minutes. Most of all, try and learn the land and scout just as hard as you hunt. It's not that complicated, don't make it so.
When i was younger I was full of advice. Now that I'm older my best advice would be enjoy each and every day that you have in the turkey woods, and don't take any of them for granted.
I need to learn patience more myself but I'm getting there. My problem is I hunt really stupid turkeys. They never do what they do on TV lol! In all seriousness something that was only mentioned once that should be stressed is pattern your gun. Make sure your point of aim and point of impact are the same just like a rifle. Does no good for half of your pattern to miss the bird by a foot and you kill him with a few fliers. One day that will jump up and bite you with a miss or wounded bird.
Quote from: shaman on January 20, 2015, 01:07:58 PM
My one piece of advice is this: put away everything you ever read from others regarding turkeys and turkey hunting. Go out, find some turkeys, and learn to hunt them in your own way. Scout as much as you can. Get around turkeys until your understand them, and then go out and kill them.
My reason for saying this is that so much of the knowledge I gained from reading the turkey greats meant next to nothing to me when it came to hunt them. More often than not, my head was filled with preconceived notions of what I should be seeing that I could not understand what was being presented to me. It took years for me to see turkeys as they really are. I must always fight to see things with fresh eyes, and not judge them just as a repeat of something I have seen another year.
This is great advice! I agree completely, Thats probably why it took me 4 years to kill my first bird, and over the last 11 years since I've been able to fill almost every tag I've had. Once I quit doing strictly what I thought I should do according to the advice I'd seen on videos and magazines, and just used my experience to develop my own skills, in conjunction with some of the advise,,, thats what makes a turkey hunter.
Make sure that your gun is loaded. Don't ask how I learned that one.
Memorize and put into practice pages 188-212 of "The Wild Turket And Its Hunting" by E.A. McIlhenny (free online on Google Books), forget everything else, and learn to call presentably and you will be successful.
:turkey2: Do your homework. Scout, pattern your gun and practice calling. Don't be cheap. Try different ammo, chokes and tactics to see what works for you. This is half the fun. Do it because you love it. Al Baker
Enjoy every moment, every gobble, every opportunity to get in the woods!
Always carry a roll of toilet paper i vest...don't ask how I know...probably the most important item in my vest.
Remember that you are on HIS time schedule and not yours. His pace in the woods is determined by him and you need to get in synch with the rhythms of the bird.
I took a kid out a few years ago on a turkey hunt. He asked if he had to sit still or if it was alright to move. I told him he could move all he wanted to, but only on one condition. He asked what that condition was. I told him he could move but only as fast as grass grew. If that boy can wrap his mind around that, we might have a future.
My advice would involve scouting. In my opinion very little should be done in the woods before it's hunt time. Mark as many birds as you can before the season, if you can somehow get close enough to watch where they fly down in the morning, you'd be ahead of the game but as far away as you can be. Idea is not to spook em.
Beyond that the next time I'd hit the woods where turks live is to roost em.
If you know where they wanna go/be the rest can be easy. That's true for all game though
Don't let the rain keep you home .and hunt the fields. I've killed last 3 on rainy days.
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For where I hunt? Remember the Thermacell because that lets you be still and also lets you wait him out! Learned this one from experience in a swamp bottom with my nephew.
Don't assume that just because you are using a shotgun that you can just point and shoot. I missed my first bird I ever saw by lifting my head. Boy, did I clearly see him fly away in a hurry! Later that day, I shot my first turkey. I think I held my head on the gun for about a minute after I shot him. I wasn't making that mistake again.
I got into turkey hunting much later in life than I did waterfowling and wing-shooting.
I have really enjoyed the learning process, and I would say it is not those days that I am successful that send me back out into the field, but, it is those days I am "almost" successful.
Getting that bird to come a half a mile, and come almost within range... Knowing (or thinking) if I had just done this or that I could have had him... That is what makes me get up again at 3:30 am and leave my wife at home with two small kids...
Some great advice given, and I would have a tough time prioritizing on anything being said... But, I will point out one of my biggest flaws, which is over-calling. I love hearing that tom get fired up, and the temptation to call is overwhelming... But, from my limited experience, the more we call, the more that tom expects the hen to meet him half-way... Showing some interest, but playing a little hard-to-get seems to work much better if I can control my urge to over-call...
Call from where that bird wants to be! Put your time in scouting and even learn from that bird while your hunting him. If you call from where he wants to be or where he's going it most likely wont take much.
hunting in mo. a while back i got a hot bird double gobbling and it sounded like he was coming in and then nothing, for 30 minutes.I thought he got with some hens and I got up to move only to find out that he was about 5 yards behind me.That one hurt! If you have hunted long at all you will have that bird that slips in silently.These are some of the toughest birds to kill,especially if your not patient.I learned this the hard way.
Don't call until your in the best position to kill that bird. That could mean relocating for several hours before you call, but once you do it means you pushed your chips in and the game starts.
Don't fall in love with the sound of your own calling. Turkeys have natural curiosity that can work to your advantage, if you let it. You don't need to constantly call to make them gobble all the way to the gun, unless you're planning on filming a TV show or something. Call sparingly & mix it up enough to keep them interested without giving away your position. Make them hunt for you. How many times in the woods do you hear a lot of real hen talk all coming from the exact same location anyway?
Jim
just remember a turkey has no where to get in a hurry, patience,patience, patience
Don't wear red, white, or blue
We have all these calls and use them all....different one today than yesterday and different sound today than yesterday. Maby today yelp, a little clucking tomorrow and on and on. But if we will stop and listen we will most all agree...we hear hens very little and you know they are out there and that ole gobbler finds them every day. How does he do it if we can't hear them and I can hear pretty good. Got me to thinking many years ago...and think I hit on something. That hen many times will draw that gobbler in or get his attention with one note...the cluck. If you will notice that...and it is hard to do because it is not as loud as the yelp...BUT that ole gobbler can hear it way further away than we can. Only ones we can hear are near by...maby 100 yds or less. Well, he can hear that same cluck I am convinced 300 yds or more. Have brought in many birds with just a cluck or two every 30 minutes or so and many marched hundreds of yards because I could hear him that far and he could hear my cluck that far. Try it if you want to find out what you have been missing...took me long time to learn this but when I did went to killin birds. Another thing this does is it doesn't disturb the woods so much with all this calling...just natural for the woods to be quiet....and the older gobblers know this many times. They get fooled with a cluck many more times than loud yelping I believe.
always wear gloves. your hands are nothing but flags to the birds
Number one tip is setup you wouldn't believe the birds I've seen get spooked by people not thinking that the hens may come in first and they get busted only focusing on the gobbler, You need to be still and have good enough setup that if multiple hens come in first you can sit and wait on big boy to bring up rear. In other words always assume hen is coming first