I usually like to head out the night before and try roosting a bird.If I can I go to when a old roost spot is and try and make the best of it,listen to the woods wake up and then set up for the am.Whats your go to tactic when you cant roost em?
Find a high elavation spot and list at first light and be prepared to move quickly......keep in mind first bird you hear might not be the best one to go after
Quote from: 2much2loud on March 09, 2015, 07:19:36 PM
Find a high elavation spot and list at first light and be prepared to move quickly......keep in mind first bird you hear might not be the best one to go after
This is exactly what I do...
I have found that birds are either near, or using the same areas, but that roost trees change from year to year, and last year, they changed throughout the season... I try to get to a high area where it is unlikely I will disturb any birds, and try to figure out what is going on...
ALWAYS keep your profile below the skyline... I do not call, or even use a locator call... I just let them do what they do, and try to figure out which bird will be the best option to go after. As stated, sometimes it is not the first bird I hear, and sometimes it is not even the closest one.
On many areas the birds are used to hearing cars and traffic, and I might just pull over to the side of the road and keep my window down...
Depending on the lay of the land and how big the parcel you may want to hike to the center before sun up (assuming you have cover and not out in the exposed open). Then when they start sounding off you can decide which way to go.
There are basically only two instances where I will sit in one spot and wait for a gobbler to gobble, either at dusk in the evening, or first light in the morning. The first is if I am hunting a small parcel where it serves no useful purpose to be mobile. The second is if I am absolutely positive there is a gobbler that I want to hunt within hearing distance.
Around here, a guy could sit in one spot all day and never be within ear shot of a gobbler,...while the guy that is moving quickly from location to location and properly using a locator call might hear a dozen or more. Lesson to be learned: Do not pigeon-hole yourself by using a tactic, or continuing to use one, that might not be the best for the area you are hunting. Adapt to the conditions you face.
Set up initially where you heard birds pre season. Hopefully you are in em. Either way you should be relatively close. If you need to move some, depending on the lay of land, you do so.
I rarely roost my turkeys, but I usually know where they'll be. Sometimes I make a mistake and am left with the sun rising and no birds within earshot. In that case, I know about a dozen places I can go to wait for them to show up.
Sometimes a group just disappears. It may be 3-4 small flocks that roost over a half-mile of ridge, and one day they are gone. Poof! My answer to that is to wait. Usually they will filter back in. Sometimes they are just being quiet. Other times, they have decided to go to another property, but within a day, they are coming back. My response is to resort to the fundamentals of going to the places I know I have seen them before and calling. I'll also go and check out another group.
I rarely roost turkeys but I do a lot of early to mid afternoon scouting. Where I find the most gobbler sign, I will be very close the next morning. Roosting is OK but not always necassary.
I've hunted the same land for years. Even before we had turkeys around here. I've never roosted a turkey, I know where they like to go and set up accordingly.
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I've not had much luck roosting birds here in south Mo. Myself I like the challenge of not knowing and making a plan of attack as it unfolds.
Quote from: Timmer on March 09, 2015, 10:02:50 PM
Depending on the lay of the land and how big the parcel you may want to hike to the center before sun up (assuming you have cover and not out in the exposed open). Then when they start sounding off you can decide which way to go.
This + the highest elevation.
BGD
In areas with lots of topography, being on a hill top or at least on a high ridge before daylight is very advantageous. However, in the flat land, I've had better luck just slipping into an area that I've known them to roost and setting up before they start gobbling. Each piece of land I hunt has areas that the birds seem to like to roosting in. I usually head straight for those spots in the dark. If for some reason they aren't there at daylight, I head back, grab breakfast and start making the rounds mid morning trying to strike a bird.
If you told me I had to hunt a piece of public ground in the morning with no prior scouting. I would watch where everyone else goes and head the other direction.
I very rarely roost them. I sneak in before daylight, find a high spot , let the woods come alive and listen. I don't call or use a locator. I just LISTEN. If I hear one soundoff then I decide what to do. If I don't hear anything within 30 minutes then I move on.
Farm country I start at a likely roost spot but won't stick around long if there's no action. Mountains oh wanna get high and listen
My favorite is to move down wood edges and or deer trails with a combo of locater calls and glassing....as soon as i see sign ,birds ,or get them to sound off i set up and work em....its a hoot :funnyturkey:
One of my simple goals each season is to have the opportunity to work a bird on the roost each morning I'm hunting. If, for some reason, that does not happen on a morning, I evaluate the place I am hunting and make my decision on what to do based on the circumstances.
If I am on a large property, I will invariably start prospecting for an active gobbler,...that is, I will be covering country rather quickly in an effort to find a gobbling bird. That is not a helter-skelter process, as some hunters seem to imagine. It is a carefully planned strategy based on my knowledge of the area,...or lack thereof. It is also governed by the number of other hunters that might be in the area, where they are at, and how my strategy might affect their hunts. It is also determined by such things as the openness of the area (the feasibility of moving around without being detected),...and the road system through the area (should I walk or drive? Are there roadless areas that I should consider heading into?)
*A very important note related to all of this is that I always acquire maps (or print them) of the area I am going to hunt,...and especially so for new areas that I am hunting,...and I want those maps to be as detailed as I can get them.
On the other hand, if I am confined to a very small area that does not allow the first strategy, I will assess where the best place would be to park my behind,...and then I will go there, set up, and wait them out,....all the while hating every single second of it.
If I know they are in area and where they been using I'll work patiently but if not run and gun is my choice
The areas I primarily hunt are pretty small (100 acre+/-) horse farms and the turkeys don't tend to roost on them. There is a swamp by one farm where I hear some gobblers roosting, but I can only get so close to them. Instead of trespassing and trying to take them at fly-down, I make a note of everyplace I see or hear a turkey around those farms. I also have the women horse riders trained to let me know what they see, where, & when they see it. By going to the area closest to the most sightings, I try to find suitable cover or downed trees near where the turkeys like to pass through. I have several spots on each farm that I can use the horse trail to quickly move around on in between each area, depending on where I hear gobbling. It is very hit or miss hunting and there's right much hunting pressure on the surrounding farms. But patience and not calling too much usually help me tag out.
I've had a few close gobblers never come onto the property and it can be one of the most aggravating things to get an uncooperative gobbler to hang up across the line where I couldn't shoot. One time, I heard a gobbler a long ways off and I took the horse trail that got me closest to him. That gobbler was strutting & gobbling in the middle of the neighbor's pasture. I stayed back away from the fence and hung back in the woods trying to coax him to my side of the fence with some soft calling. It worked! He broke strut and started heading my way fast. There was some old rusty farm implements with weeds growing all through them sitting just across the fence in the pasture and when that gobbler got in range of them, BOOM! There was also a couple of guys set up where I couldn't see them right between implements. It turns out the gobbler was hung up to their calls and when I moved behind them in the woods and started calling softly, that gobbler thought his hen was leaving, so he walked right down their gun barrel. They did thank me, but dang.
Jim
If I know the ground,I will set up in known roosting area's, or strut zones. If its new ground I haven't explored. I will slowly make my way along a mountain side or ridges. The same as I would if I were hunting birds in the fall. Calling every so often. I hunt this way by listening more and calling less. A lot of my successful hunts started out with a response from a hen that happened to have a tom with her.
Find a place with a high spot and give ol' owl call a toot. Be carful to listen for more than one bird because sometimes the best bird to hunt isn't the first to gobble. But still be prepared to move on quick and quiet.
Great stuff guys!! I've heard you guys say "Listen to them calling on the roost but wait for the RIGHT bird"How do you know which is the better bird?
Quote from: MACHINIST on March 15, 2015, 05:17:10 AM
Great stuff guys!! I've heard you guys say "Listen to them calling on the roost but wait for the RIGHT bird"How do you know which is the better bird?
One may be easier/quicker to get in tight on, may be the one with no hens roosted with him, may be the one that is roosted in a different direction than the other known hunters in the area. A lot of angles play into which turkey to set up on at daylight, and if it was an exact science, we'd all walk out with a gobbler every morning.
I understand,always good to learn all you can!!
I concur with porcupine but I will drive from spot to spot depending on the weather and responses.
I never was much on roosting birds. I always know the areas they roost and just get in there in plenty of time before daylight. If I don't hear anything I cover as much ground as possible as quick as possible to try and hear one.
If I don't hear anything I'll hit the good spots and try them a while. If I hear one off the roost and it's got hens I'll come back to the area mid morning and try again.
i am one who also does not roost birds the night before..the places I hunt i know where the birds are gonna be from year to year..I get there 45 minutes before the sun rises and wait on birds to wake up..when i hear a hot bird.. i head to where I feel i can get in front of him or his direction of travel and set up...once he hits the ground I'll start working him..but not before he hits the ground...If you do not know the direction the birds like to travel, roosting a bird is not of much benefit IMO..since a bird can fly down in any of 360 degree directions..with hunting the same property year after year you learn where birds travel after flydown..to me knowing where they wanna go after flydown is much more useful information in killing a bird that just roosting a bird the night before...like my buddy always said.." Roosted ain't Roasted"
Long roads and some quality binos, if there's a berm or high point that helps alot.