Gonna go try to roost a bird this afternoon for the morning. I have two different spots I'd like to try in case one falls through. Should I just go to one spot, hoot and listen some right at or before dark and if nothing there haul butt to the other spot and do the same? Will they still respond to a hoot shortly after pitch black dark for a little while?
The best way I know to roost turkeys is to just sit and listen for the fly-ups. You may get a gobble or not, and I have heard gobbles induced by owls in the evening. However, I would not take silence to a locator call after sundown to be indicative of anything. On my farm, there will be some evenings where the gobblers will be vocal after fly-up, and I can remember one evening in recent memory where there was a chorus of gobblers and owls going off well until dark. It is not a common event.
This depends a great deal upon where you are. Some places, gobblers will gobble like crazy in the evening,...and in some, you couldn't get them to gobble if your life depended upon it.
Assuming you are in a place where they will gobble in the evening, pitch black dark is generally not the time to try to get them to. The time period they will most likely gobble is when daylight is fading into darkness. From my experience, prime time for roost gobbling in the evening is starting about 15 minutes after sundown and lasting for about twenty minutes after that.
If your two locations are close enough to drive quickly between the two,...and assuming your birds are inclined to evening roost gobbling,...you could, in theory, start at the first location and then move to the other and successfully locate gobbling birds.
Morning roost gobbling is much more reliable. Often gobblers will sound off in the morning when they would not make a peep in the evening. If you can go out in the morning rather than the evening, that is almost invariably a better choice for locating birds on the roost.
Well kinda like I figured,no luck hearing any gobbles but found a fair amount of tracks and several piles of crap. Never had any luck getting anything to respond at dark so guess I'm headed out to hunt that spot in the morning and see who's talkin!
I've been hitting as many spots in an evening as possible til I roost one and yes had them gobble in the black. Better though in the murk
Use your box call late in the evening when you think birds are close to flying up.
Don't get to close to roosting areas that you have scouted. Stay back a few hundred yards.
Cutt hard and yelp some. I'm in one of those areas where birds don't gobble much in the evening. Loud aggressive calling will bring out a gobble in the evening around fly up time.
Not always but from time to time it's worked for me.
Coyote howlers work great!
On my farm, its hit or miss to hear a gobble. I've had more success with and owl hoot