What call do you use at or shortly after fly down time?
Quiet soft short yelps. Usually shut up if he talks back on the roost
Depends how close you are to birds
I'll do a fly down and thwack hat on side of leg, 3 note very soft yelp, scratch in behind me. Guess it depends on what I'm feeling he's feeling he wants to hear. I usually guess wrong :)
A flydown sequence if I call right then..............
Nothing until he's on the ground. After that, a couple of flydowns and flap a hat. There are a few exceptions but that's my general strategy.
Yelps
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Generally I'm always running late and not getting to my spots til fly down time and starting there once they're on the ground :morning:
If he is with hens, I will do a fly down before they are off the lamb. I have nothing to lose at this point so why not give it a go?
If the hands are not in that general vicinity he, I will start your being and maybe cutting pretty aggressively in the morning. Birds off the roost are probably when I called the most aggressively right off the go.
Generally there will be some hands nearby, and I want to pull those birds into me before the live hands do.
Frankly I always had pretty crappy luck pulling Toms into me right off the roof though. They will almost always choose the live hens over my calling.
A bachelor bird with no hands is generally going to die though. That seems to be a very uncommon scenario where I hunt though.
Soft tree yelps after he's gobbled a few times to let him know I'm there, then it depends on how he's acting and if there are hens around what they're doing. Except for the initial tree yelps it usually changes each day.
Depends on distance. If I'm far enough away that I think he'll believe a hen came out of nowhere, I'll do some yelping and purring followed by some leaf scratching. If I'm close to him, maybe just some scratching if anything at all. If he's gobbling his head off and I can't get to his location without being busted, give him a few yelps and just get progressively softer making him think I'm headed the other direction.
Couple years ago I hit a place later than I'd liked. Birds were already down. Worked a bird but got messed up by a hen I never did see but she certainly found me. Once that was good and boogered up I took to the other side of the farm. 3 birds answered but wouldn't budge. I called as I walked away about 150 yards or so then did the fat man shuffle back to the location I struck them. They came in on a rope.
After I hear him gobble I'll do a tree yelp ( soft yelp) when it's close to fly down I'll do one or two fly down cackles while I hit the tree with wings or my hat as if a hen flew down.