Hello... I'm new to the forum and kind of new to turkey hunting. I have hunted for 5 years and have been lucky enough to take a bird each year but the first 3 years were the kind of hunts you dream of... Hear birds gobble in the dark, pick a place to sit down, have a friend with who is a great caller, have the bird come in to 15 yards and make the shot. The hunts were a lot of fun but my total time spent turkey hunting was about 2 hours so I really didn't learn much about them. I've been on my own the last two years and although my calling is getting better the reality is that I need to understand much more about their behavior to have success. I've gotten birds the last two years by intercepting them on the way to their roosting site because that's the only thing I knew about their behavior "for sure."
Here's some of the things I've picked up reading posts here and on various other sites and questions I have. If anyone would want to share their opinions I'd be grateful.
Hens go to the toms instead of toms going to the hens - I've read that in various places and it made me scratch my head because the number one tactic people seem to use is calling like a hen. If the tom isn't go to the hen how is that successful? My guess is that the calling gets the tom's attention and his preference is to gobble or strut to show the hen that he's there and hope she comes to him but if she doesn't, curiosity may get the best of him and he'll come looking? I've read a couple of different places that the yelp a hen makes is a locator call and if a hen locates a tom with a yelp and can see the tom, she's not going to yelp as she goes to him but will likely only cluck as she makes her way to him. If she loses sight of him she may yelp again to locate him? On the flip side, if a tom knows where the yelp is coming from (I assume can visually see the hen making the yelp) he likely will wait for her to come to him?
What do turkeys do all day? One thing I like about turkeys is that unlike deer, they aren't going to bed down. They are literally going to be on their feet all day so there shouldn't really be a lull in their activity during the day.. is this true? From what I read, if the hens are receptive to breeding they'll likely be looking to get that done in the morning hours?? Do they become less interested in breeding as the day goes on and more focused on feeding/drinking/dusting? I'm trying to figure out if I should focus on patterning hens in the mid afternoon because the toms will be with them or if they kind of split up during the mid day and I should focus more on patterning the toms.
Once the breeding season starts, is a tom ready to breed at any part of the day? I've seen them strut for an hour in a spot in the later evening - would the goal of that be to bring a hen in at that point to breed?
This question feels kind of stupid but I'll ask anyway. I know hens lay multiple eggs because I see them with more than one young one later in the summer. Do they have to get bred each time to lay an egg or does getting bred one time lead to multiple eggs? Do they lay all the eggs at the same time or is it spaced out over days?
I apologize for the long post.. I really want to learn more and as I find bits and pieces of info it seems that it leads to more questions! I'm really looking forward to this year's hunt as I will finally be able to spend quite a bit of time in the woods and hopefully learn a lot and maybe even shoot a bird!
