Field or Hardwoods

[WildSpur]

I don't like to hunt fields because that's the only place I can guarantee other hunters are. 

I will take hardwoods any day!

[mgm1955]

Wherever the turkeys are and the season's open.

[Muzzy61]

I perfer hardwoods, but most of my hunting is fields.

[surehuntsalot]

for me it's the hardwoods

[silvestris]

I hunt hardwood bottoms 99.99% of the time.  It just seems natural to hunt them there.  Perhaps it is the sound of the gobble bouncing off the tree trunks.

[VA_Birdhunter]

I hunt hardwood bottoms 99.99% of the time.  It just seems natural to hunt them there.  Perhaps it is the sound of the gobble bouncing off the tree trunks.

Those gobbles rock in the hard woods especially in a deep holler!!  I can't wait to here one sound off again!!!

God bless


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[El Pavo Grande]

As others stated, I love hunting in any terrain, but I must admit that hardwoods are my favorite.   I especially enjoy hunting hardwood river bottoms.  All the swamps, sloughs, gators, and cottonmouths intimidate a lot of hunters, but it just adds to the challenge for me. 

[cjordan]

My vote goes to Hardwoods for a couple of reasons. The few times I've hunted in a field they would hen up just out of reach. Now don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful thing to watch them strut back and forth, but it does get aggravating to sit motionless for so long just to watch them walk off. Now back to the hardwoods. As others have mentioned, there is something about hearing that sound coming through the timber. But I would say the biggest reason is because hardwoods is becoming a thing of the past around here, unless your on Government land. So anytime I get a chance to walk through a bunch of big Oaks, I take it. It's a shame that what was once some of the prettiest woods around, isn't anything but pine thickets now.

[Bigspurs68]

I love to hunt them in any terrain but I started hunting them in steep hardwood ridges and I hope that's where I finish. Field birds are fun to play with but timber birds are fun to hunt!

[dirt road ninja]

Hardwoods are getting harder to come by in my part of the world. Pines and cutover rule the landscape, but I do like hunting hardwoods when I run across them. Fields are more of a novelty to me as my home ground doesn't have very many. When I get the chance to hunt ag fields or pasture land, I really enjoy getting to watch birds reactions to my calling. In the pine thickets I'm use to, once you see him, he is in range. I really miss the large tracks of hard woods I hunted in the early 90's before everybody logged.

[hobbes]

I can't think of anywhere I wouldn't like to kill one besides a barn yard. 

Since moving to CO then MT, my only hardwoods hunts are when I go home to visit in IL.  In CO we killed birds in the Mountains in a mixture of timber and mountain parks along with one bird in a cottonwood riverbottom.  In NE its been the Pine Ridge so a mixture of ponderosa pine and grassy ridges.  In MT its been country similar to NE.  I've also killed a couple birds in a SD plains cottonwood riverbottom.  I'd like to go back and hunt more birds in each of those places.

I cut my teeth on Shawnee NF hardwoods birds, so those would still register as my favorite.  I'll be there again this spring waiting before daylight to hear those hard thunderous gobbling Easterns.  Thats another thing, you don't realize how loud an Eastern in the hardwoods sounds until you hunt these western birds for a while.  I'll darn near jump out of my skin when the first bird rattles off close by. 

[tomstopper]

Prefer the hardwoods but love the combo of hardwoods with pipelines going through them....

[VA_Birdhunter]

Prefer the hardwoods but love the combo of hardwoods with pipelines going through them....

Tomstopper....I agree I like hardwoods with right always cut through them for gas and power lines!!   Can be some really good spots!

God bless


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[Cut N Run]

I started hunting big hardwoods, but that land sold.  I was forced to switch to hunting a powerline cut where a pine plantation met mixed hardwoods. That set up made for some limited sight distances, but any gobbler I saw was in range.  I had a lot of birds come close and never show or pass behind me, which is also pretty thrilling, shot or no shot.  It taught me the importance of sitting still and using any cover and shade to my advantage.  The landowner decided he wanted to start turkey hunting, so he took over that spot (nice, huh?), which forced me to hunt the timber again. By scouting with binoculars from a tree stand after deer season, I learned that terrain changes can help funnel turkeys through an area, which I used to my advantage starting that next spring. The landowner stopped leasing that land to me the week before turkey season, so I had to scramble to find new places to hunt. I ended up getting permission to hunt a soybean field that had been harvested the Fall before.  I had success the only time I got to hunt it, because that land also sold out from under me. Now, I hunt hardwoods again, but these border a field.  I don't have rights to hunt the field, but some of the turkeys I have killed used that field to get to my position before I shot them.

At the time, I wasn't real happy about being forced out of so many places.  I had to adapt and learn to hunt different types of terrain & cover. It also taught me the value of scouting.  In the long run it made me a more versatile turkey hunter.

Hardwoods are probably my favorite to hunt, but heavier cover with limited sight distances where the turkeys are suddenly right beside you is a real exciting way to hunt.  I'm fortunate to have a few different places to hunt closer to home without fear of them being sold.

Jim

[J Hook Max]

For every turkey I have killed in a field, I have killed at least 10 in the woods. In my case , that is often piney woods not just hardwoods. Field turkeys are frustrationg.