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So where do you have your luck?

Started by MK M GOBL, February 12, 2016, 06:22:55 AM

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MK M GOBL

We have a very varied topography across the U.S. but wondering where do you kill most of your birds? I live in the upper Midwest where we have a mix of hardwoods and farmland, I would say I hunt "fields" open areas 80% of the time and the other 20% in the timber. Most of my timber hunts are late season when we green up and I can move through them without being seen as easily.

MK M GOBL

wvmntnhick

Back home it's almost entirely timber hunting. There's fields on the club and on the farm but it's mainly wooded area that you're going to be hunting. Where I'm living now is mostly farmland. Well, the private ground is anyway. You don't have much option but to hunt the fields. I've found the birds in the wooded lots to be easier to kill. They can't see as far and are more willing to come check things out. Field birds can obviously see a greater distance and for me are less likely to break strut and come on in. It happens often enough that I've got zero problems hunting fields but the odds for me are far greater that it's not coming into shotgun range. Having said that, I still prefer the field of view offered by a field and tend to set up near one if I know the turkeys are going to be there.

callmakerman

One of my favorite and best hunting spots is a state wildlife management area that runs along river. This area can be quite thick in spots with a few patches of hardwoods. Love it and have hunted it for 25 years. Always feels like home when I'm down in there.

bbcoach

There are numerous pine plantations, here in Eastern NC.  Normally I hunt open areas, roads, log decks and clear cuts.  Its hard to hunt in the small pines due to the under brush so you locate roost sites before and during the season and set up in the open areas above, close to their roost sites and call them within range.  It's tough hunting but if you know where they strut and frequent, the annual two bird limit normally isn't hard to fill.  Scouting and being where the turkeys want to be is the key to filling tags here.

fallhnt

Public land is where I have my luck...This year I took 7 in fields with a bow and 1 with a gun. In the woods I shot 1 with a bow and 2 with a gun. I have spots that I can't hunt in the woods and spots where there are no fields or just CRP.
When I turkey hunt I use a DSD decoy

Tail Feathers

Same here, but with a one bird limit. :'(
Quote from: bbcoach on February 12, 2016, 06:56:57 AM
There are numerous pine plantations, here in Eastern NC.  Normally I hunt open areas, roads, log decks and clear cuts.  Its hard to hunt in the small pines due to the under brush so you locate roost sites before and during the season and set up in the open areas above, close to their roost sites and call them within range.  It's tough hunting but if you know where they strut and frequent, the annual two bird limit normally isn't hard to fill.  Scouting and being where the turkeys want to be is the key to filling tags here.
Love to hunt the King of Spring!

Spitten and drummen

Down here my lease is 1300 acres of rolling and flat old growth hardwoods. The leases that surround us is all 10 year old cutover. It is a wild turkey breeding haven. We also have alot of Springs and a creek through the whole property. The hens nest in the cutover and fees on our club. Only bad thing is I have to share with 5 other die hard turkey hunters lol. We usually hear 5 to 20 across our property between all of us on any giving day.
" RANGERS LEAD THE WAY"
"QUEEN OF BATTLE FOLLOW ME " ~ INFANTRY
"DEATH FROM ABOVE " ~ AIRBORNE

Happy

Hunt a lot of public land and old strip mine property. Prefer to kill them in the timber cause I love the gobble of and eastern in the timber. But I have killed them in fields and timber. Will play on whatever ground they choose.

Good-Looking and Platinum member of the Elitist Club

turkeyfoot

In my home state hunt Mtns with very little openings so mostly all hardwoods

dirt road ninja

Kill most on roads or open spots on the pines. Sometimes I get lucky and kill one along a creek with a few hardwoods around, but mostly hunt in pine jungles.

OldSchool

Probably about 60/40 fields, woods for me. I used to hunt almost all woods. I hunt around the house a lot, and there are lots of fields here around home. I guess it depends on my mood and what the birds have been doing recently. I like the fields because I see more birds and if they aren't gobbling for whatever reason, I can make a loop out around them and get close enough to try to call them,  but I love my woods hunting too. A lot of mornings I'll start out in a hedgerow along a field somewhere, or the edge of the woods and end up on a ridge later in the morning, or the opposite way around. I love it all and I don't really see a lot of difference in success rates one over the other. When I'm hunting the local state land It's mostly woods hunting, very few fields.

Bob
Call 'em close, It's the most fun you'll ever have doing the right thing.

WisTurk

50/50 on either a field edge or in the timber depending on which spot I pick for the day.  Some days they are all over the ag fields, and others they don't want to leave the timber for one reason or another.

rbreedi1

Thunder Ridge Totes

hobbes

In MT most birds I've killed have been in broken breaks type country with fairly open ponderosa pine with scattered natural openings.  Ive killed birds in similar but greener country in Nebraska on multiple occasions.  I've not spent any time in cottonwood riverbottoms here in MT and minimal time in the mountains.  I'm planning on more time in the mountains this year.

When we lived in Colorado I hunted true mountain birds in a mixture of ponderosa, lodgepole, spruce, and aspen.  The ridge tops were typically open.

When I hunt back home in Illinois  I hunt mostly hardwoods in either the riverbottoms or the hills.  The riverbottoms are private land but the hills are NF.  Most of my Easterns have come from the NF.


buzzardroost

Don't have many fields so ridgetops are prime.


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