Turkey hunting forum for turkey hunting tips
General Discussion => LEARNING TO TURKEY HUNT => Topic started by: bassman95 on April 05, 2019, 12:25:51 PM
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Hey all,
I've hunted hard for a gobbler since the season started March 15 and still haven't tagged one. Ive been mostly focusing on a small piece of private land as I've observed plenty of turkeys and tracks there. It's around 100 acres. I have walked around and called a fair bit, usually ever 15 minutes or so. I call for about 15 seconds each time. Is there any chance that I've burned out the spot with turkeys hearing my calling frequently and possibly seeing me? If so, I plan on exploring other land.
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From your explanation...patience and more preparation for the morning hunt would do you well. You are also probably calling too much. How much are you moving around and how often? 100 acres isn’t that big. You should be able to set up on them in the morning, I would think. Unless they simply don’t talk.
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Ive only heard them talking once, last Saturday. They were gobbling their heads off at what almost sounded like another hunter calling, using the same 4 note yelp each time. It literally sounded just like my little push/pull call. Ive been setting up where a bunch of trails/dirt roads converge that connect woods with several fields before sun up and sitting till 8 or 9 and placing a strutter and hen decoy. So far, I've managed to call in a hen a few days ago but nothing this morning. Im not sure if I should start moving and calling to them.
Thus far I've never had one gobble back at my calling in this place and I'm pretty confident that Im calling correctly
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I hunt a couple of small properties like this and have learned the hard way that run and gun is not effective. I think your plan of calling and sitting at first light is the most effective, but stretch it out. Especially if one answers you from the roost. Let him work his way back around to the "hen" he heard in the morning. It may take a while. get a gobbler lounger and sit him out. Call very sparingly. Answer a hen if you hear one, you can't beat a live caller in front of you. And be prepared for him to come in without gobbling or making a sound.
it is boring and I often get tired of it and hunt large public tracts so I can put some miles on my boots and get some interactions with birds. But it is also effective. Also, visit later in the morning sometimes. Afternoon even if you can hunt then. Try to roost one so you know where he will be the next morning.
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I hunt a little 80 on the river. We really only hunt about 30 acres of it, down on the bottom. There are plenty of times we hear birds in the AM while scouting and then they show up on trail cams at 11...call a little and then shut up and sit still. for a few hours...
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should most of my calling be of short duration, say less than 15 seconds and should I try different calls out every time I call?
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It depends. Vary the cadence and the calls. I usually cut and purr a little. After a while I may yelp. Couple years back I heard a hen get fired up behind me on another property, so I started cutting back to her and got her all fired up. Not 2 minutes later a gobbler breaks out on the field I am on. He took a truck ride. If it is windy or rainy, I may just call a little louder. Switch from slate to mouth call. Sometimes both, but not often. Be consistently inconsistent. Nothing sounds worse than sitting making the same yelp sequence every 10 minutes like you are Big Ben. Switch it up, have some fun.
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on a small piece of land stay in the same spot, yelp three times and don't call again, wait 30 minutes then yelp three times again, old school!
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Turkeys will give you all the room you demand. The goal should be to gain information without letting the turkeys know of your existence.
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My favorite way to hunt is run & gun... But I will agree with others, that with 80 acres, this is not a good strategy.
It is all too likely that you will bump birds without knowing it. If you are walking around calling, it is very likely that you have called birds in that have seen you and run off.
I would find a comfortable area to set up, that you can stretch out and be well-hidden, cause in my experience, killing birds on small property is all about sitting comfortably for longer periods.
Often, I will hit these properties later in the morning, and try to call in that lonely tom after the hens have left him for the nest....
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There is no question that you can "burn out" an area,...especially a very small parcel like that. Aggressively hunting any area over and over again can condition turkeys to avoid your calling and even leave the area entirely. In all honesty, it sounds like you need to be looking for more places to hunt.
I would be researching all public-land opportunities in the region, as well as start contacting local landowners to find other private parcels to hunt.
I have a personal philosophy about spring gobbler hunting. That is, I would rather drive eight hours to find a place that will allow me to hunt gobblers the way I want to than to sit eight hours on a poor piece of property where I am relegated to hoping a gobbler wanders by.
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Are you mixing up your calls i.e. Pot calls, box calls, mouth calls or trumpets and such? and your presentation?
MK M GOBL
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yea, ill do a few calls on the pot, box and mouth. How long does each call last for you? Do you sit and call for like a minute, 30 secs, 15secs? and how many times would you say you call each hour?
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More like 15 seconds or actually less. I think all here are talking about a cutt sequence, maybe with a yelp. Maybe some purring, but not at the same time. Like 5 seconds. Sometimes I may do a little longer sequence.
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This is getting a little ridiculous. Instead of worrying about timing of calls find another place to hunt a few days a week and give the turkeys in the private land a break
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The guy is asking questions about this place, so folks are answering. He is just trying to learn how to call and not move, I don't think he said he was gonna camp there. But I hunt my smaller private pieces infrequently as well. Mostly hunt public, but they hold a bird or two now and again. Maybe he lives a long way from a decent public place.
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The guy is asking questions about this place, so folks are answering. He is just trying to learn how to call and not move, I don't think he said he was gonna camp there. But I hunt my smaller private pieces infrequently as well. Mostly hunt public, but they hold a bird or two now and again. Maybe he lives a long way from a decent public place.
If public is not possible the answer is still give the area a break. Doesn’t matter if you use a stopwatch and computer generated random calling sequence lol you keep hammering the same spot everyday you will shut the Gobblers down completely, period
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Im going to try another piece of private land I have access to tomorrow. Ill probably stay out all day. It is pine plantation with some hardwoods around a big river. Its a big piece of property, several hundred acres at least. I plan to do some moving because I don't know where the turkeys are going to be.
Do you guys refrain from calling/hunting from around 8-10 in the morning as the toms are henned up or do you hunt these hours like all the other hours?
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Several hundred meaning 300 acres? Or 1000? I hunt a piece that is about 300 and I am very careful about moving around. I have also killed the majority of birds there at the times you mention.
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You should really read some books on turkey hunting. This is not like changing your oil for the first time you can’t watch a YouTube video or ask someone to walk you through it over the phone lol. There are several really good books that after reading you would be way ahead of were you are now. You need at least a basic understanding of the game your after to have anything other than blind luck.
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great. what are the books called?
Ive read a a few books online about turkey hunting and think I get the general gist of it, I didn't think I was signing up to being a rocket scientist when I decided to go turkey hunting
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A lot of people miss the rocket scientist part.
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great. what are the books called?
Ive read a a few books online about turkey hunting and think I get the general gist of it, I didn't think I was signing up to being a rocket scientist when I decided to go turkey hunting
There’s been several posts about new Turkey hunter books ...look them up. I’d recommend Turkey hunting Digest by Jim Spencer. From the questions your asking it seems like your having some issues.
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great. what are the books called?
Ive read a a few books online about turkey hunting and think I get the general gist of it, I didn't think I was signing up to being a rocket scientist when I decided to go turkey hunting
A lot of people miss the rocket scientist part.
:TooFunny: :TooFunny: Just go turkey huntin', enjoy yourself, adjust your tactics as needed, and try to learn from each experience. Ain't none of us huntin' under the same conditions. Even Sergeant Shultz and Happy got it down after a while... :toothy12:
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The Art & Science of Wild Turkey Hunting” by Lovett E. Williams Jr
The Old Pro Turkey Hunter” by Gene Nunnery.
This is some more. Feel free to ask as many questions as you like on here. It's how you learn and there are a lot of good people on here that are more than willing to help out.
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The one I read was called pro turkey tactics by bob Humphrey.
At this point, I feel like I get the idea enough that what I really need is just experience getting out into the woods and finding the areas turkeys frequent and hunting around there. I haven't been able to find a roost yet even though I've looked all over the lands I hunt around the base of the largest trees. However, I've found plenty of sign and have even called in a few, so I figure my calling at least sounds somewhat like a turkey.
Ive been told that turkeys like to roost in the tallest trees with horizontal limbs around water; Im thinking loblolly pines in my area(central Mississippi). Is this true in most of yalls experience? I bumped some birds out of some tall pine trees this morning and I think they may have been turkeys even though it was dark. Im not sure what other birds roost up in trees like that(vultures possibly?). Whatever they were, they were probably 3/4 birds in the tree and they had loud, heavy wing beats. I looked around the base of the tree and didn't see any feathers/droppings from turkeys and I walk past this spot every time I hunt this area and haven't seen birds roosted in these trees before
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Vultures are big and do roost in trees so could have been them or turkeys.
Remember, you don't have to sound like a competition caller. There are are a ton of videos on YouTube of hens that sound like they smoke a pack a day.
I would focus more on cadence and just listen to turkeys talking and see how it changes from on the roost in the morning, how it sounds later in the day, evening etc. I also suggest learning body language of the birds. All of this can be read about but you were spot on about experience. As you experience more, your turkey hunting will improve.
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If I hear no turkeys around first light/sunrise talking should I just assume they aren't in the area or do you find that they are often around even if you don't hear a peep?
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If I hear no turkeys around first light/sunrise talking should I just assume they aren't in the area or do you find that they are often around even if you don't hear a peep?
Not knowing where you hunt and what the turkey numbers are like, it is hard to say for sure. Gobblers in some places are less likely to gobble on the roost than in other places. However, in my experience, if there are many turkeys around, you will generally hear some gobbling at first light,...somewhere.
If you have been on the property several mornings at first light and have not heard any gobbling at all, I would speculate that there probably aren't any gobblers roosting within earshot of where you are listening from. They might move onto the property at some point during the day, but you should be seeing some evidence of that, as well.
If you haven't already, you should walk the property boundary at first light listening for gobbling on adjacent properties. Later in the morning you should do the same and call to see if birds respond. There is no rule against calling birds off of other properties on to your own (although you should not do that if you know someone else is working a bird you hear). If you have 100 acres to hunt, you can easily triple your hunting area by calling along your property boundaries.
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If I don't know the location of roosts would afternoon hunting likely prove more effective? Id imagine during the afternoon id have more luck just sitting and calling as opposed to moving and calling as the turkeys are less likely to gobble back, so id spook them by moving. Is this correct and in this situation would I benefit from a louder call such as a box call?
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If I don't know the location of roosts would afternoon hunting likely prove more effective? Id imagine during the afternoon id have more luck just sitting and calling as opposed to moving and calling as the turkeys are less likely to gobble back, so id spook them by moving. Is this correct and in this situation would I benefit from a louder call such as a box call?
I have killed some good birds by running and gunning in the afternoon. Just always glass the area ahead before you move. Once the hens break away from him in the afternoon, he will gobble.
As for the calls, if you can get high on a ridge, I recommend using a box call for volume. I also use my glass pot call allot when running and gunning.
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great. what are the books called?
Ive read a a few books online about turkey hunting and think I get the general gist of it, I didn't think I was signing up to being a rocket scientist when I decided to go turkey hunting
A lot of people miss the rocket scientist part.
:TooFunny: :TooFunny: Just go turkey huntin', enjoy yourself, adjust your tactics as needed, and try to learn from each experience. Ain't none of us huntin' under the same conditions. Even Sergeant Shultz and Happy got it down after a while... :toothy12:
I ain't got nothing down. I just drive fast and erratically on backroads.
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When running and gunning I assume you just miss/spook the turkey if he comes in quietly?
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I don't run and gun. The only time I am moving quickly is if I really have to beat a bird to a location. Typically it is a lot of sneaking and listening. I will cold call once in a while but slow and steady wins with turkeys. I am pretty aggressive on turkeys. That's just how I like to hunt them. However there is controlled aggressiveness and then there is uncontrolled. Small pieces of property are not really my deal for that reason. Believe me when I say that we stir up far more animals than we see when moving around at a normal walking pace. I would bet you have spooked far more turkeys than you think you have and they are probably just avoiding the area. If I were you I would find some fresh areas to hunt. I am blessed to have thousands of acres of both public and hunting club land to hunt. I never hunt the same areas repeatedly and keep a few "good" spots alone until the timing of the breeding season is right. Usually that results in a dead Turkey. All the areas I hunt get a lot of pressure but by keeping things fresh (at least for me) i keep a little bit of my edge while hunting instead of falling into a boring routine. So to sum it up. Scout constantly whenever you are in the woods. Don't overhunt one spot and always have backup areas. Pay attention and keep mental notes of what is going on in the area and apply it to future hunts. Eventually you will start to figure things out and things will start falling into place. Good luck.
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For me, running and gunning is how I hunt when nothing seems to be happening. I usually do it when hunting large parcels of land. I am sure I may have missed some but if so, then so be it because I am looking for one that wants to play the game. Keep in mind, when I say running and gunning, it is controlled. I glass ahead if possible and never move more than 100yards at a time before calling (sometimes I cluck and purr when moving). When moving, I am going slow, not fast. It's not like I am just crashing through the woods but have seen hunters that do...lol.
Just a tip when doing this method, never hit the call without having a spot picked out where you could set up on him. I can't tell you how many times I had to call and had one right ahead of me. You don't want to be scrambling. Good luck hope this helps you
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Tomstopper, on average how many miles would you cover in a run and gun situation hunting all day?
I walked around 7 miles yesterday, stopping and calling off ridges into the river bottom below and got no answers. My thinking is that in 7 miles there must have been some turkeys and that I may have spooked them by moving too quickly
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Not sure, but I have walked all day. When I run an gun, I normally will walk and call through an area and then on the way back, try to go through the same area and call again. You might have missed some birds but maybe not. I look at it this way, I would rather be covering ground and trying to find one than just sitting in an area and hoping one will hear my calls.
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About how many hours are you hunting per turkey harvested?
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Not sure of a numerical value. It all depends on population, time of day, location, weather etc. There have been times when I have killed them early and times I have killed them late. Just not sure how many hours.
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No, I do not think you have burned this spot. What I would do is - wait, listen, they will come around. Do not call. Listen.
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Need to explore other land anyway. Maybe not have burned it out but never know what you are going to find around the next bend.
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Do you guys have any tips/advice on locating a turkeys roosting site by scouting out the land. Ive walked a long ways this turkey season and haven't found a single one, to my knowledge, which is frustrating.
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I hunt a 200 acre farm that I know very very well. I'm the only person who hunts it. Even I have figure out that I can't run and gun that property b because I will spook birds. Some days I can hear them on the roost and somedays they don't gobble at all. Some days they roost on the property and some days they don't. Scouting pays off in a big big way. I've got 4 trail cams set up on the property and I try to drive my vehicle to them to pull/change cards and not walk up to them where I can be seen. Most farm birds are used to vehicles being driven around. FWIW, I kill most of my birds either off the roost or late morning. If I can hear them early I can normally more on them before daylight. If I don't hear any gobbling I go set in a ground blind and put a decoy out in a field edge. PS. Even with trail cams some days they are there and some days they aren't. I think weather changes a lot of their movement patterns and it for sure changes how much they gobble.
PS. My biggest thing is I don't over call. If I'm working a bird on the ground and he answers me two or three times I know he knows exactly where I am and he will most likely show up into the decoy spread. If he gives me only one gobble and that's it no matter what I do he most likely is with hens.
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I think the replies about picking a spot and staying put are good advice if your not hearing birds on the roost. You have these small tracts of land to hunt you want to make your presence as a human known as little as possible. If your not hearing roosted birds chances are they are showing up to property later. If you absolutely feel the need to move run and gun can be a misnomer. Most of the time it's sneak and gun exspecially on the small properties you are hunting. Make as little noise as possible. Keep out of sight. Stay back away from clearings and oak flats. If you have to go through these areas use the terrain to keep out of sight. Use Creek beds if possible for travel routes. move slowly and quitely for short distances at time. Stop and listen. Just because your not hearing them doesn't mean they are not there. After a fair distance. 100yds maybe more maybe less. If your hunting a ridge line maybe move to next finger ridge or farther down the finger ridge your on. Sometimes you just need to get in a toms wheelhouse. I don't how many times a short move of a 100yds or less has fired a Tom up that I would swear wasn't there with the result from my previous positions. Pull up a good tree and sit for a while. Listen 1st before calling. When you start calling keep it low key at 1st. Some quiet purrs, clucks and yelps. Not to much just enough to let nearby Tom's know your there. Listen and look for a while, 5-10mins maybe more. Start another sequence of calls increasing the intensity than wait and listen for Rustling leaves, Crows, bluejays, or squirrels fussing and of course gobbles. Bigger birds I think like to mess with turkeys. Sit for 1/2hr 45 mins increasing intensity each calling sequence. You don't want to blow the leaves off the trees but let em know you there. Before you get up and move make sure you listen for a while after your last sequence. Sometimes it takes a while for distant Tom to give you a courtesy gobble. Repeat the process by sneaking to your next calling position. If you hear a distant gobbling(300yds or more) and want to move on him do it right after he gobbles. Do it quickly but quietly. I usually try to cut the distance by about a 1/3. After cutting distance stop and listen. Wait for him to gobble again before cutting more distance. Do not call to him. If he don't gobble pull up a good tree. Once I get to within 150yds it's time for stealth mode.
I could go all day on this but I'll let others respond.
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About how many hours are you hunting per turkey harvested?
If I were being paid, I could retire...
Honestly it all depends though... When the population cycles are high, I probably have opportunities on most hunts... When the populations are lower, I might hunt 5 times most of the day for one bird or no bird.
I also have spots that I know will produce better in the early morning (birds roost there in the morning and wander off the property as the morning wears on), and a spot that is a favorite in the afternoon (birds tend to walk through late morning or early afternoon). These areas are close together, and when I leave to hunt in the morning, I always plan on hunting both if I have time.
Finding areas to hunt (with bird populations) is probably the biggest challenge of hunting turkeys in California... But with turkey hunting (as well as quail hunting), I do my best to find areas close to other areas so I always have a plan B...
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Finding areas to hunt (with bird populations) is probably the biggest challenge of hunting turkeys in California... But with turkey hunting (as well as quail hunting), I do my best to find areas close to other areas so I always have a plan B...
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Truer words have never been spoken. I talked with three different land owners this spring and I was denied on all three because of the worry of liability.
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Even though a lot of people don't like sitting in a good ground blind they will allow you to hunt a small parcel longer without burning it out. They keep you from walking all over the property. And don't hunt the roost area in the evening-you'll run them off the property.
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got my 1st one this wednesday on public thanks for the pointers
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Great! Good for you bassman! (Lots of thumbs up emojis here)