Am I hurting or helping myself (public land strategy)?

[terp]

I agree about not calling from roads or parking areas.   I also wait 15min (with a watch) after I'm done calling before I move to a new spot.    Doing that has significantly reduced the amount of birds I bump. 

[Geechie]

Op, try an afternoon hunt!

If you have a spot that you've found where there are birds, aka a nice piece of woods or a bottom that birds would like to be in, go find a good tree and call softly ever fifteen minutes to a half hour.

You hunt the same state that I do, our birds can be hard or easy. Remember that our state provided a lot of the birds that have repopulated a lot of other parts of the country. You have some great hunting opportunities!

I've read some of the previous threads, don't give up!
Hunt! Pay attention every time that you hunt!

That's one thing that separates Turkey hunting apart, if you pay attention you will learn something new on every hunt.

Think outside of the box and enjoy the ride.

Learn the woods! Enjoy the spring woods,  no matter the results!

[tha bugman]

My best public land spot is 1.81 miles according to my mapping app from the Truck the entire walk is through the Timber to a destination that is where a long oak covered point and several hog back ridges and gullies meets in an open creek bottom with a small knob off to one side I've had as many as 15 gobbling birds in that immediate area on public land in a single morning although usually only 4 or 5. The walk and has me cross several good looking hollows (where most hunters end up ambling about) and a massive steep tangled boulder covered ridge. That ridge is nasty enough that it keeps 99.98% of hunters at Bay I have cut a small path that snakes its way down over and around the rocks and vine cover undergrowth and keep the path hidden with several bushes and downed trees so you can't find it without knowing its there or stumbling on it even then its no bigger than an average deer trail. I cut the path because trail blazing did work when I fractured my wrist carrying a fat Tom out over those dang rocks tripping.

The point is I am willing to bust through barriers and go further than other guys to kill public land birds because that usually is what success requires, and I try not to attract attention so I never hunt the spot on weekends or Friday. That means I hunt weekdays before work which means I get up at 4am and hike in before you can see a hand infront of your face so I am set up tight to the birds at first gobble because only  have about 1hr of light to hunt before I make that 1.81mi mad dash back out. I am willing to make that roughly 4mi loop for 1hour of hunting 4-5 times a season and it pays off it also requires very little sleep and large amounts of coffee.

when you go to bed before dark and pour coffee in your cereal the next morning...you know that you are a public land turkey hunter! 

[Erno86]

I've adapted my turkey routine on public hunting land, buy being the first hunter in the woods. Yesterday...I got out of my car at 1:30am, for a 1 mile hike into the woods for a first day hunt, with a no flashlight rule for the last quarter mile or so. If I crack a wooden limb on the ground, that early in the morning, I suspect the turkeys might wake-up but will fall back to sleep again; when my loud ruckus has subsided.