Favorite tactics for hunting WMA turkeys

[jbrown]

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What is your favorite tactics for hunting gobblers on WMA's, either hill Turkey's or big river swamp gobblers

[Double B]

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Hunt through the week if you can do that.  Be aware of other hunters.  I see folks set up on field edges some, but wma fields get hammered.  I'd rather set up in a good location in the woods. Dont overcall.....they can be skittish,  but they also get lonely and pressure goes away last week of season.   I've grown to minimally answer a gobbler.  Lots of loud cutting and yelping sounds good on tv but soft and short yelps and single contact clucks are used often by birds that aren't real vocal.  Good luck it's my favorite way to get after em!

[aclawrence]

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I don’t like to use locators unless I don’t hear anything.  Try to get as close as you can and give him that sweet talking if he’s alone. If he’s not alone try to call the hens or just maneuver on him and get a shot. 


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[hush]

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Weekdays if you can, if you can’t, good! I won’t see you too! Kidding. I never use locator calls. Everybody else does. I hate it when public gobblers gobble. I try to prevent it. Very different way to hunt turkey. I guarantee it will translate to becoming a better all around turkey hunter. Very little calling. Get in early and leave late. Put in the time to scout.

[Missed mallards]

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Weekdays!

Went on my first weekend excursion this am.

Not going to lie. I heard 9 owls, 9 crows, 9 yotes, and 9 peacocks! Got kind of scary when a bird fired off in the bottom I was in. I went from excitement to worry quickly. Walked out by 4 hunters within 300 yards of each other. I’ll go weekdays as I have been


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[roberthyman14]

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Scout,scout,scout.  Walk like you are on an excursion.  Listen to everything and look for turkey tracks, and people tracks.  Search out the roosting areas.  Get in early, very little calling.  Favorite call most morning are the purr and leaf scratching.  Usually keeps him from gobbling to much and comes in silent.  Meaning no other hunters come trouncing in on you.  If you keep yelping and cutting he keeps gobbling. 

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[silvestris]

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Ten to Two.

[btomlin]

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Everyone has great info so far.  I like to try to find the small isolated areas that maybe only have a bird or 2 on em vs the large tracts that are loaded with birds...as they bring in more hunters.  Scout...know the likely roost areas before season so you can get in early without using locators like many have stated.  I don't use decoys and I stay off the field edges like was mentioned.   I go the route of shy quiet mystery type hen (soft stuff) vs the wild promiscuous type hen when I hunt public.  A gobbling turkey is a bad thing on a large tract.  Many hunters think "he's gobbling on his own" and those birds are typically easy targets.

Be prepared to walk away.  I couldn't get away quick enough and had to scoot around the backside of a tree this year as i got one gobbling too much and pretty soon I could hear someone on a mouth call coming in from our side on the next ridge.  It is possible to not sound like a turkey and get one shot too.  He had to run him down after his 2nd round but Mike Singleterry would have been proud of the guy's tackle on the bird.  Probably one of the craziest things I had ever witnessed.

[Happy]

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Weekdays, hard to reach areas and the like are all great starting points. However a lot of guys are blowing right by turkeys trying to find a "hot" one. When hunting pressured  turkeys I found slowing down, calling softer and less frequently is deadly. Also use your ears and eyes. I am by no means a master but i have found hunting smart is just as effective if not more effective than hunting hard. There are times to go fast and times to go slow. Recognizing when each is required has gone a long way for me. Not that I have perfected it by a long shot.

[Happy hooker]

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hunt the steepest public lands,,very few guys want to scale them from the road

[DROCK]

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Lots of loud cutting and yelping sounds good on tv but soft and short yelps and single contact clucks are used often by birds that aren't real vocal.  Good luck it's my favorite way to get after em!

That's a good point.  I admit I like the loud cutting and yelps but it's probably not helping me. 

[Southerngobbler]

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I have found in most WWA there are a few areas with known good turkey populations. It's tempting to hunt these spots cuz you can almost always hear one gobbling but these birds get hunted everyday and almost never go to a hen unless they see it walking around first. For me its worked better to forget these spots and keep searching for that single tom or small group that no one has found yet, often you can get this tom killied in a day or two. Another good tactic if you do hunt the popular spots is that sometime you or another hunter bumps one-maybe missed a shot or something and the bird flies off a long ways-across a river or something similar; this bird will be super vulnerable for a day or two in his new spot-you want to get over there and hunt him right away or the next morning for sure. Even though this senerio doesn't happen often its pure money when it does.

[Spitten and drummen]

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Slow and patience

[Alex T.]

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My favorite tactic.... get there early and go hunt. Haven’t ran into another hunter yet on any of the public grounds we’ve hunted this spring. Saw 1 out of stater at 1 piece of public when we drove by headed to a different one to hunt. Otherwise, that’s all we’ve seen since our first time out in early April. BTW, we’ve always been out Fridays and Saturdays.

[GobbleNut]

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This is an old topic, but thought it might be worth exploring again....

Public land hunting methods can vary a lot based on a number of factors,...size of the area, difficulty of access and terrain, turkey densities, and of course hunting pressure.  My personal advice for someone hunting a very small public area that receives a lot of hunting pressure throughout the entire season is to go find somewhere else to hunt.  I would rather drive a few hours to get to a less-hunted public area than compete with a pile of other hunters and have to use "deer hunting" tactics.

To me, the entire attraction of spring gobbler hunting is the vocal interaction with the bird.  Quite honestly, if I had to hunt somewhere that I can't have a conversation with a gobbling turkey,...well, I would just quit hunting them,...or better yet, I will go find a place to hunt where I can.

Which brings me to my next point.  There always seems to be a consensus among hunters that, in heavily-hunted public areas, you can't kill gobblers by hunting aggressively.  The prevailing attitude of "you can't call too much to these birds or you will shut them down" creates a mind-set where hunters are stuck in the old "cluck and purr" mode and never try anything else. 

Regardless of where you hunt, don't 'pigeon hole" yourself in your hunting style.  I have hunted a number of places where the prevailing attitude was "you can't kill these birds if you call to them too much",...and the way we ended up killing our birds was to get really aggressive with them. 

Now, I am not saying that the way to kill gobblers is to always be aggressive with them.  I will also say that if you hunt a place where the woods are constantly full of other hunters then aggressive calling will likely attract them (which leads back to point 1:  find a better place to hunt,...or hunt that place at a different time).  What I am saying is that aggressive calling and hunting tactics will kill birds in some situations where a lot of hunters think they will not. 

Again, the moral of the story: don't pigeon-hole yourself in your hunting and calling style.