Everyone says patience is #1 key to success to harvesting a bird. What is the dividing line between patience and wasting time?
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Great question that we all wish we knew the answer too. I think experience will help and also to understand the particular situation you are in with each setup ex: if he is alone or has hens- is it multiple gobblers - is he responding or just giving a courtesy gobble - etc.... but I will say this patience has helped me kill many gobblers others would have not killed simply by staying with the bird or setup!
For me its whether I am in actually the game or if I am just sitting on my @$$ and hoping. I won't do the later for long.
Not everyone says that. Most of the people I know who are very successful on both private and public has patience way down their list of go to tactics. The dividing line is knowledge and experience. The more knowledge you have the less dependent you become on patience, and this holds true with experience as well. Although some people with lots of experience still lack the knowledge and are more reliant on patience. I always say patiently aggressive kills turkeys.
Gonna be totally truthful.............
I haven't been hunting these birds as long as some on these forums. But this will be my 43rd year, I believe.
I can honestly say, in that number of years, I have killed more gobblers by being IMPATIENT than patient.
I have absolutely NO problem with getting up and walking away from a lukewarm bird at 150 yards and hauling butt to a bird gobbling hard on its own 500 or 600 yards away. Babe Winkleman told me one time...........in reference to fishing one spot for walleyes......... "If you're hunting rabbits and you kick a brush pile and a rabbit doesn't run out.......are you gonna keep kicking the same brush pile or are you gonna go find another one to kick ??"
Many, MANY times over the years, I've gone on to another brush pile when hunting spring birds.
This is that age old problem. Ive messed up both ways. Got up too soon and been busted . And Ive sat too long and regretted it. The situation calls for either. I sat one day hearing a gobbler thinking I should stay put and call hoping he would come. After 20 mins of him not moving I couldn't stand it and made a move in a better, closer spot. This proved to be the way to go and i took him home. Patience would have lost out that day . So to me "when " to use patience is the important thing. Your question was What is that dividing line? Too many variables . Experience, skill, but mostly luck dictates that line.
X2 what Strum stated. I remember a hunt where had a single gobble. I normally wait about an hour when I hear a gobble, on this occasion it was close to noon, it was hot, I was hungry and had a long walk out so only waited about half an hour. Started out and there he is standing in the middle of the trail. He was gone in an instant. Had other instances where they were gobbling and stayed put and they eventually quit,
Couple of thoughts.
On at least three instances, early in my turkey hunting career, I started out calling in a spot, had a bird answer one or two times and then I moved on. Within an hour or so the bird gobbled right back where I had been.
My brother's FIL told him that if a bird answered his call from the roost, he would sit tight and more often than not that bird would be back before closing time (noon in those days). He killed a pile of birds on hard hunted public land with an old SxS and high brass 6s, so he was calling them in close.
I think I range somewhere in the middle on patience and aggressive. One of my favorite birds I took was a big mature gobbler using a small farm I hunted. Never heard him, only knew he was there from the strut marks late in the season. I sat up and called quiet and infrequent and he showed up in full strut all the way to his death. He spit and he drummed and he showed out, but never gobbled once.
I reckon it is all situational and I think I chose wrong more than right, but when it is right, it feels pretty sporty. Good luck everyone.
Quote from: guesswho on March 18, 2022, 10:04:39 AM
Not everyone says that. Most of the people I know who are very successful on both private and public has patience way down their list of go to tactics. The dividing line is knowledge and experience. The more knowledge you have the less dependent you become on patience, and this holds true with experience as well. Although some people with lots of experience still lack the knowledge and are more reliant on patience. I always say patiently aggressive kills turkeys.
It's hard for me to argue with that right there.
I watched an interesting podcast hosting someone studying turkey movements...
They had trackers on birds, and trackers on hunters hunting the areas with the birds (public areas I believe). A surprsing number of birds went into the location of the hunters some 1-2 hours after the hunters had left that location.
That being said... The odds of me sitting/hunting a spot for hours, with likely a quiet bird coming in... Ain't gonna' happen. It simply would not be fun for me.
While I have hunted quiet birds, I won't sit in a spot for hours for one. I much prefer to have some sort of interaction with the birds I am hunting... That cat&mouse game is fun to play for me.
Admittedly, I have left birds and areas on birds that were seemingly non-responsive, only to walk back through later and hear that bird response, or worse bump them...
But... You could also sit in a good spot all day, and never see (or hear) a bird...
Bottom line for me, is that I have as much patience as I can stand while still having fun hunting....
Experience and pre-season scouting go a long way with me as far as how patient I am. If it's early in the season and especially if I know that I'm hunting a dominant gobbler with hens, then I'm not nearly as patient. Later in the season...I'm more likely to hang with them longer.
Also to Marc's point, I have some places where I hunt that I'm able to run and gun a good bit. If I leave a bird and take off looking for another, I like to double back a couple hours later to somewhere near my original spot and do some calling. Many times I've been able to fire up a gobbler not too far from my original set up.
The longer I hunt turkeys, the more I enjoy the antics of the other critters about, mostly songbirds.
When to wait, when to take off running is entirely situational, but I don't think there's any such thing as wasting time in the woods. You ought to be walking around like a sponge soaking up every detail. And inevitably on the days you come home empty handed you'll be plagued by the shoulda, woulda, coulda scenarios but who's to say if they'd have really worked in the moment. Maybe you sit there another three hours and nothing happens. Maybe you take off after him and bugger him as he's coming toward you. We do the best with whatever experience and knowledge and instinct we have in a given scenario and sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. The ones who tend to win more often are the ones who've been there before which goes back to the first statement and my overall point: there is no wasted time.
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I move based on what the turkeys are doing, my ability to move without being seen (which is based on cover or terrain), or if I've sat long enough that I don't see the point anymore. I've sat in the same spot for 6 hours if the turkeys are close and I don't think I can move without being seen. I learn something every time I go hunting, so I don't consider it wasted time.
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For me, it's all about the knowledge of the bird you are hunting and the flock they are or are not with. If I'm hunting an old bird or a bird that has been pressured a lot, I will give it more time. If I am hunting a bird that is henned up and they aren't budging and the hens are taking them away, I may move quicker. Each situation is different in the turkey woods and sometimes there is no right or wrong answer. Something may work one time and not ever work again. It's all about weighing each situation and decide what is your best chance on the given day.
I think my lack of patience and attention span of a squirrel kills me more birds than sitting around being "patient". Often times when I am patient it is out of desperation.
Had a friend hunting with me opening morning. Massive storms had come through on Friday evening. Not too windy in the morning, but warm, humid and overcast. No gobbling birds. At all. We walked 2+ miles and did not strike any birds. I had some places pre-scouted and there was one ridge that extended out like a finger between two large drains - both open and pretty. It just looked like turkey woods. We sat up there and called some soft, some aggressive and some in between and I said we would give it a little while. I had just said to him, I know birds have heard us call this morning, but no one wants to play, let's give it a few more minutes. 5 minutes after that I heard him say "There he is". I thought he was joking at first until I heard his breathing and the "snick" of the safety. BOOM and I spin and see a tom flopping. His first Florida bird! The bird came straight up out of the bottom-straight to us on a string. He was a 2 year old-had some torn tail feathers and some places on his side where the feathers had been knocked off. I think he was sneaking in to breed the hens without gobbling because he had been getting his butt whooped. Will go back this weekend to see if we can strike the one whooping him! I think that was a patience bird. Maybe if we had kept going we would have struck one, but no complaints from me.
Knowing the Turkeys and knowing the ground, with confidence in a good setup, I have the patience of a rock ;)
Love this question, especially because of the contradiction it puts me in. Those clear as a bell days, when the barometer reads over 30, seem like such a "waste" and nothing feels like it's clicking. Pure silence. But pick a spot where you can relax and settle in, enjoy your time alone outside, and it's a rewarding hunt. (Of course u gotta know the area is one they love to travel) Even more fun when a bird wakes you from a nap.
Anything between dawn and noon: I like to move around, with one big exception. After learning one particular Dom Tom, I eased in at 8 and set up camp 100yd from his strut zone. I knew this bird never wasted his time following hens around, and he never left "his" 10 acre area for long.
Never engaged in a conversation with him at all. Just tried to sound like 2 indifferent hens minding their daily business. I pulled the trigger at 1:30PM. 25 lb, 1.5", Dirty Bird. Hardwork, Was it worth it? You bet ur sweetass
Quote from: ClayR089 on March 18, 2022, 09:06:32 AM
Everyone says patience is #1 key to success to harvesting a bird. What is the dividing line between patience and wasting time?
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While sitting at public land gates over the years, waiting on the "impatient" to come out, I always get a chuckle when they tell me I am wasting my time going in behind them. Experience has taught me patience. Because of this, I am that last person you want to see waiting "patiently" for you to come out ;)
I think the effectiveness of being patient is a matter of perspective. An experienced hunter set up on a small flock of turkeys patiently waiting for the hens to disperse or for a satellite tom to make his presence know cannot not be compared to a beginner pulling up a tree and sitting for extended periods trying to blindly call up gobblers. The experienced hunter uses patience as a tool. He recognizes the situation and acts accordingly. The newb uses patience because that's what he heard kills turkeys. There's no situational awareness involved. Pick a tree and hope for the best is not patience IMO. One has a far greater chance at success than the other.
Quote from: Paulmyr on March 26, 2022, 12:50:27 PM
I think the effectiveness of being patient is a matter of perspective. An experienced hunter set up on a small flock of turkeys patiently waiting for the hens to disperse or for a satellite tom to make his presence known cannot not be compared to a beginner pulling up a tree and sitting for extended periods trying to blindly call up gobblers. The experienced hunter uses patience as a tool. He recognizes the situation and acts accordingly. The newb uses patience because that's what he heard kills turkeys. There's no situational awareness involved. Pick a tree and hope for the best is not patience IMO. One has a far greater chance at success than the other.
Exactly. For new hunters, this is probably the biggest misconception that is drilled into their heads when talking about having patience. Patience without having the knowledge about to when to apply it has probably cost as many hunters a chance at a gobbler as has not being patient when the circumstances called for it. :icon_thumright:
As long as you're in and among the birds, in good habitat, you can be patient or more aggressive and you'll kill turkeys. Both methods regularly work.
Patience is very much needed in turkey hunting but if I have the real estate to roam and nothing is going on I'm like a poster child for ADD!!! I can write a book about not having enough patience, like moving on a turkey thinking I'll getting in front of it and have to sit there and listen to it gobble it's head off at the location I was last sitting at.
Patience is when you know or at least believe your in the zone and you want to make something happen but the next move is in the birds hand. Waisting time is hunting where there's no birds. I might add, going in blind is somewhere in between and that's the tricky one for me.
I can recall about as many times moving on a bird only to have him gobble from original location just about as often as I've had one cruise by or head the other way with hens.
It's always going to be situational. If you have the whole season to hunt them, if you're hunting heavily pressured areas, if your days afield are limited; all things that will dictate how patient I am with a bird.
When I'm familiar with an area and how the birds use the terrain I'm more likely to stick around. In general I'm likely more conservative when it comes to moving on birds and have missed opportunities because of it. Most of the time I'd rather he beats me by leaving than by busting me though.
Some good points on this topic inspiring me to try and be more mobile this spring when the situation calls for it.
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