anyone ever try throwing rocks or some other trick to get rid of hens coming in to steal your tom?
had a bird come in hot from way off. it crossed a big steep valley and a road to come up onto the ridge i was on. unfortunately he wouldn't leave the knob he came up on and i waited too long to make a move, forgetting that breeding appears to just be getting underway around here. had i moved right away i would've beat the real hens coming in
so he gobbles back and forth walking the knob, which is part open mature oak and part buckthorn surrounded natural prairie field. after listening to him get within about 150 yards for 40 minutes i make a move and get onto the next knob and he suddenly gobbles at 80 and is closing in. perfect scenario, until i hear a hen to my right. how i didn't spook her making my move, i don't know. when they want a tom, maybe they don't care. she came to within 10 yards and as i'm getting her all worked up i can see the tom strutting. he's at about 40 but it's way to thick of brush to shoot. she eventually goes to him and draws him off after a few minutes.
as they leave another hen shows up to my left and comes within 5 yards. i'm trying to piss her off and i get her to cackle. at this point i start gobbling trying to get the tom to come back. no luck
if there was a way to initially spook off the first hen without spooking the tom i would have done it. i feel like if i spooked her so much she flew off that the tom would know.
any strategies to get a hen to move away without alerting the tom to the danger he's in?
or is shrugging my shoulders and figuring..."that's turkey hunting", the best strategy?
:turkey2: :bike2:
Part of the game IMO. I don't want to educate the birds. If you bump the hen. She putts. And there goes the longbeard. Try again tomorrow Go in after him and kill him.
Quote from: Last Frontier Hunter on May 02, 2022, 11:48:15 PM
Part of the game IMO. I don't want to educate the birds. If you bump the hen. She putts. And there goes the longbeard. Try again tomorrow Go in after him and kill him.
kind of what i figured and how i've always approached it. never tried intentionally alerting a hen.
i know people here have shared some strategies for getting rid of deer that could possibly screw up a hunt
I'd just wind bump deer if I can. But yeah deer like messing it up
I have run the hens off on a number of times with the gobbler then coming right in. The circumstances have to be just right to pull it off.
...or that pesky punctuation.
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There's been times when I've wanted to...but no, I've never tried to run one off. I just let it play out
Never ran any off myself. I look at it as part of the game we play.
I have had 2 times where I know for a fact the hens went to the tom because they came right past me. many other times I heard them and him heading to each other and then he shuts up. I had a situation of some coming from behind me that I may have been able to pull off, but the gobbler was so close it was not likely to have helped.
I would do it if everything was just right in a heartbeat.