When I was a kid turkey hunting was like a secret cult. No one would give you the slightest inkling as to anything that could help. No one would show you how to call, I remember getting a Quaker boy (I think) diaphragm and reading the instructions. Imagine trying to learn like that? Learning the sequence from real birds. No one would mention what calls to use, talk about guns, loads, roosting, locating, etc. about the only ones even remotely giving us info was companies trying to market their wares.
Fast fwd to today. Some expect everything given to them, info flies around so easily. Guess im getting old as i get up everyday 1:30- the latest 3:30. I don't wanna wake my girl so usually go downstairs and watch you tube. Often turkey hunting is suggested. Seems every show is trying to help someone. I for the life of me can't remember a shift of when this started. My theory is around the time the web was becoming popular? I remember the first time I ever heard of it (world wide web and "surfing" it) there was some commercial promoting it with nuns. A better time that was. Anyhow Idk I cant really say for sure.
There's good and bad in this info sharing. Let's focus just on the positives but does anyone else remember a shift? Like it came out of nowhere.
And I know I've said this before but it bears repeating. There's lots of knowledge on this forum. Many of these guys had nothing handed to them and freely give out info they found hard so hard obtain. Pretty selfless fellas.
I think "the shift" started with the first Primos "The Truth" video......around 1988. Turkey call advertisements on VHS.....that you BOUGHT. Realtree and Mossy Oak were a year or two old and trying to gain traction as THE commercial camo giant. So sponsorships were born. Five years later, the "world wide web" became available to the general public and the rest......as they say......is history.
Great thread Mike. I started in the early 80's after my wife's dad got me into hunting. After seeing Turkey in the PA woods while hunting grouse (they have all but vanished), I started reading about them. You are right in the fact that Turkey hunting seemed to be a well kept secret for some reason. When I mentioned Turkey hunting to my father-in-law he told me I was crazy, you'll never get one of those things. I started my quest anyway, bought a Knight & Hale cassette and learned the mouth call. The sporting good stores really did not have much of a turkey hunting section, if any at all, unlike today. As Don said above the early pioneer videos, Primos, Realtree, and I'll add Knight & Hale seemed to get things rolling by showing us that you can harvest a turkey and it really is fun and challenging. PA was ahead of NJ due to the fact that Jerseys season did not commence till 1981. I used to buy mouth calls, box calls etc in a little General store in PA. Over the next several years, the sport started to blossom. Turkey hunting shows, custom call making, turkey specific firearms and gear and the availability of birds all led to where we are today. I think turkey hunting just wasn't popular early on due to a lack of exposure in the hunting market. Fast forward to today, the turkey world has exploded becoming big business all the way around. The only unfortunate thing for all of us might just be that the resource we are hunting might not be getting the attention it needs, hopefully the future holds a a brighter outlook for this, only time will tell.....
Quote from: Tom007 on January 28, 2024, 07:49:43 AM
I think turkey hunting just wasn't popular early on due to a lack of exposure in the hunting market.
That..........and a whole lotta places didn't even HAVE turkeys 45-50 years ago. That includes where I'm sitting right now.
Quote from: Yoder409 on January 28, 2024, 07:59:53 AM
Quote from: Tom007 on January 28, 2024, 07:49:43 AM
I think turkey hunting just wasn't popular early on due to a lack of exposure in the hunting market.
That..........and a whole lotta places didn't even HAVE turkeys 45-50 years ago. That includes where I'm sitting right now.
Amen to that my friend....
I think the shift Bowguy is referring to is a more recent phenomenon. It occurred to me something weird was going on when my twin sons invited their friends over a few year back and they all sat in the living room in complete silence looking at their phones. :z-dizzy:
For me, the major shift occurred when cellphone internet connectivity came into its own. In other words, when averaging ordinary people got a "Smart" phone.
I think there is a shift. The hunting vids make it look easy and the "Urban Hunters" with their $1000.00 camouflage suits are finding out they just can't go out in the woods and sit for 20 or 30 minutes and kill a turkey or a deer. Most don't want to put in the time nor have the patience and are looking for quick results. After a year or two of coming home empty handed they give up and move on to other things.
When I started there wasn't a lot of information to be had and the old timers didn't share much of anything. I bought mouth calls made by Ben Lee and the frame were made of lead! Hell back then we didn't know any better, we used what we had. My first slate call was from a old slate shingle from a barn roof that was sanded and made to fit into a old coffee lid. There wasn't Dick's, Cabela's, Walmart or Amazon you could call or get on the internet and order something you got what they had at the general store or made something yourself. A 35 MM film case and cap cover with a condom made a decent turkey call.
Thanks for the replies guys. I wasn't really looking for a concrete answer as it was only a discussion/curiosity piece but all well thought out considerations .
Still in my mind what's best about turkey as turkeybutt aluded to is you can't buy one per se. It's still one sport if done legally and ethically you need to understand to be consistently successful. Thanks to all the men here willing to pass on knowledge to the next generations.
I still remember fondly opening up a first call expecting magic. Seeing a first bird display and really remember the bird in the Catskills came tip toeing down a slope, towards me in full display on the way to meeting a 10 ga bark. Hope all the first timers get to experience success this season. It's getting close.
Yep,...pretty much agree with everything said. There are a bunch of factors that have contributed to where we are today. Fundamentally, though, it all comes down to the old saying..."Try it, you'll like it!" Turkey hunting sells itself...once someone tries it and has the experience of having a gobbler come marching through the woods to their calling. If that bird comes in gobbling and strutting, that will seal the deal for that hunter. Unfortunately, that also means that he is going to tell everybody he knows how much fun it is. That has been hastened along by all of the exposure in the form of products, marketing, and media coverage in all its forms.
I (and some of my associates) am/are as much to blame for the state of wild turkey hunting here as anybody. Back in the mid-60's when our spring season first opened, it took us ten years to begin to figure it out, but once we did, we unwittingly decided that we needed to tell the local hunting "world" about it. Beginning about 1980, we would put on turkey hunting seminars at various venues in the spring on an annual basis. We introduced hundreds of new turkey hunters to spring gobbler hunting over the next forty years. We are now reaping the "rewards" of doing that...seeing our turkey woods becoming increasingly crowded with each passing year. Would that have happened anyway with all the current exposure to the sport? I don't know for sure, but I do know that we certainly did not help the situation any in our blabbing to the world how much fun turkey hunting is. ...And we are quite honestly beginning to regret it now. We stopped doing the seminars when Covid hit. We have the opportunity to start them up again...but we have decided that there are enough turkey hunters out there that maybe we better not. :-\
Looking back to those 60's when I first "attempted" to spring gobbler hunt, to put it bluntly, there was nothing...almost no information to be had about turkey hunting. Other than a few written articles occurring in the spring in national outdoor magazines by a just a couple of outdoor writers from the southeast, turkey hunting was just a blip on the radar. If you could find a turkey call in a local store, it was by today's standards a rudimentary instrument that, with enough practice, a guy could make enough turkey-like noises to get by. There were no decoys, no "turkey vests", no robo-gobblers, or anything of the sort. We all learned through trial and (mostly) error...without any of today's modern turkey hunting conveniences.
Ahhh,...if only we could go back to those days!... ::)
We forgive you Gobblenut :begging:
When I grew up, my dad was a duck and deer hunter so I did the same things. I was able to learn from him and his mistakes. I was able to pass that knowledge on to my kids.
When I started turkey hunting 5 years ago. I had no clue where to begin. Fortunately, I had a few friends that helped. I read voraciously and watched videos. Then, I joined the forum. I have benefited tremendously from the shared knowledge and cannot thank everyone enough for sharing. My learning curve has been easier as a result.
I will say, however, that the best teacher has been the woods and the turkeys. You can read and watch all you want but there is no better teacher than doing and making your own mistakes. Fortunately, I have had my share of success but I am continually humbled by this great bird and I hope that feeling never changes.
Thank you again to all those that have selflessly shared their knowledge.
Not a lot here I can really add to other than I think today's hunters are way to dependent on spending money on gear and paying someone else to do it for them, other than woodsmanship and putting boots on the ground. Sure I like modern convenience but I also like hard earned rewards.
Another thing was fur harvest and low predator population made for a population explosion of wild turkeys in the 70-90s that yeiled a new hunting opportunity.
I started in the 60's as a kid hunting with my parents Yes, both Mom and Dad turkey hunted. We had a 100,000 acre WMA in South Central Florida that had a really good population of turkeys. On a busy weekend you may have ten hunters checked in including the three of us, lot of times it was us and maybe two or three other people. Information was nonexistent. Nobody ever heard or saw any turkeys, but about every vehicle you saw (which was very few) had turkey feathers in the back, and the back of the hunters pants leg was blood stained. That what my Dad always taught me, don't ask anyone if they killed anything, just look at the back of their pants. Pants don't lie.
I don't remember any specific time of the popularity increase, but I remember it was late 70's to early 80's when I noticed more and more deer hunters who started hunting turkeys. Big difference between the original turkey hunters I remember and the new deer/turkey hunters. The new d/t crowd seemed to like to hear themselves talk. I killed this, I heard that, I saw this etc. When did the N"WTF" start up?
Money foremost, immediate flow of information and communication and more people competing for the same or less resources - thats my view on whats happened the past 30 years
Quote from: guesswho on January 28, 2024, 03:14:14 PM
When did the N"WTF" start up?
I love this! :TooFunny:
I'm with Yoder, I think the ealy Outdoor Channel shows kind of started it. They had to fill the slots and spring turkey hunting isn't too hard to film. Combined with the population increases and restoration efforts paying off,seemed to be real kick off for turkey hunting.
I was 40 or so when my "deer" lease opened up turkey hunting after deciding the population was adequate for hunting. Thankfully not too many of our members turkey hunt. When I first started, I used an instructional VHS tape and book to help me learn. I didn't know anyone who turkey hunted back then.
"WE" only have our self to blame. I know that I was part of the "problem". In the early to mid 1980s I started buying every single video that I could find, bought every magazine that concerned any and all things turkey hunting. WE all funded it. WE exposed our passion to the world to see. That was the beginning and look where we are now. SIMPLE AS THE CLICK OF A BUTTON, EXPOSED EVERYTHING. The power of a dollar.
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Sure, Knight Hale, Primos, Outdoor TV shows and others played a part along with the evolution of call builders making and producing custom calls. All of this played a part along with cell phones and social media ... Custom calls and Outdoor Sports Shows along with other companies attached themselves to this evolution of turkey hunting / hunting with better guns, shells and other needs for the Turkey Hunters / Hunters... The days of old have gone by the way of changes in hunting some of these changes I embrace and some I don't .... I learned to turkey hunt from an older gentleman who took me under his wing and took me to my first NWTF chapter meeting and calling contest after that I was hooked on turkey hunting and pretty much worked at it to make myself a better hunter overall... I think of my friend who passed away many years ago in how he loved to hunt and chase all kinds of wildlife along with fishing. RIP Gerald .... I don't blame anyone, if I need to blame someone I will blame myself...
I got started in turkey hunting when a buddy and I were scouting for treestand sets and we happened upon a fall flock of birds, as we were scouting my buddy and noticed some odd scrapes that didn't make sense, low and behold we bump a flock of turkey scratching for the acorns on the ridge. He was what the heck was that, now we raised domestic broad breasted bronze turkeys back home on the farm and that was my best guess, when we were heading out, we stopped and talked to the landowner, and she said a couple of years ago the DNR stocked birds in the area and they have been showing up.
We decided to give it a go the next spring, (1991) from that fall I was digesting anything and everything I could find out about turkey hunting and as you said there wasn't even that much around at that time, and there wasn't a person I knew that had ever turkey hunted, my whole knowledge base was our farm birds. We did find a few seminars to go to and I bought the old Primos "The Truth About Turkey Hunting" and it came with a mouth call, there was a Wisconsin DNR Seminar we went to, and then the one that was the biggest turn for me was a seminar at an Ace Hardware Store the put it on with some actual turkey hunters, buddy and spent the entire day there talking to everybody we could. From there more and more information started to flow, more VHS and the DVD realm, finally to internet and YouTube. I still like that we did it ourselves, and pretty much self-taught, but in reality, the best teachers I had were those farm birds, they did everything a wild bird did other than the didn't run from me and I could follow them around through their daily habits, pretty key to how I learned the biology of what turkeys do.
Anymore I share almost everything I have learned, got hold something back to give you that edge when others wonder what your secrets are :) I have been a Turkey Hunting Mentor for over 20year, and to some degree 30+ years. I started a Seminar Series in1995 called "Turkey University" where I talk about what I have learned over the span of my hunting experiences.
This will be my 33rd spring!!
MK M GOBL
I'll bet the same could be said for deer and duck hunting. Flocked decoys and the many duck and goose calls on the market. Look at the archery industry alone. Now you're getting much better accuracy out of production rifles. Hunting all together has changed in my opinion.
I dunno, and quite honestly, I don't really question it. I was born fascinated with turkeys. No-one in my family was a turkey hunter, but at 10 years old, I was determined to be one. I still hunt how I did 20 years ago. I have better equipment, but the rules haven't changed,and the game hasn't changed for me. There was no YouTube when I started. Just books and the occasional hunting show on TNN if I got lucky enough to watch. I pretty much worked on it on my own. I kinda wish everyone had to work at it as hard as we did back then.
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Good post! as many have become slaves to the internet in all aspects.
Quote from: Will on January 28, 2024, 07:10:40 PM
Hunting all together has changed in my opinion.
Quote from: Turkeybutt on January 28, 2024, 08:54:49 AM
There wasn't Dick's, Cabela's, Walmart or Amazon you could call or get on the internet and order something you got what they had at the general store or made something yourself. A 35 MM film case and cap cover with a condom made a decent turkey call.
Quote from: Happy on January 28, 2024, 07:45:54 PM
I kinda wish everyone had to work at it as hard as we did back then.
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I could remember when a hunting catalog came in the mail. It was 12 pages long of the latest and greatest gear and we were excited for the upcoming season. I hope that excitement never leaves us.
I started in the 80's. The person who introduced me to it was a turkey hunter. (May God be good to him). He was tight lipped and always said to me, sit still, don't move. That's all I really got from him. I pretty much learned on my own. The VHS's and cassette tapes taught me a lot with calling. (The start of the shift) I kept it pretty simple. My first call was a Lynch one sided 101, I purchased it in an old hardware store in Pa., and I did have a 35 mm tube call. We were also tickled pink if ya had a dozen hits at 30 yards on yer pie plate with them Ol' #4's.
I guess I started right around when the "shift" occurred. Almost everything I learned was because of the times that were a changing. And of course....My many self taught mistakes :toothy12:
Always a great place here at OG. I picked up a lot of nuggets on this page.
I started in the 80s too. The competition used to be me against turkeys, now it seems to be me against other hunters trying for the same birds. Anybody who has a computer or phone these days can learn more in a few hours of videos what it took me years of reading and trial & error (read mistakes) to figure out in the woods. I read everything I could get my eyes on. But, reading and translating words to sounds or behaviors doesn't translate well to a visual learner like me. Getting busted and learning what I couldn't get away with honed my abilities. The volume of sharing probably goes along with the instant gratification generation not wanting to spend the time to develop the skillset for results. Unfortunately, there's no going back, just like there's less land to hunt and a bigger competition for the resource.
Jim
Jim